BENGALURU: Keeping hopes alive of Bengaluru giving India its first Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for organ transportation, scientists and engineers successfully test-flew a prototype last week. The National Design and Research Forum (NDRF), which includes top scientist and one of the brains behind the project K Ramachandra, saw the '+copter' built by its partner Throttle Aerospace Systems (TAS) fly to the designated area. Although the vehicle didn't carry an organ, the technology of picking a predefined geo-tagged location and landing the vehicle there was tested. The vehicle carried a 3kg first-aid kit on the 17-minute flight. TAS founder Nagendran Kandasamy said: "We carried the payload for about 10km in the custom-built vehicle." A multi-rotor UAV guided by a tablet-based Android ground control software had no problem in picking the right latitude and longitude for the journey and the delivery point. "We gave a live feed of the whole operation," Nagendran said, adding that their platform is flexible enough to carry first-aid kits, blood bags and organ bags. However, as Kota Harinarayan, a senior aerospace scientist behind the project, had said earlier, several details in terms of safety features, among other priorities, are being discussed with doctors in India and abroad. Both Kota and Ramachandra were present during the test-flight last week. The eventual aim is to have a vehicle which can carry 250gms over 100 kms accurately. Nagendran said that the +copter can now travel 10kms and work is on to extend the range to 40km in the first phase. Once operationalised, it'll enable hospitals cut down transportation time by more than 50%. While a kidney can be stored for 24 hours, a liver can only be kept for 12-15 hours, and a heart for less than 10 hours. Currently, organs are largely transported via road along a green corridor. On Wednesday, a green corridor had to be created in Bengaluru to transport a heart for transplantation.
Scientists at The National Design and Work Forum and Throttle Aerospace Systems (TAS) have devised a drone that completed its first drones trail for organ transportation in Bengaluru, India. The vehicle did not carry an organ, but a 3kg first-aid kit on a 17 minute flight, and location was determined through predefined geo technology. This is the second time this year that scientists from TAS, along with their colleagues at NASA, have demonstrated autonomous flight using drones.