Autonomous Drone Delivery of Medical Supplies to Care Homes for Covid-19 Rapid Response

自主无人机向疗养院运送医疗用品，以应对 Covid-19 快速反应

• 批准号: 83866
• 金额: $ 47.71万
• 依托单位: UM AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=83866
• 关键词: Autonomous; Drone; Delivery; Medical; Supplies

Covid-19 has severely impacted all walks of human life. Emergency services, governments and law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed in tackling Covid-19 as well as implementing strict measures to reduce the spread of the virus. The healthcare sector has come under immense pressure to save the lives of affected citizens with doctors and nurses having to work double-shifts. Unmanned Life (UML) proposes to assist governments and the healthcare sector as a whole by deploying Autonomous Delivery of Medical Supplies to Care Homes. With Oxfordshire County Council as co-investigator. Together, we will collaborate to conduct industrial research on deploying autonomous UAVs that deliver medical supplies (including acute medicine and some lightweight PPE) from pharmacies, securely and timely to care homes for patients fighting Covid-19\. This is expected to significantly decrease the risk of infection at care homes, which is one of the most impacted sectors from the COVID-19 pandemic.Currently, COVID-19 medical supplies are delivered by dedicated courier services. This process of delivering medical supplies manually is slow and inefficient resulting in the lengthy turnaround time, potential contamination of couriers and patients when collecting the medication as well as lack of operational coverage for rural areas due to a high demand within urban areas. Adding all up, the cost of such operation can be quite high resulting in more limited accessibility for those ones with limited financial resources. By deploying autonomous drone delivery, we ensure a quick turnaround time for medical supplies, reduce the contamination of couriers, increase the number of supplies delivered at a lower cost and thus save more lives. The research will provide a scalable business model to increase the scope of the service (multiple drop-offs, multiple pharmacies, services to hospitals and homes) and bridge the knowledge and skills gap to use drones for delivery of COVID-19 vaccine being trialled at Oxford. UML's Autonomy-as-a-Service software platform has already been deployed by major enterprise customers like Verizon, Swiss Post etc. as well as governments like the City of Vienna for use cases ranging from indoor logistics to autonomous search and rescue.

新型冠状病毒肺炎严重影响了人类生活的各个方面。紧急服务部门、政府和执法机构在应对新冠肺炎以及实施严格措施减少病毒传播方面不堪重负。医疗保健部门面临着巨大的压力，以挽救受影响公民的生命，医生和护士不得不两班倒工作。无人生命（UML）提议通过部署向疗养院自主交付医疗用品来协助政府和整个医疗保健部门。与牛津郡理事会共同调查。我们将共同合作开展工业研究，部署自动无人机，从药房安全、及时地为抗击新冠肺炎的患者提供医疗用品（包括急性药物和一些轻型个人防护设备）。护理院是受COVID-19疫情影响最严重的行业之一，预计此举将大幅降低护理院的感染风险。这种人工运送医疗用品的过程缓慢而效率低下，导致周转时间过长，在收集药品时可能污染运送者和病人，以及由于城市地区的需求量很大而缺乏对农村地区的业务覆盖。总的来说，这种行动的费用可能相当高，导致那些财政资源有限的人获得服务的机会更加有限。通过部署自动无人机交付，我们确保医疗用品的快速周转时间，减少快递员的污染，以更低的成本增加交付的用品数量，从而挽救更多的生命。该研究将提供一个可扩展的商业模式，以扩大服务范围（多个落客点、多个药店、医院和家庭服务），并弥合知识和技能差距，使用无人机运送牛津大学正在试用的COVID-19疫苗。UML的Autonomy-as-a-Service软件平台已经被Verizon、瑞士邮政等主要企业客户以及维也纳等政府部署，用于从室内物流到自主搜索和救援的用例。