Medical Drone Research Articles

Impact of Using Drones in Emergency Medicine: What Does the Future Hold?

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles or “drones” has expanded in the last decade, as their technology has become more sophisticated, and costs have decreased. They are now used routinely in farming, environmental surveillance, public safety, commercial product delivery, recreation, and other applications. Health-related applications are only recently becoming more widely explored and accepted. The use of drone technology in emergency medicine is especially promising given the need for a rapid response to enhance patient outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the main current and expanding applications of drone technology in emergency medicine and to describe challenges and future opportunities. Current applications being studied include delivery of defibrillators in response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, blood and blood products in response to trauma, and rescue medications. Drones are also being studied and actively used in emergency response to search and rescue operations as well as disaster and mass casualty events. Current challenges to expanding their use in emergency medicine and emergency medical system (EMS) include regulation, safety, flying conditions, concerns about privacy, consent, and confidentiality, and details surrounding the development, operation, and maintenance of a medical drone network. Future research is needed to better understand end user perceptions and acceptance. Continued technical advances are needed to increase payload capacities, increase flying distances, and integrate drone networks into existing 9-1-1 and EMS systems. Drones are a promising technology for improving patient survival, outcomes, and quality of life, particularly for those in areas that are remote or that lack funds or infrastructure. Their cost savings compared with ground transportation alone, speed, and convenience make them particularly applicable in the field of emergency medicine. Research to date suggests that use of drones in emergency medicine is feasible, will be accepted by the public, is cost-effective, and has broad application.

Development of Medical Drone for Blood Product Delivery: A Technical Assessment

Drone is the well-known technology in military and amateur application. Recently, the drone was used to deliver goods and parcels. There is an increasing need for urgent delivery of medical supplies in low resource setting due to traffic congestion and terrain obstacles. The delivery of blood in emergency cases such as postpartum hemorrhaging is challenging and can be delayed due to geographical condition in underserved area. Postpartum hemorrhaging needs an immediate blood transfusion with proper blood product to save the life of mother and baby. To address to this need, a drone that can deliver blood supply to the desired location may be a good option. Therefore, research has been conducted to identify the baseline of drone specifications for blood delivery. A Hexacopter with the ArduPilot firmware and a Lithium-Polymer battery of 16,000 mAh were used to study the applicability of blood products delivery using drone. Using several tests to assess drone limitations, experimental data was obtained and analyzed using distinctive methods. The results indicated that the thrust-to-weight ratio of the drone play a paramount role for the drone performance and flight time. The GPS guidance performance showed a reliable and stable flight with only a slight deviation of ±6 meters during the tests. Finally, a test flight was conducted to simulate the actual test location from Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Hospital Wanita dan Kanak-Kanak, Likas, Sabah. The developed drone reached a flight time of 25 minutes covering 8.38 km with 4.3 kg take-off weight.

Insights Before Flights: How Community Perceptions Can Make or Break Medical Drone Deliveries

Drones are increasingly used to transport health products, but life-saving interventions can be stalled if local community concerns and preferences are not assessed and addressed. In order to inform the introduction of drones in new contexts, this paper analyzed similarities and differences in community perceptions of medical delivery drones in Malawi, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Dominican Republic (DR). Community perceptions were assessed using focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIIs) conducted with stakeholders at the national level, at health facilities and in communities. Data were collected on respondents’ familiarity with drones, perceptions of benefits and risks of drones, advice on drone operations and recommendations on sharing information with the community. The comparative analysis found similar perceptions around the potential benefits of using drones, as well as important differences in the perceived risks of flying drones and culturally appropriate communication mechanisms based on the local context. Because community perceptions are heavily influenced by culture and local experiences, a similar assessment should be conducted before introducing drone activities in new areas and two-way feedback channels should be established once drone operations are established in an area. The extent to which a community understands and supports the use of drones to transport health products will ultimately play a critical role in the success or failure of the drone’s ability to bring life-saving products to those who need them.

Time-to-scene for opioid overdoses: are unmanned aerial drones faster than traditional first responders in an urban environment?

IntroductionOpioid overdoses claim tens of thousands of lives every year. Many of these deaths might be prevented if overdose-reversal medications such as naloxone are administered in a timely manner. Drones...

Design And Implementation Of Gps Based Medical Services Using Drone

This paper is aimed to provide medical assistance to people through the delivery of medical supplies by unmanned drones. The use of unmanned drones’ benefits people in distant areas around the world. The paper gives attentionto the design of a biocompatible payload and a drone to accomplish medical supply delivery. Design of the drone healthcare delivery network isfacilitatingstructured and low-cost delivery of healthcare to save lives. Dronesare capable of sustainable flight, which need not human presence on board, and have enough control for performingnecessary functions. This paper utilizes a range of hardware components and software platforms that were integrated into the overall design of the medical drone. Hardware components includes IMU enabled GPS, ArduCopter 2.6 Flight Controller, Data Transmission and Receiving module, Electronic Speed Control Circuits, DC Motors, Propellers, LiPo battery, Servo Connectors. GPS is used for navigation in betweenground stations that are automated, to deliver necessary medications in locations that lack enough roads. Unmanned aerial vehicle is remotely or automatically controlled. Software platform used is ArduPilot Mission Planner and mobile phone or tabletapps can be used to track and navigate. Network is managed by drone operating system to monitor weather data from every ground stationand it optimizes the drone routes in this proposed approach we are designing a paper which is effective in many applications like transporting blood and small emergency medicines such as first-aid kits. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles can be used in future to provide medical help in field of surveillance and at the time of earthquake, drones help rescuers to locate survivors.The military in combat can use drones, and it can also be used for humanitarian aid.

Drone-Aid: An Aerial Medical Assistance

Paper Setup must be in A4 size with Margin: Top 0.7”, Bottom 0.7”, Left 0.65”, 0.65”, Gutter 0”, and Gutter Position Top. Paper must be in two Columns after Authors Name with Width 8.27”, height 11.69” Spacing 0.2”. Whole paper must be with: Abstract: Time is a crucial factor in medical casualties. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) takes longer time leading to life loss, whether it’s about an accident, out of hospital cardiac arrest (OOHCA) or drug delivery during the disaster. This paper proposes an efficient way to overcome this limitation by providing a medical aid aerially via a Multipurpose Medical Drone. A Quad-copter reaches the fatality spot employing GPS, carrying a payload containing components like AED (automatic external defibrillator), ECG, Temperature and Respiratory sensor to measure critical human body parameters. The measured values will be transmitted to a nearby hospital telemetrically using GSM or Wi-Fi for analyzing a patient’s condition beforehand and for diagnosis. It can also be used to carry blood sample, critical drug depending on the situation. Drone aid can be got using the helpline or an app where location and the particularities describing the situation is entered and the aid is rendered to the required spot. This assistance can save lives preserving the precious seconds and reduces the death toll in casualties.

Construction of Pre-hospital and In-hospital Emergency Medical Service System Based on 5G Communication Technology

Objective To explore a new platform for pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency medical services based on a new generation of 5G communication technology, providing a basis for further improving the level of emergency medical services. Methods This study was conducted at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine from October 2017 to April 2019. Based on the latest requirements of emergency medical services at home and abroad, the cross-enterprise and multi-disciplinary technical forces were organized to build platform. Firstly, to determine the process of pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency medical services, various modules and technical routes were constructed under 5G conditions and individual technologies were tested one by one. Then they were gradually integrated into two platforms of ambulance and hospital emergency. Finally, the simulation test is carried out under the support of the whole 5G network. Results The pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency medical service platform based on 5G technology comprises of 5G ambulance, 5G panoramic VR real-time display system, 5G remote ultrasonic examination system, medical drone system, and 5G emergency command platform. 5G ambulance contains medical equipments such as multi-function monitor, ventilator, defibrillation monitor, portable B-ultrasound, high-definition remote video interactive system based on 5G network, VR immersive real-time panoramic experience system, and GPS positioning system. 5G panoramic VR real-time display system includes VR panoramic camera and VR glasses. The wearer with VR glasses can view the real-time situation on the ambulance, which makes a preliminary judgment on the patient's condition and provides rescue guidance. 5G remote ultrasonic examination system integrates robot technology, real-time remote control technology, and ultrasonic imaging technology. The specialist can control the movement of the ultrasonic probe set on the 5G ambulance by manipulating the mechanical arm. The patient's image and color super-picture can also be simultaneously returned to the specialist. The medical drone system enables the medical resources to be allocated in the shortest possible time through the 5G networked drones, so as to eliminate the delay caused by traffic congestion. 5G emergency command platform can integrate, transmit, and display data from multiple sources and forms through web pages in assistance of AI and internet of things. Conclusions The new platform for pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency medical services based on 5G technology can realize more fluent information exchange in pre-hospital and in-hospital, and realize the functions that are difficult to achieve under the previous network conditions. Key words: 5G communication technology; Emergency medical service system; Pre-hospital and in-hospital communication

Medical Drone Delivery in Developing Countries

Developing countries often have difficulties in the field of medicine, and many of these problems do not relate to missing knowledge but on the transportation possibilities to bring patient, doctor and the necessary medical supplies together. In a research study for the country of Mongolia the advantages of a drone delivery system are shown and the unique challenges such as temperature, elevation and range are discussed to choose a suitable system design for countries with enormous size and low population. Airplane like drones with their wider distances seem to be the most promising solution to connect rural areas to the medical logistics network.

Medical Drone – A Life Saver in Emergency Situations

Many thousands of humans are dying day to day due to the delay of ambulances reaching the accident spot at right time.So this prototype explains clearly about the emergent situation of a drone reaching the accident scenario with various sensors.The usage of this technology gradually decreases the fatal cases.It is used to save time and helps in patient’s survival.The technology works such like different types of sensors are fitted to the health drone.When a phone call is given to a prescribed given number,the operator thereby tracks the location and the navigation of the place is tracked using global positioning system.The medical quadcopter or drone arrives at the critical situation and various modes of parameters from the body are measured.This prototype gives the information of the patient to both the hospital sources and the nurses present in the normal ambulance.This flying medical drone reach the spot before the normal ambulance arrives the scene.It also measures the real time actual situation of the patient and it helps in saving a life of a patient.The information regarding the patients health parameters will be sent to concerned hospital staffs and to the respective staffs coming in the ambulance. This helps the paramedics and the doctors to know about the patient’s condition before arriving the spot.This medical drone acts as a tool kit which flies to various emergency Situation. ambulance and the hospital team so that they will be ready to serve to the needs of the patients.The proposed prototype model is used as a support the persons who need immediate attention.

Optimizing the spatial location of medical drones

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones are increasingly proposed for medical uses due to their potential to transport medical supplies quickly and efficiently. A prototype medical drone that is equipped with an on-board automated external defibrillator (AED) was announced recently to significantly reduce the time it takes for an AED to arrive to a patient's side. As drones are battery-operated and have limited service range, a network of medical drones is required to adequately provide service to a large area. This paper developed a new spatial optimization model, the backup coverage location problem with complementary coverage (BCLP-CC), to aid in the deployment of a network of AED enabled medical drones. By explicitly integrating backup coverage and continuously distributed demand, the BCLP-CC can optimally place drones and the corresponding launch sites while significantly improving backup coverage with minimal loss of primary coverage. Our results show that 90.4% of historical out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Salt Lake County can be responded to within 1 min by using 71 drones and 68 launch sites. In addition, 58.9% of incidents can be served by two or more drones, a significant improvement over existing models. This study shows that drones could significantly reduce life-saving equipment travel times for victims of cardiac arrest by appropriately siting them, which will motivate further research in using UAVs or drones for emergency medical purpose.

MeDrone: On the use of a medical drone to heal a sensor network infected by a malicious epidemic

The complexity increase in the software and hardware necessary to support more and more advanced applications for Wireless Sensor Networks conspicuously contribute to render them susceptible to security attacks. The nodes of most complex WSN applications sport desktop-level operating systems and this reliance on software make them ideal prey for traditional threats, like viruses and general malware. To address these problems, in this paper we devise a system for a dedicated mobile node to locate, track, access and cure the infected elements of a WSN, threatened by a proximity malware infection. In parallel, we provide a mathematical formulation for the aforementioned operations. We perform extended simulations, comparing our proposal against classic solutions in different network scenarios and we use the results of the mathematical formulation as a benchmark. Furthermore, we introduce a variation of our proposal, capable to support the concurrent operation of multiple mobile nodes and implement cooperation.

Effects of frusemide on human airway epithelium

<h3>Introduction</h3> Opioid overdoses claim tens of thousands of lives every year. Many of these deaths might be prevented if overdose-reversal medications such as naloxone are administered in a timely manner. Drones may help overcome barriers to timely arrival on scene for opioid overdoses. This study analyses the time required for a drone carrying naloxone to traverse various distances, simulating the response time for a drone to the scene of an opioid overdose. For comparison, we used the time required for ambulances to traverse similar distances while responding to the scene of actual or suspected opioid overdoses. <h3>Methods</h3> Fifty flight trials, using a modified Dà-Jiāng Innovations (DJI) ‘Inspire 2’ drone, were conducted across seven distances, and the travel time for the drone was then compared with historical response time data from 200 actual or suspected opioid overdose cases that occurred within Detroit, Michigan. <h3>Results</h3> We determined with 95% certainty that drone arrival times were discernibly quicker than ambulance arrival times at all distances where sufficient data were available to perform statistical comparisons including 0.5 km, 1.0 km, 1.5 km, 2.0 km and 3.0 km. <h3>Conclusion</h3> We have shown that a drone is capable of travelling several ranges of straight-line (ie, ‘as the crow flies’) distance faster than an ambulance. Further exploration into the use of drones to deliver life-saving therapies in urban and rural settings is warranted. Head-to-head prospective trials that consider the practical challenges of medical drone delivery are needed to better understand the viability of incorporating this technology into existing emergency response infrastructure.