Feasibility Study for a MEDEVAC Electric UAS Capability

Pickell, William; Kopeikin, Andrew; Bristow, Elizabeth; Bluman, James E.

Feasibility Study for a MEDEVAC Electric UAS Capability

Date

2019

Authors

Publisher

IEEE

Abstract

This study examines the feasibility of integrating medical subsystems into an existing Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) platform to facilitate medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) from combat environments. The implementation of a MEDEVAC-capable UAS is found to be a feasible and logical expansion of current MEDEVAC assets. A comprehensive review of current fully- or semi-autonomous electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) UAS technologies is conducted to select a candidate aircraft. A conceptual design of the MEDEVAC UAS, configured with equipment needed to sustain a casualty during evacuation is created. The smaller form factor of the system opens the opportunity to pre-deploy MEDEVAC assets to forward combat posts, improve response times, and offer evacuation options when manned assets are denied. The predicted range performance of the system supports such a concept of operation.

Keywords

Payloads, Aircraft propulsion, Helicopters, Personnel, Biomedical monitoring

Citation

W. Pickell, A. Kopeikin, E. Bristow and J. Bluman, "Feasibility Study for a MEDEVAC Electric UAS Capability," 2019 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), Atlanta, GA, USA, 2019, pp. 630-635, doi: 10.1109/ICUAS.2019.8797946.