back to notes

Drones to the front line in race to save lives

Buffeted by the wind, a wooden vessel carrying 297 mostly Eritrean migrants, many of them young women, begins taking in water near an oilfield off the coast of Libya. Hundreds of migrants from Africa and the Middle East have died trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean in makeshift and overloaded boats, but these people are fortunate: they are spotted by a drone operated by a charity and then rescued.

The Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a group set up by insurance entrepreneurs Christopher and Regina Catrambone, specialises in helping migrants at sea after several catastrophes in the Mediterranean. MOAS uses drones resembling helicopters to spot boats in distress and then either rescues migrants using its ship, called the Phoenix, or alerts the relevant authorities.

"I believe drones were central to five of the last 10 operations that we did," said Martin Xuereb, director of MOAS, speaking earlier this month from the deck of the Phoenix, where the Eritrean migrants were now safely aboard. "[With the drones] you are able to 'see' the boat before you are able to with your own eyes, which makes a big difference."

MOAS's activity highlights how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are playing an increasing role in humanitarian and medical work. This is in sharp contrast with the controversy that has accompanied their use in bombing missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The UAV market is heavily skewed towards military uses, but the value of UAVs focused on civilian tasks is expected to grow significantly.

Almost $91bn will be spent on drones over the next decade and by the end of the 10-year period about 14 per cent of this expenditure will be focused on UAVs put to civilian uses, a 2014 report by Teal Group, the aerospace consultancy.

Companies including Amazon, Facebook and Google are experimenting with drones.

Jeff Bezos , Amazon's founder, said in 2013 that the online retailer wanted to start delivering packages to customers within five years using UAVs, although this was dependent on permission from the Federal Aviation Administration, the US aviation watchdog.

Regulators have been slow to define the circumstances in which drones can fly in commercial air space because of fears of crashes with passenger jets, particularly in densely populated towns and cities.

But companies, non-government organisations and researchers say that drones can be used right now to save lives, for example by delivering essential medical supplies in remote areas, creating maps after a natural disaster and assisting in search and rescue.

MOAS uses two drones manufactured by Schiebel, an Austrian company that has been liaising with the Libyan authorities during its deployment in the Mediterranean.

Because of the Schiebel drones' high specification (they carry a camera and infrared equipment to identify vessels at night) the UAVs are expensive to lease and operate: about EUR300,000 a month.

"That's not an insignificant sum, but if you put that in contrast to the value of human life, the monetary value for me is insignificant," said Mr Xuereb.

Another example of UAVs being put to humanitarian uses is a drone capable of mapping made by Sensefly, a Swiss company.

Its drones have been deployed in the aftermath of several natural disasters, including Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013. Sensefly's eBee drone, which costs $20,000, creates highresolution maps that are invaluable when areas are suddenly disturbed by an earthquake, flood or storm and can help in the planning of shelters. Without drones, rescuers sometimes have to wait days for satellite imagery.

"We've really focused quite a bit on this [humanitarian] domain, not because it's a big market, but because it makes sense," says Jean-Christophe Zufferey, a Sensefly co-founder.

"Drones can be deployed quickly and they cost less than full-scale helicopters as you don't have to pay the pilot. You get a clear idea of what is happening shortly after a disaster."

People in war zones or disaster areas are often fearful of drones owing to their use by the military, so it helps that Sensefly's drones are small, they weigh just 700 grammes, and look like toys. "People . . . can touch them and see they are not dangerous," says Mr Zufferey.

Andreas Raptopoulos, co-founder and chief executive of Matternet, a Silicon Valley start-up, says that drones could solve a perennial problem in developing countries - how to transport vital medicines, vaccines, blood or medical-diagnosis tools when roads either do not exist or are impassable for much of the year.

"In the early days of a technology it's important to focus on applications where the risk is far outweighed by the rewards," he adds. "In the humanitarian sector the case [for drones] is extremely clear."

Matternet has partnered with Medecins Sans Frontieres, the nongovernmental organisation, to trial the delivery by drones of tuberculosis diagnostics in Papua New Guinea. It has a separate initiative with the World Health Organisation to supply medical supplies in mountainous Bhutan .

There are good reasons to think that medical delivery drones might take off in the developed world too.

To warrant delivery by drone, a cargo needs to be "lightweight, high value and time sensitive", says Mr Raptopoulos, noting that blood and medical diagnostics fit that description.

Regulators are also likely to look more sympathetically at the argument about opening air space to medical drones that could save lives, he adds.

Alec Momont, a graduate student at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, has developed a drone that can autonomously fly a defibrillator to the scene of a heart attack.

It navigates using the GPS coordinates of the caller's mobile phone and completes the journey much faster than an ambulance. The UAV streams video from the scene so the emergency services can provide instructions to a bystander on how to help.

Dennis Gobel, managing director of Agaplesion Frankfurter Diakonie Kliniken, a chain of three Frankfurt hospitals, wants to use drones to transport blood supplies.

"We have the problem that blood needs to be transported quickly in an emergency, but in the rush hour the emergency vehicle cannot get through traffic quickly," he says.

When the hospitals' plan was unveiled in October, some local residents were alarmed due to fears that blood would rain down from the skies if something went wrong, but mostly the reaction has been positive, says Mr Gobel.

The hospitals are using a drone made by MikroKopter, a Germany company, that weighs less than 5kg, including payload, and can fly at speeds of up to 70km/h for about 20 minutes.

So far the drones, which cost about EUR10,000 each, have been tested only on private land because the hospitals do not yet have an operating license.

Mr Gobel says that in the long term, drones could be particularly effective serving clinics in rural areas that have limited staffing levels at weekends or at night. "We're not talking about an Amazon-type business - we want to save lives, not send books," he adds.

Drug courier

DHL entrusts medicine deliveries to 'parcelcopter'

DHL, the delivery company owned by Deutsche Post, last year completed a pilot project flying medicines to the North Sea island of Juist using a "parcelcopter" built by Microdrones, a Germany company.

Between September and December, the DHL drone completed 40 flights to and from the island - about 12km each way - at times when no ferry or flight connections were available and in a variety of weather conditions, including gusty winds and snow.

The drone received special permission from German air traffic authorities and used a restricted flight area. Ole Nordhoff, a senior vice-president at DHL's parcel business, says that the drone offers a "potentially lifesaving option for emergency assistance" and that it could help "close structural gaps in thinly populated or remote areas".

Credit: By Chris Bryant in Frankfurt