Abstract

UAV’s are aerial vehicles that operates without a person on board and uses aerodynamic principles to provide the lift needed to fly, can be one time use or be used multiple times, can be fully autonomous or controlled by a human. A UAV can be used in several fields, from military use to civilian use, UAV’s can be used for almost every situation either that is rescue, aerial surveillance, even photography. A UAV is controlled usually by radio frequencies and could send live video feed to the user. To enhance the medical field, we have made a concept of an UAV that can send vaccines or other medical items to be transported with a contactless approach. This concept UAV enables safe delivery of medical supplies especially in situations where human contact with the supplies is not preferred. We hope the concept UAV will provide an alternative method to send medical supplies between hospitals or between medical item providers to hospitals.

Introduction

In this research, the potential of UAVs to be used in the medical field or transport field would be explored. Currently there are multiple companies that have established UAVs that already transport medical supplies such as Zipline. This shows that the use of drones in the medical sector would be beneficial as places where road access is limited can now get access to supplies from the air.

With the benefit that UAVs can deliver things contactless through a PDM (payload dropping mechanism) system, they also posses the ability to transport goods without human interaction. This is especially helpful during pandemics as diseases might be spread through touch. This is also helpful in situations where traffic could be a major problem.

Conclusion

• The next prototype has to be reinforced as foam proves to be too brittle as a result of it breaking during crashes. A solution to this could be layering the finished product with fiber glass or use laminating film.

• Flying wings are more maneuverable

• Having a smaller wingspan would lead to a more maneuverable aircraft

• Longer wings should be reinforced with carbon fiber rods to prevent bending

• Not having enough power would lead to unwanted situations such as a stall

• Flying wings have less drag but when it comes to yaw control, it is not the best unless thrust vectoring is used

• The future product would be a flying wing due to its lighter nature and less drag

Future Outlook

In future experimentation, a more comprehensive look on other types of airfoils would be investigated. The airfoils used in this experiment were to save time and ease of production. To find better solutions, other materials such as fiberglass or carbon fiber should be taken into consideration to cut the weight and add strength to the product. New building techniques should also be examined. Other than that, a flight controller will be installed to set a course for the UAV to test its abilities and get data. The payload dropping mechanism would also be installed and tested on the future prototype with the cold temperature cabin.