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FAA Approves Blood Toting Drones at North Carolina Hospital

posted by martyb on Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the beware-the-circling-vampires dept.

RandomFactor writes:

For the first time ever, the FAA has approved the routine commercial use of drones to carry a product.

The WakeMed program will start by flying patients’ medical samples one-third of a mile (.5 kilometer) from a medical park to the main hospital building for lab testing at least six times a day five days a week, Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos said in an interview. Vials of blood or other specimens will be loaded into a secure box and carried to a drone launching pad, where they will be fastened to the aircraft and flown to another building. He said the flights will technically be within sight of operators on either end of the route, and they are authorized to fly above people.

Samples are typically driven on the ground and the goal of this project is to cut down how long it typically takes to transport time-sensitive samples to their destination for testing.

the North Carolina program could expand to flying miles-long routes between Raleigh-area WakeMed buildings in the coming months, Raptopoulos said. He also said medical specimen flights could start at one or two more hospitals in other cities later in 2019.

Other approvals by the FAA have been for limited tests and demos.

North Carolina is one of nine sites participating in the FAA’s pilot program to accelerate integrating drones for new uses ranging from utility inspections to insurance claims. The test sites get leeway trying new innovations while working closely with the federal officials in charge of regulating the drones.

Can we get a black-helicopter drone that doesn't make any noise?

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:32AM (3 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:32AM (#820510) Journal

    So the neighborhood is going to be stuck with these buzzing annoyances disturbing the peace at all hours

    It it not impossible to find solutions for the buzzing.
    E.g. [newscientist.com] [note the date: 2015]

    The GL-10 is the latest in a series of prototypes from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It is made from carbon fibre and has a wingspan of 3 metres. But its most unusual feature is the large number of engines, with eight on the wings and another two on the tail. One aim of this is to generate efficient electric propulsion, but the project also solves the problem of aircraft noise: several small motors are quieter than a few large ones.

    The GL-10 also boasts novel Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller (LEAP) technology, which prevents the sound from the propellers combining into one loud noise or harmonic.

    “Since we have many propellers, we can operate every motor at slightly different rpm [revolutions per minute],” says project controller Mark Moore. “We have a whole bunch of smaller harmonics and can spread them out across the frequencies. We call this frequency-spectrum spreading, and it’s only possible because we have many propellers and very precise digital control of them.”

    This spectrum spreading means that the GL-10 is inaudible when it flies overhead at 30 metres. It can take off vertically, making it ideal as an urban parcel courier for payloads of 5 kilograms or less.

    So, yes, having almost quiet black-helicopter drones is possible.

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  • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday March 27 2019, @07:57AM (2 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 27 2019, @07:57AM (#820542) Journal

    Yes, but 30m is already more or less out of shotgun range...

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 27 2019, @10:23AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 27 2019, @10:23AM (#820569) Journal

      Yes, but 30m is already more or less out of shotgun range...

      I'm at lost with this one.

      So the neighborhood is going to be stuck with these buzzing annoyances disturbing the peace at all hours and, occasionally, falling out of the sky on their own.

      Since they can be silent at 30m, do you suggest that the peace disturbance will be caused by shotguns shots and, occasionally, some "falling out of the sky on their own" because they fly out of shotgun range anyway (so they either must fall on their own or don't fall at all)?

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    • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Thursday March 28 2019, @01:49AM

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 28 2019, @01:49AM (#821095) Journal

      Pretty close for skeet/birdshot. Of course you can extend that significantly with larger (better carrying) shot sizes, longer barrels, and 3.5" magnum shells

      https://www.blog.thegunsandgearstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Game-Use.jpg [thegunsandgearstore.com]

      Think how much do you have to hate yourself to shoot 10ga 3.5" Magnum loaded with 000?

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