Ai Dreams Forum

Robotics => Robotics News => Topic started by: Tyler on September 05, 2008, 07:33:02 pm

Title: Military UAVs Adapted for Humanitarian Missions
Post by: Tyler on September 05, 2008, 07:33:02 pm
Military UAVs Adapted for Humanitarian Missions
     


Most of the stories we hear about military robots involve killing
people, destroying things, or helping the military do those sorts of
things. It's nice to hear about some military robots helping
people for change. The National Health Laboratory Service in South
Africa is adapting military unmanned flying vehicles (UAVs) and micro
air vehicles (MAVs) to act as
robot medical couriers. The flying robots help the agency transport
medical samples from more than 5,000 clinics. Quick sample delivery
speeds diagnosis of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS patients, helping to limit
the impact of epidemics and speed medical treatment of patients. In some
cases sterile specimen containers are delivered by autonomous landings
at the testing facility. In other cases, the UAV precision drops the
specimen containers at predefined waypoints. To further speed diagnosis,
the results are dispatched via SMS back to the originating clinic. Story
via the DIY
Drones blog.
   

http://robots.net/article/2633.html
     
Title: Re: Military UAVs Adapted for Humanitarian Missions
Post by: Dante on September 05, 2008, 11:00:33 pm
To provide some background info; you might be aware of the need for items to get to, say, a pathology lab quickly. Sometimes they need to be diverted to a bigger more better equipped lab. Through convential methods this takes about two weeks.

This tech could also transport organs.

I would love to see the day when patients are transported in such a manner :P