Bengaluru hospital signs up for drone deliveries to get medicines, lab samples in a jiffy

In a first for Bengaluru, a private hospital has announced the drone delivery of blood samples and emergency medicines among other things in partnership with a drone delivery logistics firm.

On Tuesday, Aster DM Healthcare, which runs three hospitals in Bengaluru, said it was partnering with Skye Air Mobility to hasten the delivery of medical and diagnostic samples, overcome on-road barriers and cut waiting time.

The deliveries will happen between the group's hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. There won't be any Direct-to-Customer (D2C) deliveries by drone.

The initiative comes nearly two weeks after online food ordering and delivery firm Swiggy announced a partnership with a private company for deploying drones to deliver groceries and essential items in Bengaluru and other major cities.

On May 14, Aster DM Healthcare and Skye Air Mobility kicked off a seven-day Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) trial run, carrying medicines and diagnostic samples from Aster RV Hospital, JP Nagar, to Aster clinics within Bengaluru.

'Skye Ship One'

After the completion of the BVLOS trials, Skye Air will undertake about 80 flights, each carrying blood samples and medicines for Aster clinics. The company is using its flagship product 'Skye Ship One' for the trials.

Dr S N Omkar, Chief Research Scientist, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, said drones were "quite feasible" for the transport of vaccines and emergency medicines like anti-venom injections.

The challenges, for both food and health sectors, will be in payload, reliable control, aspects of communication, range, distance and traffic management among others, he explained.

"There are yellow, red and green fly zones in the city. A lot of constraints are there. Anything within a 12-km radius of an airport is a no-fly zone, hence a red zone. These include KIA, HAL airport, Jakkur aerodrome, and the Yelahanka Airforce Station. Many of the hospitals in the city are in the red zone," Dr Omkar told DH.

The drone delivery is executed through a designated cold chain professional to first load the medicine and diagnostic sample in a temperature-controlled payload box. This payload box is then loaded in the drone, which is then directed by drone pilots at the command centre through a pre-determined route to a fixed landing pad.

Veneeth Purushotaman, Group Chief Information Officer, Aster DM Healthcare, said the trial run was being done in a green corridor.

"These are drones that don’t have the ability to take photographs. They are not connected to any network other than the one used by the operator and are not connected to the internet," he added.

Purushotaman clarified that they were definitely not considering a Direct-to-Customer (D2C) delivery. "We are using drones to deliver emergency lab samples and urgent medicines between our locations saving the road traffic and the availability of bikers and delivery boys."

Ankit Kumar, CEO of Skye Air Mobility, said the company had taken permission and was in touch with the air traffic control at the Kempegowda International Airport, the HAL airport and the IAF for all its operations.

Drone deliveries: How easy and how safe?

* Privacy issues: Drones can be mounted with cameras that can photograph houses, which is a security issue.

* The endurance of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with a payload of less than 2 kg is less.

* The UAV traffic management framework (UTM) is still being formulated.

* Economics: Drones being used for delivering food can be quite expensive. But this may not be the case with the delivery of life-saving medicines.

(According to Dr S N Omkar, Chief Research Scientist, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science)