Doosan DS30
Last week, members of the team at Guinn Partners worked with Doosan Mobility Innovations, in collaboration with Skyfire Consulting, and the US Department of Health, to execute a 43 mile open ocean medical drone delivery between St. Croix and St. Thomas.
The flight took an hour and forty three minutes on Doosan’s hydrogen-fuel cell powered DS-30 aircraft (which still had nearly 30 minutes of hydrogen left in the tank upon landing).
The drone carried simulation vials as a surrogate for diagnostic samples or vaccines in a temperature controlled payload system.
It can ordinarily take up to a week before patients’ biological fluid samples are transported between the two islands by manned aircraft – in the case of illnesses such as Dengue fever, the infection can progress to dangerous levels within that amount of time. Because using a drone is much cheaper and simpler, though, samples could conceivably be sent to St. Croix immediately.