Passenger-carrying drone company EHang is to help develop an air ambulance using its electric propulsion systems.
The Chinese Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) company will join Ambular, an international project endeavouring to develop a flying ambulance supported by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
The Ambular project was the outcome of the ICAO’s exploration of the future of aviation in late 2017. The ICAO recognised the possible use of AAVs for extremely rapid medical transport.
EHang has already launched and commercialised passenger-carrying AAVs and will contribute the necessary hardware (such as rotors and motors) to the Ambular project. EHang’s expertise and experience in using AAVs for emergency response is expected to accelerate development of the project.
For example, in February 2020, EHang’s two-seat passenger AAV, the EHang 216, served as an air ambulance to transport medical supplies and personnel to a hospital during the Covid-19 outbreak in China, which currently relies mainly on ambulances or helicopters.
EHang founder, chairman and CEO, Huazhi Hu said, “We are excited to join the ICAO-supported Ambular project, where we can work with industry leaders to fulfill the mission of saving critical minutes in emergencies. This can demonstrate the great value of UAM to society.
“We see that UAM has the potential to materially improve transportation and have a positive impact on peoples’ lives.”
EHang is also exploring the use of AAVs to solve challenges in emergency response, such as flood rescue, forest firefighting and high-rise firefighting. It recently showed the 216F (for firefighting). It has a maximum flight altitude of 600 metres and can carry up to 150 litres of firefighting foams and six fire extinguisher bombs in a single trip.
The 216F uses a visible light zoom camera to quickly identify the location of fire. It then hovers precisely in position and uses a laser aiming device to fire (in succession) a window breaker, the fire extinguishing ‘bombs’ and then a full-range spray of firefighting foam. Multiple 216Fs can be deployed to rapidly extinguish the fire.