[HN Gopher] Drones have transformed blood delivery in Rwanda
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Drones have transformed blood delivery in Rwanda
Author : arunbahl
Score : 152 points
Date : 2022-04-24 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| SPBS wrote:
| For those blocked by a paywall, Real Engineering did a video on
| it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEbRVNxL44c]. The most
| interesting aspects to me were:
|
| - The drone is not a quadcopter, they are too inefficient. Mini
| plane design.
|
| - GPS device is directly attached to the swappable battery unit
| to ensure it is always connected to a satellite, eliminating
| satellite connection delays when the drone powers up.
|
| - It is launched into a sky by a powered rail. It doesn't need to
| land to deliver the goods, the items get parachuted down. No
| infrastructure needed on the receiving end, the item just drops
| from the sky.
|
| - For landing the drone flies past an aircraft arresting wire
| while hooking onto it which decelerates it and causes it to swing
| down (suspended above the ground). Easy to retrieve.
| tomcam wrote:
| Beautiful summary. Thank you very much.
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah I think that swappable battery design is pretty slick it's
| a big unit
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| It's been great for streamlining operations. The first
| generation of aircraft we deployed to Rwanda didn't yet have
| blind-mate connections for the battery pack. Operators had to
| reach in and connect two connectors. The plastic tabs that
| retained the connectors would tend to break off after a
| while, requiring the operators to secure them with a zip tie,
| on every flight! I forget what generation of vehicle was
| featured in Real Engineering, but I suspect we're one
| generation past that one, and the batteries are a bit more
| streamlined from that.
|
| I haven't paid attention to the statistics in a while, but
| these days the busiest distribution centers can launch a
| vehicle once per minute or so, and they do.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Yeah, I just skimmed the video, and that aircraft is one
| generation behind the current design. It was a good
| aircraft! The new one looks very similar externally, just a
| lot more optimized internally.
|
| One of the sound bits I heard while skimming was that the
| recovery system misses 10% of the time. We've dialed it in
| to be considerably better since then. I'm going to forward
| that timestamp to a particular coworker and see if it
| causes his eye to twitch... :-)
| ge96 wrote:
| Man that's such a cool job/place to work. I was curious,
| I don't know if you can answer this or if it's public
| info.
|
| Do the aircraft boards/computer get tied to some kind of
| simulator and (autonomously) fly around/run the actual
| control surfaces (in reality) as it flies in the
| simulation that would be neat. Although it might not make
| sense.
| lappet wrote:
| Great article - this is the first time I am reading about the
| positive effects of drones where it has actually saved lives. I
| have also read that Rwanda is doing very well recently since
| their terrible civil war in the 90s.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| It's neat to see this on hacker news. Good to hear that folk are
| noticing that our system works! I've been working on embedded
| systems at Zipline for 6 years, and oddly haven't made it out to
| Rwanda yet. Everyone there seems to know my name, though, because
| of all the weird problems I've helped remotely debug over the
| years. I think Zipline's flight operators deserve the lion's
| share of credit for our success in Rwanda.
| a_diplomat wrote:
| I was stationed in Rwanda for several years, and visited your
| operations centers several times. Truly awesome stuff, that's
| also helped Rwanda in a bigger way, by giving the country well-
| deserved recognition for its propensity towards innovation.
| mkeespiet wrote:
| Any change we can get it contact with you? For our project
| www.4x4electric.com we would like to visit different Zipline
| projects in Africa to generate more attention for this kind of
| projects
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Cool! I raced solar cars in university, and now I volunteer
| with the American race organization. Of course, the
| University of Delft was my team's nemesis! :-) I'll email you
| from your website contact info.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| I'm curious what you do for the American race organization
| - I'm assuming you are referring to American Solar
| Challenge. I've dabbled with solar cars, too, and it is
| rare to find a fellow racer.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Yep, I am one of the electrical scrutineers for ASC. I
| help inspect all the teams' cars for compliance with the
| race regulations as well as for general soundness to make
| sure there aren't any safety concerns.
| recuter wrote:
| You should write that up somewhere. Maybe even here.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _In the United States and the United Kingdom, 80 percent of the
| population clusters around urban hubs with high-traffic hospitals
| and blood banks. In African nations like Libya, Djibouti, and
| Gabon, about 80 to 90 percent of the populations live in cities,
| too. But in Rwanda, that number flips: 83 percent of Rwandans
| live in rural areas.
|
| DON'T BE FOOLED by Rwanda's rural demographics; the country has a
| reputation for leaning into health tech innovations. Rwanda's
| universal health care system reaches over 90 percent of the
| population. In 2009, the government piloted a phone-based
| program, called RapidSMS, to track and reduce maternal and child
| mortality. By 2013, RapidSMS connected 15,000 villages to the
| country's wider network of doctors, hospitals, and ambulances._
|
| This is inspiring.
| mkeespiet wrote:
| Very nice project! Hopefully we can visit them next year during
| our project: www.4x4electric.com
| [deleted]
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Really nice to hear, I was always quite sceptical about similar
| drone based ideas, it's nice to be proven wrong.
| vmception wrote:
| I would like to see more articles like this, talking about an
| individual country in Africa instead of "Africa" as an amorphous
| place
| number6 wrote:
| trhway wrote:
| At the same time you can't fly drones pretty much anywhere in CA,
| and the situation is even worse in TX. In TX you can't even make
| photo/video from drone and it is a crime of trafficking in such
| photo/video ("land of the free" despising government overreach
| :).
|
| Drones is a transformative technology, and we as usually go for
| 19th century Red Flag car laws.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > "land of the free"
|
| That's a loaded term. It means whatever you want it to mean. If
| you are a drone enthusiast, it means you fly wherever you want,
| take pictures of whatever you want. To other people, it means
| freedom _from_ having a drone buzz over their house taking
| pictures.
| trhway wrote:
| The law in TX was specifically created to protect animal
| cruelty from being reported on.
| tomcam wrote:
| Receipts, please?
| s5300 wrote:
| Don't post this on HN.
|
| Simple search terms give you your answer.
|
| I read your post. I go, surely with what he's stated if
| it's true, it wouldn't be hard to find.
|
| I put in my iPhone search engine "Texas drones animal
| cruelty"
|
| And, in the first results, are these receipts you ask
| for.
|
| I am begging you to simply use the search engine that
| takes no more than five seconds of your time rather than
| posting asking for "receipts" or "sources" & "citations"
| ...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It seems like a fair question, though. I did your google
| search. All of the hits that immediately came up were
| from sources that clearly have an axe to grind.
|
| In any case, it looks like the law got mostly overturned
| a couple weeks ago, if I'm reading correctly. I imagine
| there will be ongoing litigation. Even without "ag gag"
| legislation, there is no shortage of people who really
| don't want drones flying around their neighborhoods
| taking pictures.
| FabHK wrote:
| There's this new podcast _What 's your problem?_ from Pushkin
| Industries, about the big problems entrepreneurs face and try to
| tackle, and one of their first episodes was about Zipline:
|
| https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/launching-drone-delivery/
|
| https://www.pushkin.fm/show/whats-your-problem/
|
| The big challenge they talk about is bringing the service (which
| already works in Rwanda) to the US, where aviation regulation is
| very different.
|
| _(Cautionary Tales_ with Tim Harford, about "awful human error,
| tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos" and
| what one can learn from them is also entertaining and
| informative.)
| maxerickson wrote:
| I live in a region of the United States that is significantly
| less populated than Rwanda (larger, a few hundred thousand
| residents) and don't see what the opportunity would be in
| health care.
|
| I guess you could discard less perishable products if they were
| moved around for use.
| [deleted]
| rjsw wrote:
| There was a recent article [1] in the Guardian on this.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/gallery/2022/...
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