Volocopter announces results of joint study looking into piloted multicopters for rescue missions in Germany

The world’s first fea­si­bil­i­ty study on the use of pilot­ed mul­ti­copters in res­cue ser­vices has con­clud­ed that it is pos­si­ble and does improve the med­ical care in a region — with Volo­copter’s VoloC­i­ty eVTOL air­craft to be part of a research project planned to begin in Ger­many by 2023.

The 130-page study was launched in 2018 by ADAC Luftret­tung and spon­sored by the non-prof­it ADAC Foun­da­tion. In coop­er­a­tion with Volo­copter, it focused on the fol­low­ing ques­tion: Can the res­cue ser­vice sys­tem be improved and made future-proof by using mul­ti­copters as trans­port for emer­gency doc­tors?

Based on his­tor­i­cal Res­cue Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter data, the researchers’ com­put­er sim­u­lat­ed more than 26,000 emer­gency oper­a­tions with mul­ti­copters for the Ans­bach res­cue ser­vice area with the air res­cue bases in Dinkels­bühl, Bavaria and in Idar-Ober­stein, Rhineland-Palati­nate. Sce­nar­ios were sim­u­lat­ed with dif­fer­ent deploy­ment radii, ranges, and speeds.

The tech­ni­cal fea­si­bil­i­ty was exam­ined based on Volocopter’s VoloC­i­ty eVTOL air­craft, which is due to be oper­a­tional with­in the next two to three years. Accord­ing to the study, its advan­tage over ground-based NEFs is greater in rur­al areas than in the city.

Flo­ri­an Reuter, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer at Volo­copter, said: “We are proud to be con­tribut­ing to the greater pub­lic good by apply­ing Volo­copter tech­nol­o­gy to air res­cue mis­sions. In the close coop­er­a­tion with ADAC Luftret­tung, it has become clear how pro­found the pro­fes­sion­al exper­tise in the field of air res­cue and heli­copter fleet oper­a­tion is. At the same time, this col­lab­o­ra­tion shows how for­ward-look­ing and open to inno­va­tion the project par­tic­i­pants are.

“The VoloC­i­ty is the first mul­ti­copter world­wide that is already in the process of com­mer­cial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and togeth­er with ADAC Luftret­tung, it could already save lives today.”

With such mul­ti­copters, emer­gency physi­cians could often be at the scene of an emer­gency twice as fast in rur­al areas com­pared to a con­ven­tion­al emer­gency med­ical ser­vice vehi­cle and reach around two to three times as many patients in a larg­er health ser­vice area.

They are also an ade­quate means in com­bat­ing the short­age of emer­gency doc­tors in many places and enabling cur­rent emer­gency doc­tors to work more effi­cient­ly. This was one of the most impor­tant find­ings of the study, in light of the nation­al aver­age emer­gency doc­tor arrival time wors­en­ing in the last 20 years by almost 40 per cent.

Dr. Andrea David, Chair­man of the ADAC Foun­da­tion, added: “The increas­ing short­age of emer­gency doc­tors is a major chal­lenge for the emer­gency med­ical care of the pop­u­la­tion — espe­cial­ly in rur­al areas. For this rea­son, the ADAC Foun­da­tion has sup­port­ed this inno­v­a­tive research project con­cep­tu­al­ly and finan­cial­ly from the very begin­ning.

“Now, we are look­ing for­ward with excite­ment to the field test as the results of the sci­en­tif­ic study make it clear that pilot­ed mul­ti­copters can act as fast emer­gency med­ical trans­porters and help solve this seri­ous prob­lem in the near future.”

Until the pilot project starts, fur­ther tech­ni­cal test flights will take place at Volo­copter’s non-pub­lic research sites to assess the pilot­ed air­craft for air res­cue ser­vices in spe­cial con­di­tions.

This includes take-off and land­ing on slopes, in poor vis­i­bil­i­ty, at night, or in win­ter. The Ger­man Aero­space Cen­ter (DLR), a long-stand­ing research and devel­op­ment part­ner of the ADAC Luftret­tung, is sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sup­port­ing the project

Oper­a­tional test­ing in 2023 will then take place in the two exist­ing mod­el regions: the Ans­bach res­cue ser­vice area and the ADAC air res­cue sta­tion in Dinkels­bühl, Bavaria, and at a new, mul­ti­copter-only base in the Idar-Ober­stein region of Rhineland-Palati­nate. Patient trans­port is not planned for ini­tial imple­men­ta­tion.

The Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter of Rhineland-Palati­nate, Roger Lewentz, com­ment­ed: “Rhineland-Palati­nate is a rur­al state with low moun­tain ranges and val­leys. This ter­rain brings chal­lenges for emer­gency doc­tors and res­cue ser­vices, who must be with the patient with­in a short time.

“On aver­age, the ambu­lances in Rhineland-Palati­nate are already at the scene of the emer­gency well below the legal dead­line. How­ev­er, we are also pleased that the sta­tis­ti­cal data avail­able through­out the state of Rhineland-Palati­nate allows a clos­er look at new inno­v­a­tive ideas.”

Accord­ing to the study, sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in emer­gency care for an oper­at­ing radius of 25 to 30km has been shown. In this case, the opti­mal flight speed of the mul­ti­copter should be between 100 and 150 km/h with a min­i­mum range of approx­i­mate­ly 150km. These ide­al con­di­tions would be tech­ni­cal­ly pos­si­ble in about four years.

As well as the med­ical and tech­ni­cal require­ments, the study also exam­ined eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy. Researchers believe cost-effi­cient oper­a­tion is pos­si­ble, with costs to be low­er than the gen­er­al­ly high invest­ment require­ments in the health care sys­tem.

Based on the research results and the state of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments, a nation­wide net­work of up to 250 mul­ti­copter bases could be cre­at­ed in Ger­many by 2050, accord­ing to the project man­agers’ opti­mistic fore­cast.