by Michael Willoughby
A total of nearly 50 teams comprising 500 people are set to compete in next year’s Australian Medical Rescue Challenge.
The goal of the UAV Challenge is to demonstrate the utility of Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAVs) for civilian applications, particularly in those applications that will save the lives of people in the future. In this competition, competitors will be required to develop an autonomous flying system that could save lives by quickly and cost-effectively providing a live video and audio stream from a remote accident site to a medical team travelling to provide medical assistance.
In appropriately Australian style, competitors must vie to help save a character called “Outback Joe” who has “had a serious accident in his shed.”
“Medical professionals are rushing to save him but they need a live video feed of Joe as they prepare their rescue while en route. Teams must deploy their unmanned aircraft (and maybe a ground vehicle) to save the day!”, stated the organisers.
Teams are invited to develop a system that can fly at least 20km to Joe’s farm, can enter the shed, locate Joe and provide the video and audio stream back to the emergency control centre. Teams are encouraged to develop systems that can carry out the mission in a fully autonomous manner using Type 2 Autonomy. Teams must provide at least 5 minutes of continuous video and audio stream that clearly shows Joe and allow emergency service personnel to attempt to talk to Joe.
Any vehicles deployed into the shed (either flying or ground-based) must weight under 2Kg and have no dimension greater than 800mm. All flying aircraft must safely land at the completion of the mission either at the Remote Accident Site or back at the Base. The video and audio streaming must begin within 40 minutes of the start of the mission.
“We hope that this new UAV Challenge mission will continue to push the UAV community further and continue our own mission of accelerating the use of unmanned aircraft and systems that can save lives,” said organisers in an announcement.
The final rules for the competition were announced in August.
Teams from more than ten countries, including the UAE, Poland and India are set to visit the Australian outback to compete in the challenge.
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