Marut Dronetech long-range trials successful

With a payload of five kg of medicines, the Helicopter drone flights successfully covered 41 km distance in about 32 minutes

Hyderabad: Marut Dronetech on Friday conducted long-range distance coverage tests of supplying vaccines and medicines using Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drones from New Area Hospital, Vikarabad to Primary Health Centre, Bomraspet, covering 41 km.

This was done as part of the Telangana government’s innovative ‘Medicine from the Sky’ experimental project to deliver vaccines and medicines using BVLOS drone flights.

With a payload of five kg, the Helicopter drone flights successfully covered the 41 km distance in about 32 minutes. It would take nearly 1.30 hours to cover the same distance by road. These drones conducted nearly 10 sorties flying at a height of 400 metres, said Marut Dronetech Founder Prem Kumar Vislawath.

The idea was to check the long-range flying capacity of the drones. During the trial tests, drones carried vaccines and medicines. Apollo Hospitals staff members checked the temperature, molecular changes if any and other parameters of the medicines and vaccines, he said.

“These are advanced drones and can cover a range of up to 80 km. After Friday’s trial runs, we will be conducting a trial from New Area Hospital, Vikarabad to District Hospital, Parigi on Saturday,” Prem Kumar said. This will be followed with trial runs from New Area Hospital, Vikarabad to Primary Health Centre, Doma on Sunday.

The State Government is taking up innovative ‘Medicine from the Sky’ initiative in association with the Emerging Technologies Wing of the ITE&C Department, in partnership with World Economic Forum, NITI Aayog, and HealthNet Global (Apollo Hospitals). After the project received the final regulatory nod from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) to conduct the operations, eight selected consortia are conducting the trial tests using VLOS and BVLOS drone flights in Vikarabad.

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