Medical Rescue

medical-rescue2

Competition News

  • Event postponed due to COVID-19 until September 2021 – please keep checking back as new dates are announced

 

Technical goals of Medical Rescue (why we are doing it)

  • Improved ground-to-ground high-speed, high-bandwidth communication technology (at least 10 km)
  • VTOL and long distance flight (new vehicle concepts)
  • Remote site assessment and deployment of robots into buildings (at least 10 km from Ground Control Station)
  • Improved autonomy in dynamic air traffic environments

FAQ

There is an FAQ page where commonly asked questions will be posted and answered by the UAV Challenge Technical Committee.

Mission Task

Outback Joe is at his property in remote Queensland, Australia and has been maintaining his farm equipment in his shed. He has had a serious accident in the shed and requires urgent medical attention. Before he lost consciousness, Joe managed to make an emergency radio call to a family member. The area around Joe’s farm does not have mobile phone coverage. The emergency services have now been alerted but will take at least two hours to travel to Joe’s farm. They want to dispatch a UAV to the farm ahead of their arrival in order to establish a live video and audio streaming system that will help them assess Joe’s condition and potentially allow them to communicate with Joe should he regain consciousness.

sheds

Sheds similar to Outback Joe’s shed.

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.

Example MR 2020

An example layout for a 2020 Medical Rescue Challenge mission. Note that this figure is an example only.

Deliverables

Entrants are required to submit a short technical report (known as Deliverable 1) that described the proposed system design and safety considerations. Later a more detailed technical report is required (Deliverable 2) that outlines a team’s design approach, methodology, and operational and safety procedures along with a flight demonstration video. Finally, an Autonomous Flight Record that documented a minimum of five hours of autonomous flight had to be provided along with a Safety Case document (Deliverable 3).

Scoring

Points were be awarded based on the mission performance including finding Joe in his shed, the duration of video and audio streaming, technical documentation, and the team’s answers to questions from the judges prior to the mission.

The Prize

The team to achieve the highest points total and have also completed the mission will be declared the winner and will receive AUD$ 25,000.

If the winning team completes the mission using Type 2 Autonomy then they will receive a bonus of AUD$25,000.

If the winning team also completes the Extension Autonomy Challenge they will receive an additional bonus of AUD$25,000.

The maximum prize for the winning team is therefore AUD$75,000.

The team achieving the highest points total, whether or not they have completed the mission, will be awarded the Rod Walker Trophy, presented in memory of Professor Rod Walker, co-founder of the UAV Challenge.

Event Location

The UAV Challenge Medical Rescue 2020 event will be held at the Dalby Model Aero Club, 743 Cecil Plains Road, Dalby, Queensland, Australia. This will be the location of The Base.

Key Dates

  • New dates will be posted soon

Register your team

Registration is now closed and the competition is active.

Rules and other files relating to the UAV Challenge Medical Rescue