Scotland, drones in medical rescue: CAELUS project wins innovation award

By Cristiano Antonino Last updated Oct 12, 2022

Drones are playing an increasingly important role in medical rescue: the developers of a planned drone-based medical network in Scotland have won the Excellence in Technology and Innovation prize at this year’s Scottish Transport Awards

The award was presented to Project CAELUS at the industry awards ceremony in Glasgow on 29 September, where the initiative was praised by the judges.

Scotland and health drones / Fiona Smith, AGS Airports Group Head of Aerodrome Strategy and CAELUS Project Director, said:

“We were delighted when we heard we had been shortlisted in the Scottish Transport Awards, so to win is a fantastic achievement.

This is testament to the hard work by all the partners involved in this consortium and I thank them all.”

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AT THE SERVICE OF FIRE BRIGADES AND CIVIL PROTECTION OPERATORS: DISCOVER THE IMPORTANCE OF DRONES AT THE FOTOKITE BOOTH

The consortium, led by AGS Airports in partnership with NHS Scotland, brings together 16 partners, including the University of Strathclyde.

It aims to develop a national drone network in Scotland capable of transporting blood products, medicines and other medical supplies – the first of its kind in the UK

Since securing £1.5 million of funding in January 2020, the consortium has designed drone landing stations for NHS sites across Scotland and developed a ‘digital twin’ model of the proposed delivery network, which connects hospitals, pathology laboratories, distribution centres and GP surgeries across Scotland.

CAELUS also secured £10.1 million funding from UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Future Flight Challenge in July.

It will be used to launch the project’s next phase, which involves live flight trials and removing any remaining barriers for the use of drones at scale in Scottish airspace.

Drones are expected to play a substantial role in transforming the medical sector in the coming decade.

Elsewhere, the US Federal Aviation Administration awarded $2.7 million of funding to support research into how drones can be used to improve disaster response efforts in August.