Abstract
The internal transport of medical goods in a hospital heavily relies on human resources that carry the materials on foot. Such mode of transport may be affected by inefficiencies, e.g., due to bottlenecks, and other logistic challenges. Thus, it may benefit from the use of unmanned aircraft systems in several aspects. Such a scenario introduces specific criticalities for healthcare organizations in densely populated areas and below congested airspace, such as the Milan metropolitan area. The authors applied a co-creation methodology to design a highly automated drone service for the delivery of pharmaceuticals at San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy. The needs of the main users were identified by means of semi-structured interviews and visualization material. Based on those outcomes, a drone service was designed and validated with the main users. It emerged that the main gain point of such a service would be increasing hospital logistics efficiency. The risks tied to the operations (e.g., tampering of the delivery container) were evaluated and appropriate mitigations were identified (e.g., use of tamper-evident seals or mechatronic locks). The information required by the digital system offering the needed logistics functions was analyzed for future development. Recent conceptual and regulatory advancements in the field of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) in Europe were elaborated to outline the digital ecosystem in which aviation and non-aviation actors would exchange information to ensure operations’ efficiency, safety and regulatory compliance.
Funder
European Union H2020 Research and Innovation Programme
Subject
Artificial Intelligence,Computer Science Applications,Aerospace Engineering,Information Systems,Control and Systems Engineering
Cited by
13 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献