Assessments of heavy lift UAV quadcopter drone to support COVID 19 vaccine cold chain delivery for indigenous people in remote areas in South East Asia

Abstract

AbstractVaccine delivery is one important aspect need to be strengthened within health systems. One of the main challenges in COVID 19 vaccine delivery is how to cover indigenous population in remote and isolated forests in South East Asia. Another issue in COVID 19 cold chain delivery is requirement for a carrier that can maintain the suitable storage temperature. Related to this condition, COVID 19 vaccine should be delivered using heavy vaccine cooler box and this demand delivery system equipped with heavy lift capacity. In here, this study proposes and assess the potential used of heavy lift UAV quadcopter to expand the COVID 19 vaccine delivery to indigenous people living in village that impeded by rugged terrain. The landscape and terrain analysis show that access to the villages was dominated by 15%-45% slopes and the available access is only 1.5 m width trail. To transport 500 vials with 10 kg carrier along 2 km trail, it requires 2 persons to walk for 1 hour. By using drone, a straight line route with a length of 1.5 km can be developed. There were at least 3 drone types were available commercially to lift 10 kg load and several drones with payload capacity below 10 kg. For carrying 100 vials to village using drones, it is estimated the required delivery time was 1.23-1.38 minutes. Around 1.57-1.66 minute delivery times were required to transport 250 vials. For carrying the maximum and full loads of 500 vials or equals to 10 kg load, a drone requires in average of 3.13 minute delivery times. This required drone delivery time is significantly below the required time by walking that almost 1 hour. Drones were limited by flight operational times. Whereas all required delivery times for each drone assessed in this study were still below the drone operational time. The lowest drone operational time was 16 minutes and this is still higher than the time required for a drone to deliver the vaccine. Considering the effectiveness and anticipating vaccine vaccination, UAV quadcopter drone is a feasible option to support COVID 19 vaccine delivery to reach indigenous people in isolated areas.