Demonstrator 5

Description

This demonstrator aims to include UAM traffic in critical infrastructure for security and maintenance, providing video shots in support of surveillance and technical services located at the hospital. Starting from the vertiport, drones autonomously monitor the secure area and are operated by exception by mandated security (or by the maintenance) officers to monitor the critical areas, with due respect for the privacy of the users of the area and in compliance with the GDPR. The principle of ‘break the glass’ is applicable, which means the algorithm only interacts in case of breach of security or safety regulations and procedures.

Background

A major hospital is a critical infrastructure by itself, whose business continuity is not only depending on the specific infrastructure and related technological systems that directly support healthcare processes but also heavily depends on availability and reliability of other underpinning critical infrastructures such as Energy, Information Technology facilities onsite and in cloud, wired and wireless communication infrastructures (from LAN to Wi-Fi and 5G antennas and base stations), logistic and inbound mobility, etc. In such a reality, surveillance and technical services are not trivial, especially since the hospital covers a very large area (312,000 square meters) which includes multi-storey buildings (7-8 floors dedicated to hospital wards, research laboratories and university classrooms), parking lots, a cogeneration plant (electricity, hot and cold water) and large open spaces where thousands of people transit every day (for professional reasons, access to health services and visits to patients - 25,000 every day, about 6,000,000 a year). Moving from different places takes time to the security staff and also some installations are not easy to reach, as an example building roof where usually air conditioning equipment is installed. Most common technical infrastructure present at San Raffaele Hospital are the following:

• Medical gas tanks, cyclotrons used for radiotherapy, sterilization plants and biohazard waste management plants.
• On-site energy production.
• Transportation and logistics systems ranging from underground and external access, autonomous light rail transport and car parking.
• Commercial and general services from shops to processing and catering. 
  
  By respecting the GDPR, drones equipped with cameras and/or sensors can monitor a larger area (internal and external), reach critical sites more quickly, perform dynamic and adaptive inspections safely and provide information that will make the consequent human intervention or remote reconfiguration of the most effective system, improving the timely detection of physical intrusions thus acting as a deterrent of malicious attacks.

Results

• Operate the autonomous drone fleet service on the San Raffaele campus based on the geospatial infrastructure, providing video shooting (day and night). Establish the permitted flight routes according to the regulatory system, permitted weather conditions (wind, rain, fog) and maximum duration of the in-flight operations.
• The operating system and the virtual meeting room are in place and the board of directors can make decisions in real-time on safety, maintenance planning and scenarios to achieve sustainability objectives.
• The business case is validated, where drones are not the 'solution', but a very important "part" of the solution. The service is scalable to other cities and sectors.

Description

The aim of this demonstrator is to develop new UAM traffic with an emergency system that provides a safe and secure utilization of the air space, providing delivery of medication or biological samples. Starting from the vertiport, drones reach the hospital buildings just a few hundred meters away. Through the windows of the buildings, they can interact with hospital wards where patients are hospitalized and where the drug logistics arrive to the patient’s bed. Using an app and a web interface, the medical staff can interact with the control unit at the vertiport, indicating when a drone transport is needed. At this point, drones will be flown to connect the specific ward with the laboratories where in vitro analyses are made and/or to deliver medication or biological samples towards the users of San Raffaele Hospital. Based on the results and needs we can upscale the payload of drones.

Background

The presence of many hospital departments in such a large area requires significant improvement of the logistics performances within the hospital ecosystem above all for the delivery of high-value healthcare process assets.

• Financial Value: expensive pharmaceutical products, medical disposable or implantable products, point of care medical devices, precision and personalized medicine, mandatory legal requirements ( e.g., opiate drugs for anaesthesia) requires centralized storage and custody.
• Time-critical Value: pharmaceutical products, medical disposable or implantable products, point of care medical devices, precision and personalized medicine, patient’s biosamples that are necessary for urgent or emergency medical therapeutic and diagnostic tasks need to be delivered with the ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Possible) criteria to reduce Patient safety Risks. Today solutions do not address these needs properly: internal delivery systems based on manual transport immobilize costly human resources or costly and underperforming AGVs and are extremely sensitive to human factors and mobility bottlenecks (e.g., elevators).
• Operator’s and Environmental Risk Value: biosamples or hazardous materials are mobilized in the ecosystem sharing the same hospital pathways/bottlenecks used for non-hazardous materials. Depending on human factor’s risks, the longest the pathway/the longest the delivery time/the highest the risk of accidental or intentional events. Dedicated aerial unmanned pathways will dramatically improve safety and reduce costs.

Results

• The precision logistic medicine service is operational and in operation at San Raffaele hospital, based on the Geo-infra solutions, and providing delivery of medication or biological samples.
• The service is scalable towards other cities & sectors, subject to compliance with aviation safety rules for BVLOS transport operations in the UAS category of “specific” operations, for which a standardised “crush-proof” container is necessary. The business case is validated.