High-Reliability Drone Systems Deliver Blood to Rural Patients Fast

Postpartum hemorrhaging is a major cause of maternal mortality in the developing world. The condition requires immediate medical treatment and transfusion with appropriate blood products. Accessing a blood supply might be straightforward in an urban hospital but in the rugged rural terrain of countries like Rwanda, surface travel from a blood bank to point-of-care can take hours; meanwhile, lives hang in the balance.

To address the urgent need for postpartum care, the engineers and entrepreneurs of Zipline have built a drone system that can deliver blood products to patients and their doctors in an average of 30 minutes. Developing a system that can perform in the face of tough environmental conditions and uncompromising reliability requirements presented enormous challenges. With the assistance of Motion Solutions, Zipline has met those challenges, deploying systems that routinely make as many as 50 deliveries a day. . .