Drones come dime a dozen in a figurative manner. But what if this ‘done to death’ product is revived in a larger yet more practical manner? Well, design firm ‘argodesign‘ has dabbled with such a conceptual solution in the form of the Ambulance Drone. Contrived in a similar fashion as to that of a quadcopter, this incredible craft is envisaged to be driven by a combination of GPS and manual piloting; and it can be dispatched to the emergency scene with its crew member of an EMT along with the patient. Now gimmicks aside, the core plan does have a feasible scope – since according to statistics, almost 1,000 savable lives are lost due to the limitation of the regular emergency services in the major cities of United States.

From the commercial perspective, drones and their newest designs have actually taken a significant part of the aeronautics limelight in the recent times. Complementary to that ambit, is the contemporary advancement of autonomous vehicles – as we have seen in this year’s CES. The designers at argodesign have seemingly mixed and matched these two developments, and the nifty end result is the self-driving Ambulance Drone. To that end, an entire fleet of such imposing drones can be controlled on a remote basis, or a single pilot could manually navigate a single craft – if the need arises. And, taking price into consideration, such a construction would cost beyond a million apiece – but still that would be cheaper than medical helicopters.

The Ambulance Drone will also be crafted in such a manner so as to account for a low footprint and parking space. This will make the flying contraption apt for convenient taking off and landing sessions, thus pertaining to a far easier job for the controller (or the pilot). But of course, beyond the groovy renderings, there lies the realm of reality, and in that consideration – such an ambulance craft might still take years to be credibly developed for practical usage. As Mark Rolston, founder of argodesign, makes it clear –

I wouldn’t be surprised to get emails, to hear lots of the aeronautics companies saying, ‘we are working on something like this. It makes perfect sense. We may have underestimated the wingspan challenge for lift, but in a greater scheme of things, that’s a trivial part of the idea.

Via: FastCoDesign