New UC Telehealth Drone Makes House Calls

The University of Cincinnati has invented a new telehealth drone to improve access to medical services regardless of location. Inventors Victoria Wangia-Anderson, Manish Kumar, Seung-Yeon Lee and Debi Sampsel from three colleges at UC collaborated to develop a semi-autonomous prototype that can be dispatched right to people’s homes. The drones are big enough to carry medicine or medical supplies but small enough to maneuver the tight confines of a home using navigational algorithms developed by UC engineers.

Still in development, the drone has cameras and a display screen so patients can talk to health care professionals from the comfort of their home. The prototype carries a waterproof box the size of a small first-aid kit to deliver medical supplies or collect self-administered lab tests.

“Most drones rely on controllers that work on radio communication and require line-of-sight for safe, remote operation. That’s why most drones have limited operational range,” said Kumar, a professor of mechanical engineering. He is director of the CDS Lab and co-director of the UAV MASTER Lab in the UC College of Engineering and Applied Science.