AWARD YEAR
2017
CATEGORY
Community
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
drones, medicine, access
COUNTRY
United States of America
DESIGNED BY
Otherlab
WEBSITE
https://otherlab.com/
APSARA
A biodegradable drone for natural disasters or humanitarian missions.
The APSARA drone could make one-way emergency relief trips and degrade quickly once it reached its target. The body of the small drones are made from a cellulose-based material that's a lot like cardboard and filled with fungal spores to help it to biodegrade faster. The body itself looks like a mini stealth fighter jet.
The inside of the prototype drone contains off-the-shelf electronics that allow it to be remotely controlled. If these drones were used in a real-world application, the electronics would also be degradable -- DARPA has a separate program developing electronics that dissolve on impact.
The drones are designed to land within a 33-foot radius of programmed GPS coordinates after being dropped from an aircraft tens of thousands of feet in the air though for testing they have been limited to using octocopters to lift the drones high off the ground. Depending on the mission, the body of the drone could be covered in water resistant coating to protect it from rain.