A Future Patient Transporting Drone Evaluated

Soteria is a patient transporting drone, which is part of a living lab setting for Future Mobility, which Embraer is developing. It has been designed in conjunction with the Talaria propulsion system, an autonomous and modular eVTOL flight package. The idea is that during disaster scenarios, Soteria is summoned by first responders to the scene after which a noncritical patient is loaded from the field into the carrier. Soteria then autonomously and independently ferries the patient safely to the closest hospital, where they are unloaded by medical personnel. It is important that handlings are fast and that the patient will fit in the system. Therefore, Soteria was ergonomically tested. The interior of the carrier, the interior layout, and human-machine interface were evaluated with a 1:1 model and compared with guidelines found in the literature. Based on that improvements were made and presented for future design iterations.