HERON

The progression of climate change on Earth has and will continue to produce natural disasters with increasing intensities that challenge our infrastructure in unprecedented ways. Increase in coastal disasters, such as hurricanes, typhoons, and flooding, in conjunction with rising sea levels, creates a need for improved search and rescue infrastructure to aid in these events. Beyond these disasters, persisting poor weather conditions can severely hinder search and rescue efforts. The HERON aims to address this need by offering a quick reaction, fixed wing UAV for the purposes of assessing disaster situations from the air, identifying survivors, and providing immediate care to those in the most critical need. The HERON will launch from a rolling takeoff, and provide a live video feed of its ground track over a search pattern from an altitude of 400 feet above ground level (AGL). The drone operator will identify and create GPS pinned locations of identified survivors for other rescue forces to use for later extraction. For those in the most critical condition, the HERON will carry a parachute assisted payload to be dropped from an altitude of 100 feet, containing basic survival essentials, first aid supplies, and a radio to communicate with rescue personnel. In order to effectively operate in the desired mission profile, conditions on the ground and in the air need to be considered. Disaster areas will often have inaccessible terrain, and first response crews will likely only have access to basic, rugged vehicles. This is reflected in HERON’s design philosophy. The aircraft features a shortened fuselage and folding wings that allow it to comfortably sit within a standard size pickup truck bed. Additionally, a target takeoff roll of 60 feet minimizes the space necessary to launch the drone, which will quicken response times. Natural disasters are often accompanied by poor weather, however this should not stand in the way of search operations. HERON is designed to operate nominally in continuous wind speeds of 17 knots with gusts of 4 knots, as well rainfall of 0.5 inches per hour. The gasoline propulsion system uses a simple two-stroke engine that is easy to service and refuel. This makes continuous operation in resource-denied areas possible for up to 4 hours.