Design of an Autonomous GPS-Guided Drone for Medical Supply Delivery to Remote Locations

Remote settlements often have difficult road access, and light but urgent medical supplies such as medicines, samples or vaccines could be transported by unmanned aircraft. This paper presents the design of an autonomous GPS-guided drone for medical supply delivery to remote locations. The system flies pre-programmed waypoint missions with failsafe return-to-home, geofencing and communication-loss handling, and carries a protected payload compartment. Navigation accuracy and range are evaluated by calculation and simulation. In the design calculation and simulation the drone reaches a delivery radius of about 7.5 km with a 1 kg payload, passes waypoints with a mean error of 1.6 m and lands within 3.1 m (95 %) of the target.