The UAV Grille comes to the rescue!
We are very thankful for this video created by the Bundeswehr (German Federal Armed Forces) and look forward to enhancing our cooperation.
Berlin, June 2024 – AVILUS unveiled the latest model of the UAV Grille (9X-02) at the ILA Berlin from June 5th to June 9th. The exhibition took place at the booth of the German Armed Forces within the Military Support Centre (MSC), highlighting AVILUS’ integral role in the Bundeswehr Technical Centre for Aircraft and Aircraft Equipment (WTD61) and the Drone Innovation Hub (DIH) in Manching.
The showcase of our rescue drone attracted significant attention from high-profile political and military figures, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, President of the BAAIBw Annette Lehnigk-Emden, Inspector General of the German Armed Forces Carsten Breuer, and Vice Admiral Carsten Stawitzki.
“Up to now, the focus here has been on fighter aircraft. In the future, it will be more about the networking of manned and unmanned platforms, modern sensors and effectors, drones and cloud AI technology,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his opening speech at ILA.
Following this vision, the German Armed Forces have committed to modernizing the air forces based on three key pillars: innovation, versatility, and efficiency. In line with this, AVILUS is developing Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) to enhance evacuation and rescue missions.
Kids, families, aerospace professionals, consultants, and engineers all stopped by the booth to ask questions, take pictures of the drone, and some even experienced being inside the medical cabin. The visitors particularly compared the drone to current MEDEVAC assets like the NH90, which are costly and put crew members in danger during rescue missions close to frontlines. The UAV Grille, on the other hand, reduces costs and increases safety for both wounded soldiers and MEDEVAC teams.
A medical services veteran shared his thoughts with our team: He mentioned his experience supporting medical teams during the Vietnam War and expressed his amazement at how the Grille and the Eagle 6x6 are designed to prioritize the medical response within the Golden Hour and provide crucial support to severely wounded soldiers.
The successful exhibition at ILA Berlin marks a significant milestone in AVILUS' journey towards pioneering UAV development for medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) missions. We thank everyone for their support and interest in our projects.
After more than a year of successful flights, we, had a landing mishap at Erding Airbase on the afternoon of the 30th of April 2024. In a training flight with a manual landing, the control system exhibited unexpected behaviour, leading to a flip-over touchdown. The aircraft stayed in its designated flight volume right over the runway and neither people nor third party property was harmed. For safety, the local fire brigade was alarmed but only had to monitor without the need for intervention.
We are currently investigating all available information to clarify the root cause of the failure and also draw conclusions on how to improve our processes and procedures.
As the second prototype of the Grille - a significant evolution step with many technological advancements - nears completion, we plan to resume flight operations as soon as we have incorporated all lessons learnt from the current mishap. In a first evaluation we found that many of the high-value assets of the prototype avionics have survived the mishap.
By pushing ahead at a high pace and testing beyond the status quo every week, we must always expect setbacks. Nevertheless, we are passionate about our joint vision of saving live. Fast progress never works without disappointments along the tough road.
Together with our production partner IFAS, we were able to realize our vision of a mobile control room within three months. The RAS-PECC, i.e. the “Patient Evacuation Coordination Cell”, which carries the ground control segment for robotic and autonomous systems (RAS), is to be viewed as a supplement to the PECC at brigade level. The command element fits seamlessly into the existing military medical reporting chain and is responsible for the coordination and dispatch of UAV operations to evacuate the wounded. A dispatcher and a safety pilot take control of all rescue drones under the command element.
The MAN HX60 with special military equipment carries an air-conditioned FM 2 shelter, which houses the technical systems of the Ground Control Segment. This includes both the redundant remote pilot stations and the antenna segment, which is mounted on various extendable masts on the vehicle's case. The LOS and BLOS radio connections enable communication with the drone and, for example, allow the patient's vital parameters to be transmitted or - if necessary - to set up a video connection for psychological support during the flight. The planning, dispatch and monitoring of flights takes place in plugins for already introduced battle management systems, which ensures airspace integration and native digitalization of the mission.
The RAS-PECC is available to us earlier than planned and is used not only for military exercises with the troops, but also for regular flight test operations. We would like to thank our partners for their highly dynamic and agile support!
In December, the project iMEDCAP, funded by the European Defence Fund, was kicked-off. With its user-driven, holistic approach, the flagship iMEDCAP sets out to revolutionize the emergency detection, identification, extraction, treatment, and evacuation of gravely injured and possibly contagious personnel in a completely autonomous way.
Funded by the European Defence Fund (EDF) and in collaboration with a robust consortium of esteemed European partners, AVILUS GmbH, is proud to announce the launch of the iMEDCAP project with its kick-off meeting held in Garching, Germany, on 13/14 December 2023. This innovative project, led by Technische Universität München as the Coordinator, brings together a diverse array of 24 organizations from 9 countries, uniting European expertise and resources to pioneer ground-breaking advancements in military healthcare and emergency response capabilities.
Over the last decade, significant progress has been made in the development of autonomous air and ground transport, detection technologies as well as (remote) medical interventions. These developments reveal both the potential and the necessity to modernize and adapt rescue systems to facilitate evacuation from complex and/or dangerous situations. Novel weapon technologies have led to several paradigm changes of the situation of ground forces, influencing the requirements for ad hoc medical support and transport logistics. In scenarios, decentral medical support will be needed in a potentially hostile environment, including CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) threats. Current medical evacuation solutions are limited both in their available numbers and their usability in CBRN situations which contradicts the medical paradigm of the "golden hour" postulating immediate response to traumatic injury to guarantee the highest possible survival rates. A holistic and innovative approach is needed to enhance Europe’s preparedness.
In response to these needs, the user-driven concept of iMEDCAP sets out to design and develop a rescue system which facilitates the autonomous detection of injured personnel, the automatic definition of an evacuation and rescue strategy and an initial treatment in an interoperable patient box, equipped with diagnostic and intervention equipment, during transport under remote control. iMEDCAP brings together partners from the armed forces, universities, small and medium sized entities and industrial partners, sharing their expertise in their research fields and advancing their technologies and know-how towards a sophisticated solution. The final outcome of iMEDCAP will be the validation of the components and a roadmap for further development, laying the foundations for a modern and digital European rescue system.
While the iMEDCAP project is initiated in the defence sector, technical developments will reveal huge potential for intelligent solutions, facilitating autonomous rescue approaches not only limited to military scenarios, but also covering civil emergency scenarios like wildfire or nuclear incidents.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
A few weeks ago, together with our partner Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co. KG (KNDS) as well as the Bundeswehr Medical Academy and the Medical Squadron Bischofswiesen, we had the chance to carry out a military medical exercise at WTD61, within the context of the RASEVAC philosophy.
The aims of this worldwide unique exercise were to test digital processes within the rescue chain and to review the integration of “Robotics and Autonomous Systems” (RAS), i.e., the integration of the UAV Grille and the UGV THeMIS into the Bundeswehr's medical system.
The scenario was divided into three phases: In the first section, the UGV THeMIS was used to evacuate the wounded from the “hot zone”, i.e., from the place of injury to the casualty collection point (CCP). In the second phase, care was provided by a Bravo first responder at the scene. The final and last resort was to adequately load the wounded soldier into the rescue cabin of the UAV Grille. Particular attention was paid to emergency medical preparation of the injured person for unaccompanied transport.
Also developed by AVILUS, the software plugins for the SitaWare Suite of Systematic provide support in all phases described. We enable seamless, digital connection of all command levels and rescue assets involved in the operation. From the platoon commander at the CCP who digitally drops off the 9-Liner up to the soldier in the PECC (Patient Evacuation Coordination Cell) who checks and approves the automatically generated waypoint plan for UAVs and UGVs. All reports, mission plans, approvals as well as deployment and patient monitoring are integrated into the battle management system.
We are developing not only the unprotected ground control segment (U-PECC) but together with our partner KNDS, also a protected version of our control room (P-PECC), which will be integrated into the BOXER. The vehicle offers space for the HMI for mission dispatch, control and monitoring and is fully integrated into the digital network via BMS and military communications technology.
Together with our partner, the Institute of Flight System Dynamics of the Technical University of Munich, our team took on the challenge of carrying out a comprehensive overall test of our DRONEVAC system after just two years of development in order to verify the performance and reliability of our technology in real field use. The results of the first mission flights not only confirmed our high expectations, but also put our vision of UAV-based rescue missions into practice.
The main aspect of the overall test was the verification of a functional complementary instance in the established military rescue chain under real operational conditions. The overall test not only demonstrated the airworthiness of the Grille, but also showed integration possibilities for connection to the existing rescue infrastructure. One of the focal points was the interaction of UGV and UAV for tactically reasonable coverage of various mission phases. Particularly worth mentioning is the resilience against EMI, which was demonstrated during the tests with the support of the EloKa-units (electronic warfare). Multiple redundant, dissimilar LOS and BLOS C2-links as well as inertial navigation provide the necessary protection of the system against jamming.
The results have strengthened our belief that our DRONEVAC technology guarantees the safe execution of rescue operations. For this reason, it is crucial to continue testing under real-life conditions during development. The proximity to reality has provided us valuable experience and thus system requirements, which we will now implement in the next development iterations.
It is also important for us to emphasize that we put manual flights to the test as part of this overall test, which of course also opened up room for human error. During one of the many manually flown take-off maneuvers, an incorrect control input by the pilot caused the UAV to tilt, resulting in the loss of some rotor blades. In the coming weeks, we plan to put the next functional level of the flight control system into service in order to carry out the entire mission from take-off to landing fully automatically, as planned from the start of development. This will ensure maximum safety and efficiency.
To summarize, the overall test was a major milestone for AVILUS, and we are drawing even more energy from it for the road ahead. Once again, we were able to prove that anything is possible with the right resources, the support of a dedicated team and a shared belief in a mission.
We would like to thank all guests, visitors, interested parties and supporters of the "Grille/Cricket" project who attended the Day of the Bundeswehr in the medical academy in Munich and the information teaching exercise of the medical services of the Bundeswehr at the medical teaching regiment in Feldkirchen. During these project presentations, we had the opportunity, among others, to have a professional exchange with Minister of State Dr. Florian Herrmann and State Secretary Roland Weigert. In particular, the feedback and the constructive discussions with the troops themselves on these occasions give us the opportunity to further refine and adjust the operational concept and to adapt it to the soldiers in combat. Not only on site, but also in the media (Handelsblatt, Deutschlandfunk, Soldat und Technik, PC Welt, European Security and Technology, Augsburger Allgemeine) we were able to perceive an echo and are happy about the positive response from the public.
The past two years have been quite a journey. The vision originating from experts of the military evacuation chain has transformed into reality and thus, the company AVILUS could evolve from zero to more than 30 employees, three operational facilities and a full-scale prototype aircraft. So far, only a few privileged people have gotten more insight into the development activities, but this will finally change on Saturday, 17th of June, 10:00 AM! At the kind invitation of the organizers, we will present our product at the Day of the Armed Forces (Tag der Bundeswehr) taking place on the property of the Sanitätsakademie der Bundeswehr in Munich. We are looking forward to your visit!