Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, for accessing remote and hazardous areas. Raptopoulos had had his eureka moment over the possibilities opened up by drones two years earlier. The night before a presentation at Silicon Valleys Singularity University – which aims to encourage business leaders to use technology to solve humanitarian problems – it had struck him that a network of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could deliver medical supplies across parts of the developing world inaccessible by roads. That idea soon became a start-up called Matternet – a network for transporting matter – which aims to help the one billion people who do not have year-round access to roads. Raptopoulos said the new system will be used to leapfrog the building of infrastructure, in the same way as mobile networks have overtaken fixed lines in poorly connected countries. In this case, eight-propeller UAVs can be used to transport small items weighing up to 2kg, establishing a potentially life-saving connection decades before a modern road network could be built.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 15:43:28 +0000
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