TULSA, Okla. — The Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education hosted a public flight demonstration at OSU-Tulsa on Tuesday.
What is OAIRE?
Division of OSU aiming to be the global leader in emerging aerospace technologies through research, scholarship and service
The Tulsa Fire Department simulated a first-response scenario and how a drone flight and robotic dog can help. Crews acted out helping a "patient" who needed to be removed from a vehicle and was suffering from blood loss.
"The drone was able to bring the blood from a hospital to a landing point, and that robotic dog was able to bring it into the scene to us," said Gabriel Graveline, EMS Officer with TFD.
Graveline said it is more economical to transport blood via drone than keeping it in the fleet.
"Having that brought to us directly as opposed to us having to store it in the vehicles," said Graveline. "There's temperature checks that has to be done, all kinds of maintenance that comes with that. So if we can get it directly from the hospital over to us, that'd be a game changer."
Graveline said the robots make things safer for both first responders and the community.
"For our citizens, it's huge. It reduces our liability as far as having to send multimillion dollar apparatus across town to respond to these, makes us more efficient," said Graveline. "Helps us to have tax payers money for the long run."
The robotic dog used is called "Spot" by Boston Dynamics. It was powered by a remote control on Tuesday, but crews said it is capable of being fully autonomous. Graveline envisions "Spot" as being able to transport more than just blood but also devices, kits, and even organs.
"Being able to save a life, being able to send a robot into harm's way as opposed to a person, you can't put a price on that," said Graveline.
Tulsa fire said the department started using drones in 2015 and is excited to adopt more cutting-edge technologies. TFD aims to roll out "Spot" by summer.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --
- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices.
- Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- SUBSCRIBE on YouTube
