Students develop life-saving drone

Queens students who designed a cutting edge drone to deliver critical supplies in disaster zones, are to pitch their design 'dragon's den' style next week.

The unmanned aircraft is designed to drop water and medical supplies, using its own in-flight system.

Undergraduates at the school of Mechanical and aerospace engineering designed the technology as part of their programme of study.

Shona McMahon, is a third year student and says the brief was difficult:

"It was pretty challenging.

"It has to do a lot altogether, the simplest thing is a speed-lap, it also has to drop payload while it's in the air, there's image recognition and autonomous navigation as well."

The designs were put through their paces during test flights in County Antrim and two of the teams travel to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers UAS challenge in Wales.

They will compete with other universities from throughout the UK and Europe.

Dr Joe Butterfield, lecturer from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who has been working closely with the students, said:

"This project emphasises the need for our engineers to be multidisciplinary designers.

"It requires them to understand the implications of integrated design work and the difference between what the answers are when they complete their calculations and simulations, and what it actually is when you construct the final system."

He continued: "Drones and drone design is a topical issue in general with the proliferation in systems for everything from delivery of consumer items to the inspection of oil lines and electrical systems, so our students will graduate from Queen’s, not only with a good grounding in the basic principles behind aircraft design, but also a wealth of knowledge when it comes to drone design."