A single unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV could dart over the lush canopy with a vial of lifesaving anti-venom, and a nonprofit called WeRobotics is trying to make that a reality. Last September, the company, which aims to use technology for humanitarian purposes, started testing drones that might be able to deliver small emergency supplies, like anti-venom, on that Pampa Hermosa-Contamana run.
But the initial testing, in December, which WeRobotics describes in a report released Monday, was off to a rocky start. WeRobotics had acquired a specialized cargo drone that can land and take off vertically, a useful ability in a region where large open spaces are rare. The large drone can carry a roughly 5 pound payload and range as far as 37 miles. It's an impressive robot.
The only problem was that the $40,000 rig wouldn't fly once WeRobotics set it up in Contamana. "It was incredibly depressing. We were like, holy cow, this is a complete disaster," says Patrick Meier, a co-founder of WeRobotics, which is funded mainly by grants and donations.
The team had another drone with it, an old flier strapped together with duct tape and originally designed for mapping and aerial imagery work. "Our Peruvian flying labs team just happened to have this old, beat-up mapping drone," Meier says. It's a lot smaller and can carry only a quarter of the weight the other drone can, but it worked. All the team did was yank out the camera, replace it with a vial of anti-venom and launch it off in the afternoon for the Pampa Hermosa-Contamana test flight. It got to Pampa Hermosa in just over half an hour, and it flew back that night
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