Airborne Motorworks Air Ambulance

Air Ambulance
Airborne Motorworks Inc.
Spokane Valley, Washington, USA
www.airbornemotorworks.com

Airborne Motorworks was founded in 2014 and is based in Spokane, Washington, USA. The company's purpose is to make electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) flying cars for advanced air mobility (AAM) and other practical delivery drones urban and rural areas. The company also specializes in developing high performance electric powertrains. The company has developed artificial intelligence software capable of providing flight training and autopilot features called iPilot™. The core of Airborne Motorworks green propulsion technology is safety, utility, thrust capacity, stability, design freedom, battery life/power and efficiency.

The Research and Development facilities of the company are located in Spokane, Washington. Initial manufacturing will take place outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Corporate management is based in the greater Houston area in Texas, close to NASA.

In planning a trip with their eVTOL aircraft, the pilot can input their destination into iPilot™ and will see a virtual roadway appear on the windshield. A dashed center line will give drivers the impression of a highway in the sky, allowing them to stay on track during the flight. Airborne Motorworks will use a combination of cameras, LiDAR, and ultrasonic sensors to provide Spherical Visibility™ around vehicles at up to 820 feet (250 meters) of range.

Autopilot enables automatic steering, acceleration and braking on virtual roadways. These sensors will detect nearby hard and soft objects when they encroach on virtual lanes and they will provide guidance when parking. All Airborne Motorworks aircraft will have hardware for self-driving with safety as a priority. iPilot™ will allow short and long distance trips with minimal assistance from the pilot. Pilots simply need to tell their aircraft where to go.

The company has also designed, manufactured and patented their Electromagnetic Gyroscopic Propulsion (EGP) system which includes a shrouded nacelle with a propeller guard which includes the propeller-fan, electric motor, gyroscope and other electronics for a powerful yet stabilized flight. The company states their shrouded propellers produce 10 times the amount of thrust than a similar sized open propeller. The propeller assembly also has a redundant motor design.

The Airborne Motorworks Air Ambulance a remotely flown or autonomous medevac heavy-lift eVTOL passenger drone. The medevac passenger drone has a long thin fuselage holding one person and is powered by two propeller-fan assemblies located on each end of the aircraft providing forward, rear and vertical flight. The aircraft's long narrow size allows the aircraft to land in many inaccessible places to rescue an accident victim that an ambulance or helicopter could not go.

The cabin has one roof hatch on a hinge allowing rescuers to lower a patient on a stretcher into an aircraft and when it reaches its final destination, hospital personnel can open the hatch and remove the stretcher and patient. When the roof hatch is closed, the cabin is climate controlled allowing the patient to be comfortable when in flight, protects the patient from the fast moving air and any other type of inclement weather. It is unknown if there is an option to purchase factory installed medical equipment  when initially purchased, or if ambulance or fire departments will need to install their own medical equipment inside the cabin.

The aircraft can be deployed from a home base, a fire truck (or any large enough ground vehicle) or an aircraft. To operate the Air Ambulance, emergency personnel will input its destination and let the drone do the rest. Once a patient is safely inside the aircraft, the aircraft will be remotely or autonomously flown to a hospital or a doctor's office depending upon the condition of the patient. There will be a microphone and speakers inside the aircraft allowing emergency personnel and the patient to talk to each other.

The aircraft has fixed skid landing gear reducing the complexity and weight of the aircraft, making the aircraft inherently safer to fly. There are also several safety features and redundant systems on the drone as well. Because the aircraft is thin, it will be easy to store the eVTOL Air Ambulance.

Another advantage of this air ambulance, is if a patient is on a dangerous cliff or in some type of dangerous area, the patient can climb into the aircraft without endangering a rescuer being in the same dangerous area. In addition, in wartime use, the eVTOL air ambulance can be sent to a wounded soldier without risking another soldier's life being inside a war zone.

The company has not stated when a prototype will be flown or when they expect to see serial production of the Air Ambulance eVTOL medevac drone.

Specifications:

• Aircraft type: eVTOL air ambulance heavy-lift drone
• Piloting: Autonomous
• Capacity: 1 person
• Cruise speed: Unknown
• Range: Unknown
• Flight Time: Unknown
• Propellers: 2 propeller-fans
• Electric Motors: 2 electric motor (with a redundant motor design)
• Power source: Batteries
• Cabin: Holds 1 stretcher and has a cover on hinges over the cabin to protect the passenger during flight
• Fuselage: Unknown material, possibly carbon fiber
• Landing gear: 2 fixed landing skids
• Safety feature: The propeller-fan is in a shrouded nacelle with a propeller guard to prevent large items such as birds or people from being hit. The propeller-fan assembly uses a gyroscopic type of gimble suspension making the propeller-fan assembly extremely stable. There is a redundant motor design and a patented thrust system for emergency landings.

Company Insights:

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Resources:

• Airborne Motorsworks website
• Airborne Motorsworks Facebook
• Airborne Motorsworks Twitter
• Airborne Motorsworks YouTube Channel
• Airborne Motorsworks LinkedIn
• Video: eVTOL Issue: Thrust, Airborne Motorworks, Sept. 12, 2020
• Video: Stability, Airborne Motorworks, Sept. 12, 2020
• Video: Safety, Airborne Motorworks, Sept. 12, 2020
• Video: Design Issue: Flexibility, Airborne Motorworks, Sept. 12, 2020
• Video: Airborne: What We Do, Airborne Motorworks, Sept. 13, 2020