Scout drone: a drone-helicopter collaboration to support HEMS missions

Abstract

The paper presents the idea to exploit the collaboration between unmanned VTOL drones and helicopters to increase the situational awareness of helicopter employed in emergency, medical or search and rescue missions. The need for this collaboration is initially presented in the introduction. Then, after performing a review of the current state of the art that indicates that no system of this type is currently under development, the principles of operation of such a system are expressed together with a first brief description of possible concepts of operation. Finally, some preliminary thought on two of the most relevant elements of this system, the drone and the control station are presented.