Casualty evacuation using unmanned vehicles

Authors:

  • Jouni Rantakokko
  • Marianela Garcia Lozano
  • Gustav Tolt
  • Lina Thors
  • Anders Bucht

Publish date: 2022-02-08

Report number: FOI-R--5288--SE

Pages: 109

Written in: Swedish

Keywords:

  • UAV
  • UGV
  • unmanned
  • autonomous
  • CASEVAC
  • MEDEVAC
  • triage
  • robot-assisted
  • vital parameters

Abstract

The military health care system is part of the logistics function. The medical service on the operational level depends heavily on a national civil-military collaboration and there is a need for support from, and cooperation with, the civil parts of the total defence system. On the tactical level, emergency care and evacuation capabilities are the responsibility of the individual branches of defence. The evacuation capacity is deemed insufficent today, both at the operational and tactical levels. Unmanned casualty evacuation vehicles have the potential to increase the casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) capacity in a cost efficient manner. When unmanned logistic vehicles enters service it is merely a matter of time before they are also being utilized to perform CASEVAC missions. Hence, it is critical to increase the body of knowledge regarding the risks associated with unmanned CASEVAC. Moreover, there is a window of opportunity to influence the requirements on future logistics platforms so that they become better suited to perform such missions. This report analyzes and describes identified opportunities and challenges associated with the use of unmanned vehicles when performing CASEVAC in a Swedish military context. The possibilities with robot-assisted triage on the point of injury and casualty collection point as a means to support the combat medics and medical teams are also described. No major technical, ethical or legal obstacles that prevents the use of unmanned CASEVAC with teleoperated vehicles have been identified during this work as long as a relative risk analysis has been performed that indicates that such a transport is beneficial for the injured soldier. Current legal regulations do not allow for the use of autonomous systems for CASEVAC or advanced en route care technologies. Furthermore, methodological and organizational challenges also need to be addressed to allow for efficient use of unmanned vehicles for CASEVAC.