Development and Implementation of a Safety Gateway for a Medical Evacuation eVTOL Aircraft

This paper presents a safety gateway for a medical evacuation eVTOL drone that determines the feasibility of a fully automated mission before uploading the mission to the onboard flight control computer. Software constraints on the flight guidance functions ensure the integrity of the trajectory generation and vertical takeoff and landing system. Furthermore, the gateway considers physical constraints such as the required energy consumption of the vehicle and static atmospheric conditions. As the drone is designed to be operated in non-segregated airspace, missions are also verified to be in compliance with Fly- and No-Fly-Zones. Fully autonomous missions of the evacuation drone have been performed in simulation. The gateway has proven to mitigate failures in mission planning and enhance the safety of the mission and the vehicle.