COVID innovation: a flying rescue vehicle

I love to look for the silver lining in difficult situations. One positive that’s come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is that many talented people have had time to think about solving issues we face in the world. Today I want to share the inspiring story of one of these people: Tony Parez-Edo Martin.

Tony is a designer who lives in Paris. He believes that we all have a role in responding to the COVID crisis, and he was inspired by innovative solutions that were popping up in the early days of the pandemic. He was first thinking he wanted to contribute by developing a ventilator. Then one day while riding his bike, a new idea emerged. He saw an ambulance go by – at full speed. He realized that was something he rarely saw, as the city streets were normally packed with vehicles. With citizens in lockdown, the ambulance did not have to contend with traffic and therefore could quickly get the patient to the hospital. Tony thought to himself that it should always be like this, that ambulances should not have to be limited by the infrastructure on the ground. And so his idea was born: an autonomous flying rescue vehicle.

Tony embarked on creating a solution to rapidly and safely transport patients from incident to hospital. He wanted something that could vertically take off so that no runway was required, and that could easily arrive at the front door of a hospital. He took design inspiration from nature, and surrounded himself virtually with technology and experts to bring his vision to life. Ultimately, he named his product the E-way Rescue Roadster.

The high-performance design, digital simulation and collaboration tools offered within the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud were fundamental to this project. It allowed Tony to assemble a virtual team of product designers, mechanical engineers and doctors at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to collaborate on his idea. It was important for this group to work closely together since any flying system is a challenging multidisciplinary system and every decision made affects other subsystems. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform helps each stakeholder to see all changes in real-time, keeping the project on track without losing time due to people working on different versions. Being on the cloud facilitates easy sharing of ideas and collaboration to overcome challenges.

As the design process evolved and more voices were heard, the original mission of the project was refined. The team continues to fine-tune the prototype to create an optimized, more realistic product that may have uses beyond what it was originally envisioned for in healthcare response.

We created a 4-part documentary-style video series showing how Tony came up with the idea, how he worked through initial design and testing and how he teamed with many people to bring his idea to life. Watch below, and visit this page to discover the 3D model of the E-way Rescue Roadster.

Episode 1: Concept Definition

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