SAIT students invent flying emergency rescue vehicle, codenamed Skywalker

Four SAIT students have invented a flying emergency vehicle designed to rescuepeople from highrise buildings.

CodenamedSkywalker, the levitating contraptionlooks like a regular drone, only it's the size of a sedan and flies up to an altitude of 800 metres.

With a pilot at the helm, the vehicle canrescue up to six passengers at a time or deploy firefighters and their equipment to whatever floor necessary, said Nghia Vu in an interview withthe Calgary EyeopeneronWednesday.

Also known as the AERO-V, or Aerial Emergency Rescue Operation Vehicle, the project was recognized as a finalist in the Capstone Project of the Year Awards, hosted by the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta (ASET).

Vu and his three team members,JingyanSu,Thien Nguyen and Sikwon Yang, were inspired by thetragic events of 9/11and the relative lack of innovation in rescue options over the past century, Vu said.

"People have been thinking outside the box for a long time," Vu said. "Butthanks to innovators like Elon Musk driving down costs of units for electrical components, and the proliferation of household drones for stabilization control, allthe technology that exists today right now is converging to the point where this becomes commercially feasible."

ASET CEO Barry Cavanaugh said the idea is "long overdue."

"This ... represents a brilliant and critical solution for potentially life-threatening situations, such as what happened on September11 almost two decades ago. It's an idea whose time has come and is long overdue," Cavanaugh said in a news release.

The specs

The vehicle can move up, down, and sideways thanks to a200-kwH battery, more than twice the size of that used in the Tesla Model 3, Vu said.

To ensure that it could navigate dense cities, the AERO-V was designed using the limiting dimensions of a standard firetruck.

It'smeant to be transported to the site by an emergency vehicle or trailer, where it can be set up and ready for operations in minutes, Vu said.

Now Vu'steam just needs the financial backing to make this design a reality.

The team has been showcasing their design to investors and fabricators, and they're accepting bids for building a working prototype.

A tight-lipped Vu wouldn't reveal how much the AERO-V would cost to bring to market, but he did say this.

"It's not inexpensive, but if a fire truck for the City of Calgary costs $1.2 million to have, we can say that, commercially, you can have two of our units for the same price."