Philip Underwood
I’m a Product Designer,
with several years experience in
Packaging, Cold Chain , and Product Development.
If you are interested in innovation, new market trends, or looking at the next chapter of your design project, feel free to get in touch.
Industry Project
Packaging Design
Medical Drone Delivery System
UNICEF Project
Whilst working for DGP Intelsius Ltd, we began to have a conversation with a German Drone manufacturer who were about to start a new project out in the pacific island chain nation of Vanuatu. The work they were doing was in partnership with UNICEF and the Ministry of Health of Vanuatu. The aim of the project was to improve and innovate the process of last mile delivery of pharmaceutical vaccines and other medicines throughout Vanuatu. The challenge the occupants of the Vanuatu currently faced was that all vaccines were brought to the remote villages on foot, resulting in nurses and other personnel having to trek up to 6-10 hours through the remote landscape and tackling dangerous terrain, resulting in injury, delays in receiving medical assistance and the temperature sensitive medicines coming out of spec and being deemed ineffective.
The solution, using a newly developed and unique eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off & Landing) Drone, the Wingcopter 178, to deliver vaccines to these remote villages. The Wingcopter drone is rather unique due to its tilt rotor system, allowing it to take off and land vertically, but fly like a plane, maximising energy efficiency, range and speed. The Wingcopter set the world record for the world’s fastest tilt rotor aircraft, achieving an average top speed of 240kph (149mph) and being able to do long range deliveries of up to a 100km (60miles).
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DGP Intelsius were brought in to develop something that we had never done before, design a temperature insulated, aerodynamic, biodegradable solution that could hold up to 70 vaccines (3.5kg) in a single compartment and that would be able to withstand the impact of the high winds in flight, high humidity, potential monsoon rains and external temperature of the climate and be light enough not to impede the drone in flight. As the only dedicated designer in the business, it was up to me to make this work. To minimise downtime and protect the drone and any villagers from getting too close to the drone’s rotor blades, it was deemed that the best way forward was to have the drone hover and lower the packaging solution to the ground. But with no real infrastructure in place, any packaging that was left there wold either be burnt, buried or end up in the sea. The business had already begun working on biodegradable packaging and I applied our learning to this project. Through the use of simulations, we were able to advise and design the system to maximise temperature stability duration from 2 hours to 10 hours without increasing the size or weight of the system. Through the use of innovative insulating materials, we were able to keep weight of the system to a minimum without compromising on system performance. The design of the outer corrugate system was, in the beginning, a complex piece of origami which took a long time to construct and was not up to requirements. Through constant insights into the project and feedback from the front lines, I was able to iterate designs and develop a truly unique system that required no additional plastic taping, components, and remove material to minimise weight. By working close with our suppliers to improve the design to make it mass manufacturable, we were able to deliver on time and make Wingcopters project in the Pacific a success.
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It brings me great joy to say that my design for the system helped make the Wingcopter drone delivery one of the first medical drone deliveries ever done in the pacific.
