Blue Jay Eindhoven: world's first help-drone for healthcare

Prof dr.ir. Maarten Steinbuch - Scientific director TU/e High Tech Systems Center 

"Blue Jay's general-purpose drone platform enables brilliant idea's to make a real impact on society, in home, elderly care, services etc!"

Jan Mengelers - President Eindhoven University of Technology 

"Blue Jay's TU/e-top students are using technology to make a real difference in society. They are great at building the innovative power of faculties across the university to make products that have never existed."

Rob van Gijzel - Ex- Mayor of the city of Eindhoven, Chairman of Brainport Foundation

"Blue Jay is an excellent example of Eindhoven's innovative force: 18 bright minds working together on the newest groundbreaking technologies with great potential for society."

Eric van Dorst - CTO VANBERLO Design

"Flying drones have several advantages for domestic environments over non-flying robots that are used indoors nowaday. Blue Jay Eindhoven has a clear vision on the future of drones."

Blue Jay operates since September 2015, and currently consists of a team of 19 top students from different faculties across the Eindhoven University of Technology and Fontys University of Applied Sciences, both national and international. Our multi-disciplinary team is driven to show the potential of drones in indoor environments, in which they can really make a difference.

Diversity makes our team special and passion for technology is our common strength. We believe that fast progress in development is made when extremes meet. Leaps forward can only be found in out of the box combinations, crazy ideas, motivated people and a lot of hard work.

Why?

Innovation in healthcare is needed. 

For example: Our society is ageing. We found out that in the coming years the number of elderly people in our country will continue to rise. The amount of people older than 65 years will rise from 2.7 million to 4.7 million within only 15 years. In 2012 there were four employed persons supporting every elderly person, in 2041 this amount is reduced to only two.  

Only looking at this example. What will this mean for the caregivers, and the people needing daily care? 

We can conclude that a shortage of caregivers is a big source of existing problems in health care. And this is what we want to change. Because being ill or disabled is already tough enough. Everyone should be able to get the help they need. And we believe that the help that our drone alone could offer can make a huge difference. 

What?

Team Blue Jay creates world's first domestic drone. A drone that helps an elderly person, a person with a severe disease or a person in a wheelchair in their needed daily care. Our drone is built to complement people, and to support them in their daily lives. Our drone can be around people who need extra care 24/7. Putting small but important tasks in the hands of our technology means that human caretakers can have more time on their hands to interact with the subjects. 

With the healthcare application in our mind, we've put a major emphasis on improving interaction between our drones and humans, making the drone more social. A domestic drone is nothing without a friendly behaviour. The drone should have its own identity.

Can a drone be social and interact with patients? That is what Blue Jay would like to find out. 

How?

To prove the concept of a safe and social drone, that flies around and helps you with small daily tasks, we will create a pilot in a hospital in the area of Eindhoven in the beginning of June 2017. 

In this pilot, we create a game of Tic, Tac, Toe for children from the hospital: Drone, tac, toe! Children can play the life-size game together with the drone. With this, we can get a big step closer to our social, autonomous, safe and helpful drone that contributes to a better life. And of course, we want to organise a great day for the children, parents and caregivers in the hospital. Because being ill is already tough enough. 

To achieve a groundbreaking innovation like this, we need your help.

Donate to our project, and contribute to the future of a helpful, safe, autonomous and social indoor drone technology! Contribute to a great demonstration for the people who could need some extra help. 

#dronesforhealthcare