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Standards Development
General requirements for external containers attached to un uncrewed aircraft (UA) suitable for transport of small quantity of materials, including dangerous goods (DG).
This document sets out requirements for designing, manufacturing, marking, testing, selecting and using means of containment for the transportation of Category A and Category B infectious substances in Class 6, Division 6.2 as defined by the UN.
Uncrewed aircraft (UA) are a suitable option for transport of small quantity of materials, including fluids, medical products (even psychoactive) or biological samples (e.g. untested human blood).
Several of these materials are considered dangerous goods (DG) by the United Nations (UN) whose Economic and Social Council's Committee of Experts on the Transport of DG has developed recommended model regulations on the subject, suitable for logistic purposes (e.g. temperature control) and also to ensure the safety of people, property and the environment, preventing the contact with DG.
Safe transport of DG by air is standardised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) however when the containers of DG are conveyed inside the fuselage of an aircraft.
Small UA have proved to be very attractive to transport medical supplies, including DG, not only to avoid congestion of ground vehicle traffic, but also to improve productivity inside large hospitals or to serve communities (e.g. small islands) towards which ground transportation is unpractical. In this case the payload is not inside the fuselage or other bay of the airframe, but instead it is an external container attached below the body of the UA.
Transport of DG by external containers attached to UA, may bring the operation into the certified category of UAS operations, which leads to additional costs and complexities for the UAS operator. However, in some jurisdictions, transport of DG by external containers attached to UA, may be conducted inside the much simpler and cheaper specific category, but only if the external container is crashproof.
This document may be an acceptable means of compliance to demonstrate the crashproof features of such external container.
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