AEGIS R&D Programme · DEFRA 574854
Five operational steps that turn a standard medical kit into an autonomous, drone-delivered prolonged field care system. From the Point of Injury to extended treatment — in under eight minutes.
In Large-Scale Combat Operations, the medical chain breaks. Air superiority is contested; helicopters cannot fly. Ambulances cannot get close. The only road into a disaster area is destroyed or blocked. Drones saturate the airspace. Evacuation windows stretch from minutes to 24 hours or more.
From a medical perspective the math is unforgiving: lifesaving interventions delivered too late do not improve survival. Blood must be given within 30 minutes of catastrophic haemorrhage. ResCura Tactical — through the AEGIS workflow — bridges that gap autonomously. Each step is timed, documented, and reproducible across operator skill levels.
A casualty occurs. The injury is sustained on the forward edge of the operating environment — combat zone, contested industrial site, or remote disaster area. GPS coordinates are auto-captured. The clock starts.
Until now, the next 60 minutes would determine survival. AEGIS shrinks that pressure window to a documented, repeatable sequence.
The first responder — buddy, combat medic, or trained operator — initiates immediate care at the Point of Injury. Haemorrhage control via tourniquet or wound packing. Airway management. Breathing assessment. The ABCDE sequence is begun.
In AEGIS configuration, the ResCura kit at the POI guides this phase: the screen activates on opening and walks even untrained personnel through correct intervention order.
The first responder transmits a structured 9-line CASEVAC report to medical command: casualty status, GPS location, injury type, vitals, and interventions performed.
In Pro configurations the report is transmitted automatically via 4G/LTE-M while the responder continues care. When uplink is available, an optional live telemedicine handshake opens — the medic at command can see live vitals (HR, RR, BP, SpO2) and bidirectional video from the kit's integrated camera, ready to guide the aid provider step-by-step through the next interventions.
Based on the received casualty report — and, where uplink is available, on the live vitals already streaming back — the medic at command rapidly configures a ResCura Tactical · Field kit with the exact contents required for that specific patient. This may include freeze-dried plasma for haemorrhagic shock, FAST IO devices for vascular access, advanced airway equipment, or surgical packs.
Critically, the medic also uploads case-specific protocols to the kit's touchscreen — dosages, sequence, and post-intervention assessments — so that whoever opens the kit at the POI has step-by-step instructions tailored to this casualty. If telemedicine remains available after delivery, the medic can continue to supervise the aid provider live (in development under the AEGIS R&D programme).
The configured ResCura Tactical · Field kit is loaded onto an autonomous delivery platform — typically a tactical drone with payload capacity of 2–4 kg and operational range up to 12 km. The kit is flown directly to the GPS coordinates of the POI, bypassing contested ground routes saturated by drones or denied to ambulances.
On arrival, the first responder opens the kit. The touchscreen activates with the medic's pre-loaded protocol. Extended care begins: intraosseous access via FAST IO, freeze-dried plasma transfusion within the 30-minute window, advanced airway, continued resuscitation. When uplink survives, the medic remains on the line via bidirectional video — guiding interventions live, watching vitals trend. The casualty is stabilised for MEDEVAC arrival, which may still be hours away.
When the kit arrives, this is the operational reality: an aid provider with limited medical knowledge, performing interventions outside their normal training, under time pressure, possibly under fire. The kit's job is to make every step explicit, sequenced, and recoverable from interruption. The medic's job — if uplink survives — is to be present without being on-site.
Explore the AEGIS workflow as a single tactical infograph — timeline, distances, coordinates and signal flow in one view.