Public Funding for Digital & Future Technologies Limited

Lift Off is a project to support the activities of Digital & Future Technologies Limited, post the successful culmination of the Morecambe Bay Medical Shuttle project - MBMS2\. MBMS2 worked to establish the business model and technical requirements for flying drones across Morecambe Bay between the hospitals of Furness General (Barrow), Westmorland (Kendal) and Lancaster Royal Infirmary, to carry and load share pathology samples moving between the three hospitals and their respective pathology departments. Owing to bureaucratic intransigence on the part of the Civil Aviation Authority, as discovered by all Phase 3 "demonstrator" projects, on the Future Flight Challenge, the CAA were not up to the task of facilitating the airspace necessary for the drones to fly. Furthermore after 3 years of the Future Flight Challenge, the CAA are only just making it possible for 6 "sandbox" projects to fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight in 2025! Commercial roll out of drones operating Beyond Visual Line of Sight of the operator is therefore limited in the UK, and operators must wait and sit on their hands, whilst the CAA catch up with the rest of Europe and the world. The Lift Off project is an internal project within Digital & Future Technologies Limited, with some external support, to define a league table of drone innovation across nations and to ascertain if the realisation of the business strategy, technologies and IP developed as part of the Morecambe Bay Medical Shuttle project may be faster to revenues through export deployment to markets that can accept the technology. We plan to run a 6 month programme of drone territory analysis, looking to see which countries have BVLOS facilitating legislation in place coupled with medical infrastructure to create a deployment landscape map and to start contacts and negotiations for our export technology roll out. The Lift Off project will blend commercialisation plan development with impact management and customer validation and testing and will provide a detailed roadmap of technological roll out to fill in the void left by the Civil Aviation Authority's inability to grasp the future and provide effective airspace and regulatory routes to enable BVLOS flight across the board within UK airspace. Price Waterhouse Coopers report "Skies without limits" estimates a contribution to the UK economy of £45Bn by 2030, it does not provide any guidance on factoring in the UK regulators intransigence, nor show how we are falling behind other nations.

Our vision for the Electric Airshows project is to provide a significant technical differentiator for the company, whilst also providing a new revenue stream and a new immersive media type for the creative sector. The key objectives for the project are to: * Identify existing IP in the focus area and secure new IP where possible * Undertake the development of a road-map to implement this new immersive technology * Generate accurate costings such that we can plan to develop the technology * Understand the market potential for the technology * Discuss and obtain feedback from market sources, the potential for the technology The main area of focus is that of Drone Light Shows(DLS). We have built our business from the ground up, carrying our extensive market research to identify and procure the most suitable drone for use in the UK skies as a DLS. We are one of only five companies to have achieved Civil Aviation Authority Operational Authorization to fly Drone Light Shows in UK Airspace. We have already provided a wide range of clients, from Goodwood House through to Alton Towers with their first integrated DLS, further increasing the appeal and technical delivery of their associated events. Our focus for the Electric Airshows project is to undertake market scoping activities to bring in a new means of integrating the audience with their Smart Phones into the world of DLS. We wish to deliver new content systems for the DLS, synchronously, to the audience members, irrespective of where the audience member is located. This does two key things: 1. It gives our business an incredible differentiator 2. It allows us to create a new media form, using imagery and in-sky video content, immersing the audience, irrespective of where the audience member may be located. This changes the game and allows event producers, artistic directors, advertisers and designers the ability to create Son-et-Lumiere's in the sky that any audience member who can see the show in the sky can now feel 100% immersed within the show using our new technologies, irrespective of their location. This is innovative as it allows us to deliver content to a geo-spatially distributed audience. For the first time, audiences who may not necessarily even be in the event where the DLS is performing, may now immerse themselves in the event through our newly developed technologies.

The CCRATE project takes the results of the company's long running physiological signal AI programme and develops a consumer health system for the establishment of continuous Blood Pressure analysis. The project uses new advances in AI to generate a Blood Pressure reading every 10 beats of the subject's heart without the need for an inflatable cuff. For too many years diagnosis of hypertension have been made through wholly unreliable, inaccurate, uncomfortable inflatable cuffs. We aim to change that and to create a solution that works for consumers using their smartphones paired with already certified stick on sensors. At just 17g the chosen sensor solution can be worn for 7 days and is showerproof. In that 7-day period we analyse typically around 600,000 heart data points and generate up to 60,000 Blood Pressure readings. This level of analysis has never previously been achieved on a consumer health device. The project develops the end to end data network between stick-on sensor and user's smartphone. It bridges the gap between app and medical device, and provides a new and novel means to analyse people's cardiac performance, their Blood Pressure and links it all to their Circadian Rhythm. Blood pressure fluctuates with a pattern that follows a circadian rhythm, with a peak in the early morning hours and a trough during sleep. This rhythm originates in a "master oscillator" located in the brain. This is the cutting edge of consumer healthcare, blending AI algorithms with advances in high-fidelity physiological measurements. The output of the project will be commercialised through partnerships with specific industry organisations and sectors. It is time we moved away from the inflatable cuff Blood Pressure device that is responsible for the onset of white coat hypertension as well as providing numerous questions over its reliability/suitability as a consumer health device.

The vision for the Morecambe Bay Medical Shuttle project is to demonstrate how, through new forms of transportation, the pathology services of three hospitals may be optimised. We aim to fly Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) as a shuttle between Lancaster Royal Infirmary, Furness General Hospital and Westmoreland General, delivering pathology samples between the hospitals, to speed up their processing and to provide better healthcare to the Morecambe Bay community that the hospitals service. The project is split into two phases: * Firstly we look to fly the RPAS solution between the three hospitals in segregated airspace. This is airspace that has been allocated to us by the CAA and marked as a Temporary Danger Area. This allows the RPAS to operate safely without any other airspace users being in the area at the time. We are already six months through the Airspace Change Process with the CAA, such that we have the paperwork in place prior to the projects commencement. The Temporary Danger Area can only exist for 90 days and as such our flight campaign will be limited to this 90 day window. At the end of the ninety days we expect to have gathered enough evidence to inform NHS England, through the Chief Sustainability Officer's office, with regards the performance improvement of the service and the NetZero contributions that RPAS operations across the Morecambe Bay geography may yield. * Secondly we look to extend the MBMS RPAS network to link up with the other three NHS trust's within the Lancashire and South Cumbria Pathology Partnership (North 3) network. This is one of 29 new NHS England Pathology networks, and will be the first network to utilise RPAS solutions across the geography of the network. A second Temporary Danger Area network will be established and RPAS will be flown under the auspices of the North 3 network management. Looking to deliver processing time optimisations for the entire North 3 pathology network, the initial phase 1 results will be tested in a much larger network environment. At the end of this second phase of works the effects of scaling up are again reported to NHS England who are then able to look at cost savings on a national scale. MBMS aligns the ambitions of the Future Flight Challenge with the ambitions of NHS England & NHS Improvement with regards NetZero and creating the pathology networks of the future.

The vision for the Morecambe Bay Medical Shuttle project is to demonstrate how, through new forms of transportation, the pathology services of three hospitals may be optimised. We aim to fly Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) as a shuttle between Lancaster Royal Infirmary, Furness General Hospital and Westmoreland General, delivering pathology samples between the hospitals, to speed up their processing and to provide better healthcare to the Morecambe Bay community that the hospitals service. The project is split into two phases: * Firstly we look to fly the RPAS solution between the three hospitals in segregated airspace. This is airspace that has been allocated to us by the CAA and marked as a Temporary Danger Area. This allows the RPAS to operate safely without any other airspace users being in the area at the time. We are already six months through the Airspace Change Process with the CAA, such that we have the paperwork in place prior to the projects commencement. The Temporary Danger Area can only exist for 90 days and as such our flight campaign will be limited to this 90 day window. At the end of the ninety days we expect to have gathered enough evidence to inform NHS England, through the Chief Sustainability Officer's office, with regards the performance improvement of the service and the NetZero contributions that RPAS operations across the Morecambe Bay geography may yield. * Secondly we look to learn from the MBMS drone flying experience and to model how a future RPAS network may link up with the other three NHS trust's within the Lancashire and South Cumbria Pathology Partnership (North 3) network. This is one of 29 new NHS England Pathology networks, and will be the first network to utilise RPAS solutions across the geography of the network. The initial phase 1 results will be modelled within a much larger network environment. At the end of this second phase of works the effects of scaling up are again reported to NHS England who are then able to look at cost savings on a national scale. MBMS aligns the ambitions of the Future Flight Challenge with the ambitions of NHS England & NHS Improvement with regards NetZero and creating the pathology networks of the future.

APEC is a Machine Learning Project using Artificial Intelligence to probe the world of ECG signals. We use the power of Google's Deepmind to probe, analyse and pattern match almost 100,000 publicly accessible ECG signals. The aims of APEC are to establish if there are hidden bio-markers within the ECG signals that can help us understand the cardiovascular system better. This could be understanding how the vascular system is operating in terms of arterial elasticity, blood viscosity etc. APEC builds on the companies works to date of establishing multiple physiological parameters from wearable technologies such as smart-watches and fit bits. We use the latest Artificial Intelligence thinking to look for patterns from one physiological parameter to another, which may not have been recorded. This enables us to create a system where the whole health of the individual may be recorded continuously and trended allowing for true performance scoring to take place. Using data visualisation software from F1 Motorsport we link the data that APEC is processing to a realisation system allowing us to visualise how one part of the physiological system is affecting the other. The outputs of APEC are simply an algorithm, but one that can see predict physiological performance based on the ECG system data being fed into it. This is novel and is very applicable to the smart-watch market with Apple enabling the Apple Watch 4, in Europe, to record ECG in the last few months. We all live in a busy world where getting to see a doctor and having readings on our physiology performed in the doctors surgery are getting harder to achieve owing to demand out stripping supply. We believe that the works undertaken as part of the APEC project will allow for some of these performance physiological markers to be recorded on smart-watches and uploaded to the cloud to provide trending and analysis that can then be reviewed online by your GP or family doctor. We are in effect through APEC working to optimise the way in which we acquire and present physiological performance data to our clinicians. We still have a long way to go, but APEC provides an exciting look into the world of physiological monitoring and using Machine Learning to see if there are aspects of the ECG signal - the hearts electrical system - that we currently do not understand or even realise that they are there.

The APLAUSE project focuses on the emerging UAV drone delivery market. The project looks to build on our engineering works to support Unmanned Air Vehicles during the COVID-19 pandemic for the NHS. We have been working with the NHS, flying UAV's carrying COVID-19 samples, PPE and other biological agents between pathology labs and hospitals. APLAUSE takes these works and looks to build automated loading and unloading systems for UAV's, providing a new man to machine interface. UAV's are inherently dangerous. At the moment they are manually flown by pilots at each end of the flight. Landing is a manual operation and the loading/unloading phase only happens when pilot calls out that all is clear. This is a commitment the pilot has to do as detailed in their operations manual as approved by the CAA. Our vision for the project it to take the learnings from our previous endeavours working with our partners within the NHS and create and automated loading and unloading system for UAV's that will stand the test of time and allow us to work with the CAA as they move from manual control of UAV's through to automatic, where one pilot flies the UAV remotely all the way and then on to autonomous mode where one pilot is overseeing 15 UAV's in flight at any one time. Our key objectives are to build a working demonstrator system, funded with help from the public purse, that enables us to demonstrate how a UAV may unload and load new cargo, whilst operating within a closed aviation environment. By doing this we will be propelling the UK forward as a country with innovative solutions for the UAV industry with a focus on parcel delivery solutions. Our main area of focus is on the loading and unloading of goods and power sources on to UAV's to enable remote operated parcel delivery flights to be fully automated. We need to create a safe environment to automate the loading and unloading of UAV's that complies to aviation and commercial needs and regulations. APLAUSE is innovative as it builds on our initial UAV flights, made under COVID-19, utilises the opportunity that the CAA has afforded us,with regards flying in a pandemic, and takes a significant step forward for the UK UAV and robotics industries alike, building a solution that can be adapted to changes in UAV airframe and commercial context alike.

Unmanned Air Vehicles (drones) offer a huge opportunity to add a new layer to every country's established transport infrastructure by providing delivery and transport services directly to the customer, amongst many other applications. This relieves pressure on road networks, which are already at full capacity in most urban areas. The implementation of such drone services in any town will require the active cooperation and involvement of both the Local Council and the residents. However, both these groups are likely to be highly resistant to the introduction of drone services with regards safety, privacy and noise (as well as the natural resistance to change). The FUSE project creates an Unmanned aircraft Traffic Management System (UTM) simulator. A "digital twin" built using the latest technologies, it blends aviation, gaming, simulation, and Geographic Information Systems to create a synthetic environment within which strategies, laws and platforms for electric aviation may be tested out. Such simulations can then be run using FUSE's inbuilt Unmanned Traffic Management simulator to test the co-ordination of all urban air traffic. Being built out of an already published gaming flight simulator, FUSE allows us to design from the ground up, the first 400' of urban airspace, tackling the concerns of Air-Space Regulators, Local Government and the public alike. The FUSE Project provides a synthetic environment through an immersive 3D simulation of a real airport, which will can be used by: * the Air Traffic Management, the UTM vendors and delivery companies to establish and test the implementation of the Local Authority preferred schemes of operation. This will require for instance the establishment of local depots (mobile, or on the edge of town) from which the drones can pick up their loads for the 'last-mile' delivery service. * the Air Traffic Management authorities to test the safety of the Unmanned Traffic Management services when considered in combination with other airspace users (police and ambulance helicopter services as well as normal aircraft operations). * the Drone Developers, Air Traffic Management and UTM vendors to establish and test drone air lanes as well as autonomous collision avoidance rules-of-the-road to allow drones to safely occupy the same airspace. * the Local Authority to develop schemes and supportive legislation such that drones may be limited to operations below 400' with no more than 200 sorties per day in a specific area and within the operating hours of 8am to 8pm. Drones may not operate below 300' over parks or gardens and wherever possible drones must follow the road network. Medical deliveries and blue light services will always take priority. * the Local Authority to conduct public consultations to demonstrate the effect of the proposed service from any geographical point in terms of noise and visual impact. The FUSE Project is innovative, as not only does it develop a UTM simulator, allowing for scenario planning and load testing of UTM systems, it also will bring the Local Authority and the residents into the picture, allowing them to help shape this new transport revolution that will be implemented in their area. This is likely to lead to much faster acceptance and adoption. FUSE takes a "system-of-systems" approach to enable us to test UTM systems and run simulations that: * Set flight levels and limits on operations. * Balance commercial potential with environmental impact. * Engage and take the public with us on this journey. * Help develop legal model articles to regulate urban airspace. * Publish operational routes from the Local Authority into the UTM system. FUSE generates a UTM simulator with the ability to design strategies for Urban Airspace, allowing |Local Authorities to connect with the aviation regulators in a comprehensive and educated manner.

ARRROWS, we believe, is a first. ARRROWS takes the best in road based route planning and combines this with optimised drone route planning to provide a multi-modal transport optimisation system designed to load balance the testing of COVID-19 samples across a target NHS Trust. Currently within our NHS partner COVID-19 samples are sent for testing at a range of Pathology Labs across their geographic region, serving a population of 750,000 patients and over 250 GP practices. During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, all tests across the NHS Trust area have been sent to a main local hospital for analysis. This has swamped the pathology lab there and as such non-COVID-19 samples have been sent back to another local commercial pathology labb to load balance the pathology services across the trust. This has led to a significant increase in the amount of road transportation used to send samples from one lab to the other. To maintain the testing throughput has meant that this exchange of samples has led to some less than ideal situations resulting from laboratory operating times and courier availability. If a sample arrives at 4.59pm and makes the last courier, it will arrive for testing at the correct lab within 45 minutes. If it arrives at 5.01pm and the last courier has already left it must wait until 9.01am the next morning before it can be dispatched to the correct lab, adding an additional 16 hours before arriving at the right lab for testing. Working with our NHS drone flight partners, we have obtained Civil Aviation Authority permission to fly 3m wingspan drones between the pathology labs and by the time of this application's assessment we should be flying up to 6 round trip flights a day carrying 6kg of samples. The distance between the two main pathology labs is 20.2 miles taking 39 minutes each trip. Using the drones to fly the samples between labs saves 240 miles of road transportation a day, or 89.31Kg of CO2 per day; this then extrapolates up to 36.2 tonnes of CO2 annually. Using drones charged from solar has meant we have reduced the operational carbon footprint to zero. We are working with the trust to optimise COVID-19 testing across all of the trusts geographic area. We have identified an initial 10 further locations where we can operate drones from (according to the CAA's current risk apetite) but we need to undertake ARRROWS to work out the routing and optimisation to blend drone and courier transport to maximum effect and carbon reduction. We will use machine learning algorithms and monte-carlo simulations to calculate the optimal routing for both land/air journeys enabling us to create the optimal strategy for COVID-19 pathology processing with the lowest CO2 emissions practically achievable. This is innovative, as for the first time we are combining established land optimisation algorithms with our own drone routing operations, with the overarching aim of load balancing COVID-19 testing prior to the second wave, whilst reducing the carbon footprint as much as possible

CAPE is a Machine Learning Project using Artificial Intelligence to probe the world of ECG signals. We use the power of Google's Deepmind to probe, analyse and pattern match almost 100,000 publicly accessible ECG signals. The aims of CAPE are to establish if there are hidden bio-markers within the ECG signals that can help us understand the cardiovascular system better. This could be understanding how the vascular system is operating in terms of arterial elasticity, blood viscosity etc. CAPE builds on the companies works to date of establishing multiple physiological parameters from wearable technologies such as smart-watches and fit bits. We use the latest Artificial Intelligence thinking to look for patterns from one physiological parameter to another, which may not have been recorded. This enables us to create a system where the whole health of the individual may be recorded continuously and trended allowing for true performance scoring to take place. Using data visualisation software from F1 Motorsport we link the data that CAPE is processing to a realisation system allowing us to visualise how one part of the physiological system is affecting the other. The outputs of CAPE are simply an algorithm, but one that can see predict physiological performance based on the ECG system data being fed into it. This is novel and is very applicable to the smart-watch market with Apple enabling the Apple Watch 4, in Europe, to record ECG in the last few months. We all live in a busy world where getting to see a doctor and having readings on our physiology performed in the doctors surgery are getting harder to achieve owing to demand our stripping supply. We believe that the works undertaken as part of the CAPE project will allow for some of these performance physiological markers to be recorded on smart-watches and uploaded to the cloud to provide trending and analysis that can then be reviewed online by your GP or family doctor. We are in effect through CAPE working to optimise the way in which we acquire and present physiological performance data to our clinicians. We still have a long way to go, but CAPE provides an exciting look into the world of physiological monitoring and using Machine Learning to see if there are aspects of the ECG signal - the hearts electrical system - that we currently do not understand or even realise that they are there.

Open Data provides an opportunity to establish new forms of temporary power systems control. Working with an external expert, Digital & Future Technologies, aim to understand the cloud based opportunities for the monitoring of external temporary power equipment, both from an operational point of view, through to an adverse event warning system, and providing potentially an extra level of security through GPS tracking. The project looks to take an existing range of projects where the data is confined to a private Intranet and look to see how exporting the data through 3G or GSM services may be implemented.

Power generation for temporary situations is normally reliant on high output diesel generators. In recent years the push to produce more energy efficient ancillary equipment, such as LED lighting, has reduceed the demand on the larger diesel generator sets. This project looks to provide wireless remote control of small format gas powered generators, such that a mesh network is automatically formed that allows second tier applications such as CCTV, Lighting and Audio to be provided over the mesh network being generated. The mesh network also facilitates the ability to provide control of the generation systems themselves, the loading upon them, and the fuel burn rate being consumed. In such a manner the system provides a more dynamic and progressive means to provide temporary power across multiple industry sectors whilst embracing currently unsuported power saving technologies.