Drone Maker Creates Ventilators For The War On Coronavirus

Across the world, people breathlessly await to see what extraordinary measures it will take to survive the pandemic. Turkey’s Baykar, makers of the Bayraktar-TB drone, has turned its engineering expertise to the rapid iteration and mass production of ventilators for hospitals.

“To support the health authorities and to assist our citizens we shifted key engineers to develop respiratory equipment,” announced Baykar general manager Haluk Bayraktar. Working with other parts of Turkish industry, the team coordinated 100 engineers to design respiratory ventilators, with prototypes entering mass production.

Bayraktar claimed the production cost for these new ventilators at $6,500. While some ventilator designs have been developed to cost less than $4,000, and cheaper ventilator designs are underway across the globe, nations like the United States are negotiating deals for bulk purchases of ventilators at around $18,000 apiece.

Read the full story and more in Forbes.