AFRL researchers demonstrate an aerial spray platform for preventing insect-borne illness in hostile environments.

AFRL demonstrated its Remotely Controlled Aerial Vehicle for Application of Pesticides (RCAVAP) at the Force Protection Equipment Demonstration (FPED) conducted at Quantico Marine Corps Base, Virginia. During times of war, disease has historically caused more deaths than bullets, far outnumbering any other cause. Consider, for example, the Mexican-American war. Over 1,000 soldiers were killed in action, 529 died of wounds sustained on the battlefield, 362 suffered accidental death, and 11,155 perished from disease— mostly yellow fever, a viral illness transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. During World War II, malaria ravaged the troops. Spread by the female anopheline mosquito, the disease affected thousands of American soldiers. More recently, a single 2-week period in Baqubah, Iraq, saw 250 cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disfiguring parasitic disease spread by the female sandfly.

Final configuration of prototype RCAVAP