Advanced Blood Transportation Containers

Recent experience has shown that service members who received blood products after sustaining severe injuries had high survival rates. Maintaining blood supply lines will prove difficult as the possibility of a future near-peer conflict looms. In such a scenario, the U.S. military may lack the theater-wide air superiority necessary to conduct expeditious battlefield MEDEVAC, stressing supply chains and underlining the importance of prolonged field care solutions. To meet this challenge, methods for extending blood product supply lifespan and optimizing logistical chain circulation are needed. Triton Systems, Inc. will demonstrate both non-powered technology and low-powered cooling technology to achieve the best cooling performance while minimizing size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C). Designs will reflect the likely modes of transportation (dismounted warfighter, ground vehicle, aircraft, UAV, etc.) and focus on protection of the blood products. Triton has leveraged multiple cooling technologies to create a modular series of containers that will be prototyped. Currently, smaller blood transportation systems carried by a medic rely on phase change materials (solid ice to liquid water, etc.) and are limited to shorter lifetimes based on their limited cooling capabilities. As Role 1 and Role 2 care have the potential to become more remote or in locations with less infrastructure than has been previously seen, it will not always be possible to rely on fast blood resupply. There is a vital need to extend duration of smaller blood transportation and storage systems without adding burden to the medic in the form of increased overall size and weight of a transportation system. Triton has developed a technology to extend the life of non-powered cooling systems, requiring no preconditioning of containers. Larger cooling containers, such as the AX56L, rely on vapor compression cooling, limiting range of orientation and temperature control. Similar to the need for extended duration containers, there is also a potential need to have coolers that can operate in extreme freezing conditions, something that is not possible with typical VC systems. Rather than creating a separate storage system needed for cold ambient temperatures, Triton has developed designs for a container system that can stabilize interior temperatures for blood storage in both hot and cold environments.