Innovative Alternatives to Lifting Overturned Military Vehicles

Abstract : Air Force Pararescue is tasked with rescuing the lives of downed soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. In many situations, the victim is trapped underneath large vehicles and other heavy objects. For instance, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, which can weigh up to 55,000 lbs, have in the past overturned, trapping people and sensitive equipment underneath. The current means of lifting the large weights is to use large and bulky pneumatic lifting bags. In an emergency situation when victims are often in need of immediate medical care, rescue personnel may not have time to use current lifting bag technology to lift the vehicles off of the victims. Instead of using these slow bags however, in many cases, the swiftest and most effective course of action is to amputate appendages in order to transport victims to medical care. Identifying the necessity to develop a better solution, the Air Force Research Laboratory solicited ideas from multiple universities to create a device that will lift a 45,000-55,000 lb object up to 24 while being packaged in a volume no greater than 12 x12 x6 . The USAFA Service Academy Challenge team has developed a means of solving the problem of quickly lifting the required weight to an acceptable height from a portable device.