Drone Delivery

Don’t look now, but Amazon’s beleaguered drone delivery program, Prime Air, is finally beginning to show signs of life. The company announced today that customers in Lockeford, California, will be among the first in the US to see Amazon drones delivering packages in their backyards.

Walmart-backed drone delivery operator DroneUp is joining forces with Israel-based FlightOps to scale up its operations and fly multiple drones in shared airspace from anywhere on the globe.

Pioneering drone delivery company Zipline is again striving to break new ground in – and for – autonomous UAV operation by unveiling its new, acoustic-based detect and avoid (DAA) platform allowing craft to identify and evade aerial risks from up to two miles away.

After over two years of continuous medical drone delivery operations across Africa, Australia’s Swoop Aero has completed a $16 million Series B funding round. But what’s even more impressive is that the logistics startup had the confidence to reject a $100 million takeover offer from a US-based defense company, halfway through the round.

Draganfly has announced a new delivery drone called Heavy Lift, which can transport packages weighing up to 67 pounds (30kg) to customers within 18 miles (30km). The Canadian drone manufacturer said over two decades of industry experience has gone into making this engineering feat possible. In addition, Draganfly has launched a long-range laser scanning system that can produce survey-grade point cloud data.

California-based drone logistics company Matternet, which has been working successfully with Swiss Post since 2017, says it will take over drone delivery operations from Switzerland’s national postal service starting January 1, 2023. In addition, Matternet will leverage its experience from operations in Switzerland to build Europe’s first city-wide drone delivery network.

Toronto-based drone logistics firm Drone Delivery Canada has received Transport Canada’s nod to conduct beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone delivery operations for the University of British Columbia’s Remote Communities Drone Transport Initiative (DTI) program.

Medical drone delivery operator Spright is teaming up with Latin America aviation company Synerjet in what they believe will be a major step toward expanding access to healthcare services across Brazil.

We’re working toward a future where passenger air taxis and drone deliveries are to become a part of everyday mobility. But how will these autonomous systems access important information, such as deteriorating weather conditions, to complete each flight safely? To address this issue, NASA researchers are exploring the creation of a decentralized data and reasoning hub that would help autonomous aircraft to make critical safety decisions rapidly.

Retailing giant Walmart is shifting its aerial partnership with DroneUp into higher gear with its announcement today of expanded drone delivery services to a potential of 4 million households across six US states.

Talk about beyond visual line of sight. Swoop Aero has won approval from Australia’s Civil Aviation and Safety Authority (CASA) to operate a centralized facility that will allow employees of the drone delivery company to remotely pilot up to five different UAVs over three different continents at once.

With diabetes patients in Ukraine’s conflict zones cut off from insulin supplies, drones are being roped in to deliver life-saving medication to the people who need it the most.

Israeli on-demand drone delivery specialist Flytrex has expanded its roster of client businesses in its showcase North Carolina operation by adding orders from sub sandwich maker Jersey Mike’s to the array of items it is flying to consumers’ backyards.

The official Twitter account of Canada’s Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) asked its 50K+ followers an all-important question this week: “How are illegal guns reaching the hands of criminals in Canada?” But the department already knew part of the answer, thanks to a drone that had seemingly crossed the border from the United States carrying a shopping bag full of Glock semiautomatic pistols.

Australian logistics and on-demand drone delivery specialist Swoop Aero has struck a partnership with global parcel giant UPS to expand and accelerate its distribution of healthcare supplies in Malawi, and over time elsewhere in the world.

Urban-Air Port, the London-based developer of vertiports for delivery drones and electronic takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles like air taxis, has opened the doors of its first functional aerial hub – one of 200 terminals it plans to build around the globe in the near future.

Leading instant logistics specialist Zipline is expanding its geographical area of activity from existing African and US operations with new drone deliveries of medical supplies to Japan’s Gotō Islands.

Though it took a bit of preparing to get aloft, Alphabet-owned Wing Aviation is set to launch its drone delivery service in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area this week, a bit over five months after the company announced the expansion of its activities in the fast-growing region.

Wingcopter says it’s teaming up with German Airways to explore the use of drones in the delivery of spare parts to offshore wind farms. This development comes days after two Singapore-based firms announced their plans to produce offshore wind farm delivery drones that would operate at 90% lower costs than current methods that involve the use of boats or helicopters.

FedEx says it is joining forces with California-based eVTOL cargo drone manufacturer Elroy Air to explore autonomous solutions within its middle-mile delivery operations. As part of this agreement, FedEx subsidiary FedEx Express will begin testing Elroy Air’s recently announced Chaparral cargo drone in 2023.

High-flying drone delivery company Flytrex says it will launch fast transport of food orders in suburbs around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex as part of a geographical expansion of its existing partnership with restaurant group Brinker International.