Drone Delivery

Deliveries by drone are making progress around the world. More so than here in the US for now, but hopefully, that will change soon. In the island-nation of Vanuatu, vaccines were delivered by drone this week. Many of the villages spread out over the various islands are so hard to reach that about 20% of the children miss their shots. Drones have shown to be a viable solution to this problem, making Vanuatu the first nation in the world with a childhood vaccine program that is officially drone-dependent.

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Google parent Alphabet Inc’s Wing will launch drone deliveries in Finland in the Spring of 2019, according to a statement. The company announced that it will start to deliver goods and packages up to 3.3 pounds in a range of 6.2 miles in Helsinki. Last July, Wing recently became an independent company as it was spun out of Alphabet’s X research division. The company is led by James Ryan Burgess and has been actively testing with drone deliveries in Australia, delivering burritos among other things.

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Organ deliveries must be among the most time-sensitive deliveries known to man. The more time it takes to get an organ from its donor to a patient, the greater the risk of a failed transplantation. Dr. Joseph Scalea had been looking for a better and more importantly, faster way of getting life-saving organs to his patients. This first test in which a DJI Matric 600 Pro drone successfully delivered a kidney, may be an indication that he has found one.

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Last Wednesday the Japan Post Co. started transporting documents by drone in Fukushima, Japan. it was a first in the history of the country, following an easing of regulations to deal with labor shortages in the transportation industry. The drone document delivery service will run six days a month and will complete two round trips on those selected days. The intention is to expand the service to rural areas and islands in the future.

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They have been at it for a few years now but earlier this month, DHL, GIZ on behalf of BMZ and Wingcopter, flew the DHL Parcelcopter 4.0 over 37 miles in about 40 minutes to a remote island in Lake Victoria as part of the project ‘Deliver Future’. The tilt-rotor drone can perform vertical take-offs and landings. However, once in the air it can transition to a more energy-efficient fixed-wing done that flies a lot faster.

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Nothing is better than a nice relaxing day on the golf course, playing with friends and family, trying not to make a fool of yourself at the tee box. With that said, there is also nothing worse than being held up by a group in front of you or a pesky cart girl carrying drinks, awkwardly creeping up from behind as you try to concentrate on the game. A company by the name of Flytrex wants to take carts carrying food out of the mix and deliver food to golfers via drones.

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The FAA celebrated their first four successful drone test as part of the UAS Integration Pilot Program (UAS IPP). In Raleigh, NC, WakeMed Health and Hospitals in partnership with Matternet used drones to deliver medical supplies to remote rural locations. Three other drone trials took place in Virginia, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

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In a patent filed by IBM, drones could one day deliver coffee to thirsty individuals or those that just need a pick-me-up. According to USA Today, the paperwork filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office allows the delivery of beverages in multiple settings like an office, cafe, or public event when one is ordered. Here’s the interesting part: these drones can also deliver coffee to those who are in need of a caffeine boost based off of a prediction. Let’s explain how this all works.

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Drones are without a doubt the future of delivery with faster and more efficient transit times. The problem with current ideas is that all of them are the same, they carry light payloads over short distances. Dronamics looks to separate themselves from the pack with a cargo drone called Black Swan that can carry payloads weighing up to 800 pounds over a range of 1,550 miles.

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AN Post made the first successful delivery of a package by drone in Ireland. The unmanned aerial system (UAS), nicknamed “Postman Padraig” delivered the small parcel from Roonagh pier in Mayo to a postal operative on Clare Island, around 3:30 pm, last Thursday.

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Amazon’s vision of delivering packages to customers via drones is still in progress a new patent was filed by the e-commerce giant based out of Seattle. The biggest challenge they face is safety. With drones flying throughout the sky, autonomously, they need to prove that they are a safe means of delivering items to get the approval from the government and Federal Aviation Association (FAA).

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The race to who can make the best delivery drone system is in full effect as Matternet raises $16 million with the help of Boeing HorizonX Ventures. There are so many different ways drones can be used to deliver things like packages ordered from online retailers or medicine from a doctor, but Matternet plans to use its drones to deliver items from peer to peer.

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Last year the Workhorse Group demonstrated their HorseFly drone delivery system for the first time. In April of this year, we reported that workhorse received a patent for their HorseFly truck-launched, drone delivery system. Now the company announces that their trail program will start in Loveland, Ohio. Packages delivered by drone, a scenario that once seemed like a long way off, is now rapidly becoming a reality.

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Two Spanish YouTubers, called deDrones did just that. They set out to see if they could actually build a drone made of pizza and fly it. Without giving away the plot, you can imagine that it takes a special kind of pizza to be able to carry the weight of the battery, flight controller, camera, etc and deal with the forces that are created by the propellers during flight. Watch the short video below to see if the pizza-drone actually flies. Come to think of it, this is not the first time we covered an edible drone.

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After Republicans gave up on a plan to privatize air traffic control yesterday, the House of Representatives approved a five-year Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill featuring among other things, support from both parties to expand commercial drone operations in the US.

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After the recent patents that were granted to Amazon, the latest drone-related patent has been awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to the HorseFly Truck Launched Drone Package Delivery System from the Workhorse Group.

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A few years ago, the California-based startup company, Zipline started a nationwide drone blood delivery system in Rwanda. Since then they have flown some 187,500 miles, delivering over 7,000 units of blood in more than 4,000 flights. The company is now introducing a new fixed wing drone, which they claim is the world’s fastest delivery drone with a top speed of almost 80 mph. Zipline has also re-designed their distribution centers and logistical operations to bring the time it takes to get a drone ready from 10 minutes to only one.

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The largest courier company in China, SF Holding Co. was granted a government license to operate drones, opening up the possibility for parcel deliveries by drone. More than 40 billion packages were shipped around China in 2017 and that number is expected to rise to 49 billion in 2018 according to the State Post Bureau, China’s delivery-industry watchdog.

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