UPS is teaming up with autonomous delivery drone startup Matternet to experiment with using drones to deliver medical supplies, the companies announced on Tuesday. Starting today, the supplies will be delivered via Matternet’s M2 quadcopters to WakeMed hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. The drone delivery program will be overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration and the North Carolina Department of Transportation. It will be small at first: Matternet’s drones can only carry payloads of up to five pounds over distances of up to 12.5 miles. Here’s how the companies describe the delivery program: Throughout the WakeMed program, a medical professional will load a secure drone container with a medical sample or specimen – such as a blood sample – at one of WakeMed’s nearby facilities. The drone will fly along a predetermined flight path, monitored by a specially trained Remote Pilot-in-Command (RPIC), to a fixed landing pad at WakeMed’s main hospital and central pathology lab. This will be an ongoing program at WakeMed, and UPS and Matternet will use the learnings to consider how drones can be applied to improve transport services at other hospitals and medical facilities across the U.S. The announcement follows a pilot in August 2018 as part of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Pilot Program. Matternet, based in Menlo Park, California, has previously conducted drone delivery experiments in Switzerland along with Mercedes-Benz. UPS, in particular, is interested in using drones to deliver health care products. The delivery giant partnered with vaccine nonprofit GAVI and Zipline in 2016 to deliver blood samples to remote locations in Rwanda. For its part, Matternet says it has already completed more than 3,000 flights for health care systems in Switzerland. Despite predictions from tech moguls and CEOs about the skies eventually being full of package-bearing quadcopters, drone delivery is still in its nascent stages. Air space regulations present formidable hurdles for most companies that want to launch commercial services. Regulators continue to debate allowing companies like Matternet to operate drones beyond a pilot’s visual line of sight, at night, and over heavily populated areas.<doc-sep>As part of its Skyways project, Airbus has kicked off a new drone delivery trial in which its unmanned aircraft of the same name will deposit packages onto ships anchored offshore. Designed to streamline loading operations, it's hoped the technology now being tested in Singapore will not only speed up delivery times, but offer a greener and safer way of doing business in busy ports. Airbus is conducting the trials with logistics company Wilhelmsen Ships Services and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. The very first flight took place last Friday, with one of the company's Skyways parcel delivery drones loaded up with 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) of 3D-printed objects for its first day on the job. This meant taking off from the shoreline of Singapore's Marina South Pier and flying autonomously over a distance of 1.5 km (0.93 mi) to a ship anchored off-shore. It then deposited its cargo on deck before completing the return leg, with the entire trip said to take no more than 10 minutes. "We are thrilled to launch the first trial of its kind in the maritime world," said Airbus' Skyways lead, Leo Jeoh. "Today's accomplishment is a culmination of months of intense preparation by our dedicated team, and the strong collaboration with our partner, as we pursue a new terrain in the maritime industry." According to Airbus, the Skyways drone is actually capable of carrying up to 4 kg (8.8 lb) and reaching vessels as far as 3 km (1.86 mi) off shore, traveling through dedicated aerial corridors with autonomous control software. Airbus is conducting drone delivery trials with logistics company Wilhelmsen Ships Services and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore Airbus The remainder of the trials will explore these capabilities, as well as how unmanned aircraft can be put to use in the wider shipping industry to make things run a little smoother. These kinds of supplementary loading procedures could apparently speed up deliveries by up to six times, lower costs by up to 90 percent, help cut down on carbon emissions and also avoid accidents that can occur through typical loading procedures in busy ports. "Delivery of essential spares, medical supplies and cash to master via launch boat, is an established part of our portfolio of husbandry services, which we provide day in and day out, in ports all over the world," says Marius Johansen, Vice President Commercial, Ships Agency at Wilhelmsen Ships Services. "Modern technology such as the unmanned aircraft systems, are just a new tool, albeit a very cool one, with which we can push our industry ever forward and improve how we serve our customers." Airbus will soon build on these initial flights with further testing of its Skyways drone in urban environments, with trials to kick off "soon" in partnership with the National University of Singapore. The video below shows the Skyways drone in action. Source: Airbus<doc-sep>
Wing, the drone delivery company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, is launching its first public drone delivery service in Canberra, Australia after the country’s aviation authority granted it regulatory approval. Around 100 homes in the suburbs of Crace, Palmerston, and Franklin will initially have access to the service, but in the coming months the company plans to expand it to homes in Harrison and Gungahlin. The service works by partnering with local businesses including coffee shops and pharmacies to deliver their products “in minutes.” Wing’s regulatory approval comes with restrictions. Drones will not be allowed to fly over main roads, they will only be allowed to fly between 7am and 8pm on Monday to Friday (or between 8am and 8pm on Sundays), and they will be restricted from flying too close to people. Customers in eligible homes will also be given a safety briefing about interacting with the drones. Wing predicts that drone deliveries could be worth as much as AU$30 to AU$40 million to businesses in the area, and says drones could deliver as many as one in four takeaway orders by 2030. “Very likely” to be a world first according to CASA Business Insider reports that the Australian regulator, CASA, said the launch was “very likely” to be a world first. It means that Google’s drone delivery company has beaten Amazon to offer a commercial service to the general public. Despite a number of high profile trial deliveries in the UK and USA, Amazon’s service is yet to launch commercially. Last year, an Amazon spokesperson told the Associated Press that the company is still “committed to making our goal of delivering packages by drones in 30 minutes or less a reality.” Wing became a full company underneath the Alphabet corporate umbrella last year alongside the likes of Waymo and Loon after having previously been classed as an X moonshot project. In December, Wing announced that it was launching a trial service in Finland where it would offer 10-minute deliveries for free within the country’s capital. It’s not just Amazon who is competing with Wing to offer drone deliveries. Israeli startup Flytrex began trialling its own drone logistics service in Iceland back in 2017 and Flirtey was making commercial drone deliveries for 7-Eleven in the US back as early as 2016. More recently, UPS partnered with Matternet to experiment with using drones to deliver medical supplies in North Carolina.