Software beyond the pandemic: The Rise of the Drones
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With the global pandemic wreaking havoc worldwide, business leaders are scrambling to deal with a wide variety of problems, from slumping sales and stalling supply chains to keeping employees healthy. One of the biggest issues that all business are facing is the changing reality of physical deliveries. This used to be a well established model with your own delivery outfit or outsourced to a delivery platform. The trend was (it’s crazy that I’m using past tense on such a recent thing) crowd-sourced delivery models with concepts like Uber eats coming center stage. The virus has completely disrupted this trending disrupt. And as every business is scrambling to find out new ways of doing deliveries the drones are coming out from amazon marketing stints, concept papers and university lab projects to real viable options.
Word’s first drone delivery service
They are billing it as the “world’s first”, a drone delivery service to carry medicine and food to people forced to self-isolate because of the COVID 19. An Irish startup Manna Aero has begun a drone delivery service in Moneygall, Ireland. They have received permission, obviously rushed because of the virus from Irish Aviation Authority to run drone runs. Their drones are delivering medicine to vulnerable people locked in their homes.
“Using custom-developed aerospace grade drones, we deliver directly from restaurants and centralised kitchens to consumer’s homes. We fly at an altitude of 80 metres and a speed of over 80kph - delivering within a 2km radius in less than 3 minutes. ”
Drones in Africa
A US medical drone company has been delivering blood and medicine to rural hospitals in Africa for the past few years. But now with the virus and the related lock down this technology and experience is coming in very handy. There are already accelerated plans of adopting this technology in California.
The drones can deliver up to 85 km away, and arrive within 30 minutes. Zipline changed the cargo attachment on it’s drones and has been delivering PPE, COVID 19 test samples in Ghana, here’s a story CNN Business about what they are doing.
The funny thing is Zipline starte in California but has no commercial operation in the United States. Coronavirus is changing this dynamics and Zipline is planning to join two other companies - Matternet and Flytex - for an initiative to deploy drones to deliver PPE or medical supplies in three North Carolina cities.
Matternet was miles ahead on drone technology and had partnered with UPS for a viable drone delivery platform. The pandemic has only accelerated their go live. Only a few days ago it achieve a milestone in getting a full OK from Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in US. Which would the gold standard in ushering in the drones to our world. And there is no question coronavirus is playing a part in fast forwarding process. An autonomous drone company needs two types of authorizations:
Permission to fly over people
Permission to fly beyond the visual line of sight of an operator.
Matternet has both these permissions in Switzerland but only #1 in US. To deliver further, the company needs the second one, which is what they are striving to achieve with FAA. Given the national emergency, FAA could grant the authorizations in the name of public interest - moving the needle forward for all other drone companies in US. And that would be the beginning of the age of drones.
The post pandemic world will have drones as the major delivery vehicles. Your next burger could be coming to you from the air! Here’s a Dilbert strip to kill time before it arrives.
