It now ferries samples between buildings at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, in collaboration with UPS, cutting waiting times on test results for patients and healthcare professionals. The company began its work in Switzerland, using drones to deliver lab samples for University Hospital Zurich. It cuts the time to deliver an item from one point to another from hours to a predictable 15 minutes, Raptopoulos says. Matternet installs drone stations at each building, enabling staff to mount the supplies on a quadcopter drone that flies up to five pounds of cargo up to 12.5 miles along a preset path. They frequently need to exchange time-critical medical supplies or samples for lab tests. The hospitals that Matternet targets often have departments in different buildings spread throughout campus. “In places where speed of delivery matters, there’s no better way to get things delivered than by air,” explains CEO Andreas Raptopoulos. Drone company Matternet, for instance, is targeting a specific use case: healthcare. Walgreens’ readiness to deliver by drone during social distancing may have been a happy accident, but some experts hope that drone deliveries will help bridge the gap in other instances. It started making items such as children’s crayons and sidewalk chalk available for parents working from home and caring for children. It expanded its selection of items to 155, including individual rolls of bathroom tissue for families who had been left without. population living within five miles of a Walgreens store, it was testing a way to cover unique situations like parents who couldn’t leave the house because of sick children at home.Īs the COVID-19 crisis grew, however, the company began serving people who didn’t want to venture out during the shelter-at-home period. The company began its venture as a way to make deliveries more convenient. Walgreens is a prime example of how drone technology can adapt to help cope with difficult situations. “Drone delivery increased five-fold over the same period in February.” “We saw a significant increase in delivery during COVID-19,” explains Andrea Farris, the chain’s VP of special projects, customer experience and store technology, adding that the company has made hundreds of drone deliveries since the project. Customers could order a “baby pack” with items like children’s ibuprofen and water, or cough and cold care packages containing all the medicines you need while stuck on the couch. The project began with around 100 items covering essential needs like single rolls of toilet paper and not-so-essential ones like candy. Since October 2019, Walgreens has been piloting a drone delivery program for people in the area in collaboration with FedEx and Wing, the drone subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, based on its proximity to Virginia Tech, which has been testing drones with Wing since 2016. Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, it became more of a necessity. Energy, Climate Action & Sustainabilityįor the people of Christiansburg, Virginia, getting everyday household items delivered by drone used to be a novelty.The MK30 will also have new custom-designed propellers that will reduce its perceived noise by 25% compared to the MK27-2.ĭrones are an innovation for retailers and have been assessed as having a positive environmental impact.Ī study by Carnegie Mellon researchers reported that delivery drones emit 84% less greenhouse gases than diesel trucks and 31% less than electric vans.Ĭonsulting firm Accenture estimates that drone deliveries could cut carbon emissions by 49 kilotons per year. Deliveries arrive as little as 30 minutes after ordering.Īmazon aims to play catch up in drone delivery with its next-generation drone, the MK30, which is smaller and lighter than the MK27-2 and has a better range, additional safety features and the ability to fly in light rain. Walmart offers the service for a fee of USD4, and customers can order items up to 4.4kg, twice the payload of the initial Amazon drones. states and completed 6,000 deliveries in 2022. retailer Walmart in using drones for deliveries. Prime Air uses MK27-2 drones with six propellers and can move through the air with minimum noise at around 80kmh, while installed algorithms prevent collisions with obstacles such as power lines.Īmazon is some distance behind U.S. “Customers are our obsession, safety is our imperative, the future of delivery is our mandate, technology is unlocking that future, and our people are the foundation that it all sits on!”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |