Delivery Drones: More Than Just an Alternative for Santa's Sleigh

As the Holiday Season is officially upon us, most people are rushing to get their presents for loved ones delivered as quickly as possible. Drones (also known as UAV or UAS) may even be playing a role from some stores, such as Walmart, as they continue to expand their drone delivery offering. But what else do (or can) drones deliver these days?

The drone world is full of design variations: fixed-wing, quadcopters, hexacopters, octocopters, combination VTOLs (vertical take-off and landing), and even flying squirrel designs. Each of these designs has been chosen to support a specific application. Many of the smaller drones carry a small camera and are used for purposes such as real estate, infrastructure inspection, 3D photogrammetry, public safety, or surveillance applications that don’t require operating for long periods of time. Larger designs may carry other sensors such as Lidar or Multi-spectral sensors that require additional lift and longer endurance. These heavy-lift drones support some of the same and additional applications such as Agricultural planning, construction surveying, or persistence surveillance and security of large areas or events. And of course, many military applications exist with these same types of designs and sensor payloads, but there’s another important application that is a growing area in the U.S. and around the world: delivery.

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Commercial Goods Delivery

When most people think about delivery, they probably think about packages showing up on their front porch from companies such as Amazon, UPS, FedEx, or USPS. Each of these companies or organizations are actively working to figure out how drones fit into their operations to save money by improving the efficiency of delivery and improving customer satisfaction by getting them the products even faster than they experience today. Within the current FAA regulations, to-home delivery is not able to scale as quickly as technology can support. However, other lessor known types of drone-delivery opportunities exist with a few examples in operation today.

Medical Delivery Applications

The medical community was exceptionally challenged through the pandemic. The need for more supply, faster became extremely prevalent and applied to an array of items; from medication to basic supplies such as gloves and masks. Transporting critical resources in a timely manner literally becomes a live or die situation. Drone-delivery provides an opportunity to accelerate the transportation of many medical supplies, medications, and even organs as has been demonstrated in a few locations internationally. Think of a delivery drone as one of those pneumatic tubes that transport items throughout a large facility, only the delivery drone has a much farther reach.

In many parts of the U.S and other countries, hospitals have formed networks of providers and facilities that share many of their resources. Having fixed, known take-off, delivery, and landing locations provides a straight-forward operation that can work within the existing FAA regulations. This operational model is being used by a few organizations today, proving the value of delivery drones. However, the need to provide this service 24/7 and 365 days a year can provide a real challenge for drone design and operations depending on where the operations occur due to extreme weather.

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Remote Location Delivery

One of the most notable delivery drones in the world performing medical delivery is Zipline in Africa. The operation in Africa is a great example that demonstrates the operational benefit of a delivery drone with a large impact on people’s lives. Drones have enabled the transport of food, water, medicine, and clothing to people that would not be able to obtain these basic needs otherwise due to lack of infrastructure. Many other austere locations exist in the world that people would also benefit from drone-delivery. The U.S. has plenty of rural locations where people are unable to travel easily or have limited access to basic needs that drones could provide a alternative to improve their daily lives. Just having to cross a river can be challenging at times due to limited crossing options. Imagine the time savings if all I had to do was go directly across a river or up over a mountain instead of miles out of the way just to find a crossing point.

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Emergency Response Support

You can find lots of videos or thermal camera images where search and rescue operators are using drones to find lost people or pets, especially after a natural disaster. But what happens if the person is found in a location that may take rescue personnel a really long time to reach them? Workhorse Aero thought about this scenario when designing the WA4-200 drone for humanitarian aid and logistics operations. Imagine a hiker hurt on a mountain or a person stuck on the top of their house after a flood. The WA4-200 doesn’t care what it delivers. Emergency response operators could get someone a blanket, water, food, a first-aid kit, or a defibrillator to help keep them safe until help arrives.

First responders are another group that would benefit from delivery drones when time is of the essence. Whether it’s a car accident that requires medical supplies on the scene or a Fentanyl overdose that requires a Narcan injection within minutes. Data has shown that many people have died in these types of emergency situations because help couldn’t get there fast enough. Delivery drones provide an opportunity to reduce the number of deaths, because they aren’t as limited by the same navigation conditions as humans on the ground.

As technology continues to advance, people will continue to find new ways to use that technology. As an example, almost everything we use these days uses some amount of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI has become a basic tool that we can use to solve many different problems. Similarly, people will continue to find ways to use delivery drones beyond just delivering those Christmas presents.

Merry Christmas everyone!!