Recently, Airbus was approached by representatives of the Singapore authorities with a request to test the city’s drone package delivery. A partnership agreement between the city and the company Airbus Helicopters was signed two years ago, but still no activity the parties did not show. Recently, it was announced that a system of unmanned delivery Skyways from Airbus will be launched in the coming months.
In order to protect the inhabitants of the metropolis from random effects, testing was postponed to the territory of the National University of Singapore — namely the inhabitants of the local campuses will be able to evaluate all the advantages and disadvantages of unmanned drones couriers before a service like this will become available to all other citizens.
The operation principle is simple: the client passes the parcel to one of the points of reception. Then the robotic arm puts the parcel on the conveyor, transporting it to Drona. After this, the aircraft receives delivery data from a Central computer, picks up the package and flies to destination, delivering cargo to the closest recipient point of reception and delivery. Then the client receives the delivery notification, which contains the access code to the container. All that remains to do is to visit the issuing point, to find the right container and enter the code. At first, drones are flying under the strict supervision of operators that should prevent or minimize emergencies, damage or loss of parcels.
In Airbus consider a joint project a very good opportunity to test its own unmanned technologies in real urban conditions, because usually the authorities of cities and regions are much less accommodating.
Airbus will test the delivery drones in Singapore
Vyacheslav Larionov