Throttle Aerospace Systems and B2B e-commerce platform Udaan have teamed up to complete the first trial run for drone delivery of medicines in Bengaluru. The Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) trial run was under the supervision of the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Drone Delivery of Medicines in Bengaluru
According to a report on The Economic Times, the trial was conducted within a 15-km radius. To be specific, the trial was conducted at Gauribidanur, which is almost 80km away from Bengaluru city. The drone should help in the last mile delivery of medicines. It could also help supply medicine in remote areas.
During the test, two drones were tested — Medcopter X4 and Medcopter X8. To test the capability of these drones, they were equipped with up to 2kg payload of pharma deliveries at various distances within 2 to 7 km. After the trial, they noticed that the drone could cover a 3.5km distance in 5 to 7 minutes. The report says that they also tested tethered lowering of shipment and landing of copter with the shipment.
“The efforts by the authorities to integrate drones in the supply-chain ecosystem is a major step towards creating a framework for efficient last-mile delivery. The success of today’s trial run opens a massive opportunity to revolutionize customer experience in the distribution and logistics space,” Udaan Product Engineer Soumyadeep Mukherjee said.
“It is aligned with our vision to build tech-enabled solutions to empower small businesses such as kiranas, shop owners, chemists, and MSMEs that are based in the remote corners of Bharat,” he added.
