DRAGANFLY PHOTOS
This Draganfly X4-P drone, shown here with the Tetracam
multispectral camera, can be outfitted with a variety of payloads to accomplish
specific missions
such as photography, mapping, public
safety, and precision agriculture.
called
Ele.me, an Alibaba company, last year made more than 8,000 [drone] deliveries around Shanghai.” Drones are accepted in that densely packed city for two
reasons: they mostly deliver food, and the drones don’t actually stop on individual doorsteps. Instead, they land on street corners, in parks, or at other locations with adequate room to maneuver, where they’re met by scooter drivers, who perform the last mile of the delivery, including to high- rise apartments or offices. “It would be much harder to do that here in Hamburg.
Tese things flying around everyone would be unwelcome,” Wackwitz says. “Or, say, in Chicago, if you annoy a hundred people [just] so one person who’s too lazy to walk around the corner to get a pizza can get [a drone to deliver it] instead, you won’t get lots of social acceptance. “But in a rural environment, a drone wouldn’t annoy
anyone. And if it’s an urgent delivery of something important, like medicine, it represents such a great opportunity that everyone would accept and support it,” Wackwitz adds. “In fact, I think rural and smaller markets are likely to be the first where social acceptance of drone deliveries occurs.” Te global COVID-19 pandemic has also given us a glimpse of how UAS can serve humans in conditions that other humans can’t or are reluctant to venture into. In China and Europe, local authorities have employed low-flying drones
56 ROTOR 2020 Q2
to warn people off the streets, to scan the public with heat-sensing equipment looking for telltale fevers, and to deliver medicine to people in quarantine.
Going the Last Mile Still, UAS are far from a mature technology. Currently, they can be operated beyond the line of sight of the remote pilot only with special permission, which typically is granted for jobs such as inspecting miles of high-voltage electric wires, surveying forests, and inspecting remote or hard-to-reach structures mounted on deep-sea drilling platforms. In the future, full autonomy and beyond-line-of-sight
operations are likely to become ordinary. And Draganfly’s intentions are to be in those markets as they mature. “We will be in that market from the aspect of providing
systems and equipment, like the autopilot systems. Tat’s really an incredibly important piece,” Chell says. “It’s not happening today. In my opinion, it’s still a solid 10 years away before we see that on a regular basis. “But before then, I think we’ll see creation of a lot of spaces
where drones will be allowed to deliver a package the last mile or two. “I do believe that we’ll see that happening over the next
couple of years,” Chell says. “And Draganfly will be a part of that.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
