Online food-delivery company Swiggy is planning to use drones on a trial basis for its instant grocery service, Instamart, starting May
Two drones carried sushi, and a third hauled cans of beer. AFP
Online food-delivery company Swiggy is planning to use drones on a trial basis for its instant grocery service, Instamart, starting May.
The drone-delivery service won’t be used for end-delivery, but to replenish stocks between dark stores, which is from the seller’s location to the common point closest to the customer’s address, according to a report by the Economic Times.
The final deliveries will be made by the company’s onground fleet of executives, Swiggy clarified in a blogpost on Friday.
The trials are expected to take place first in Bengaluru and Delhi NCR.
What are delivery drones?
As the name suggests, delivery drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that are used to deliver packages, including medical supplies, food and other goods.
In the case of Swiggy, drones will be used to deliver grocery items under its Instamart service. The company has already contracted four ‘drone-as-a-service’ operators for the trials.
The company will be conducting the trials to evaluate the feasibility of drones for the “middle-mile” use case, i.e. to make its middle-delivery layer faster.
“The pilot is to evaluate the feasibility of drones for the middle mile use case, particularly for Swiggy’s grocery delivery service Instamart. Drones will be used to replenish stocks between seller-run dark stores and from a store to a common customer point. A delivery partner will then pick up orders from the common point and deliver them to the customer’s doorstep,” the company explained in the blogpost.
What are the regulations for drone deliveries?
Last year, the Ministry of Civil Aviation gave conditional permission to 20 companies, including Swiggy, the ANRA consortium and Marut Dronetech to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) experiment flights.
BVLOS operations are the ones where the pilot of the drone has no visual reference for the UAV.
Any other companies involved in drone delivery operations
According to the Indian Express, several drone operators in India have partnered with state governments and other authorities to conduct trials of vaccines and healthcare supplies deliveries through drones.
In October 2021, the government used ‘Made in India’ drones to deliver COVID-19 vaccine over an aerial distance of 15 km in 12-15 mins from the Bishnupur district hospital to Loktak lake, Karang island in Manipur for administration at the PHC.
The ICMR’s Drone Response and Outreach in North East (i-Drone), a delivery model to make sure that life-saving COVID vaccines reach everyone, is in line with the government’s commitment to Antyodaya’ in health – making healthcare accessible to the last citizen of the country, officials said.
Logistics services company Delhivery also announced acquisition of California-based Transition Robotics, which develops drone platforms, in December.
According to the Indian Express, internet giant Alphabet’s drone delivery unit Wing recently delivered its first consignment in a major US metropolitan area by supplying boxes of medicines from Walgreens in Dallas, Texas.
In December last year, three drones in Israel’s Tel Aviv delivered sushi and cans of beer. The demonstration was part of a 20 million shekel, or about $6 million, public-private initiative to advance Israel’s drone technology.
Their flight was made possible by High Lander, an Israeli company that specialises in traffic control for autonomous drones, and Cando, which helps craft drone strategies for clients.
With inputs from agencies
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.