Logistics drone

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DHL package copter

Logistics drones (also called parcel drones ) are unmanned aerial vehicles that are used to transport goods.

commitment

For logistics, currently mainly in the local area, various technologies for the standard transport of goods by drone from the air are currently (as of 2014) being tested. Internal and external transport as well as the dispatch and distribution of goods are planned as areas of application.

Within warehouses , companies do not need to obtain flight permits for public airspace and drones can be used to automate high-bay and other storage systems. In many cases, approval, use and possible conflict scenarios have not yet been clarified.

Problems

Obstacles and problems when using logistics drones can be:

  • Mini-drones can currently only transport goods weighing up to 2.5 kg, which significantly limits the possible areas of application.
  • The purchase and operation of the 8-engine aircraft are expensive.
  • But the legal situation also stands in the way: The US aviation authority FAA is examining the possible use of “parcel drones” in US airspace. This type of delivery is currently not permitted in Germany. The German air traffic control said after the first reports of amazon with drones in Germany were to consult authorities of a series: the Federal Aviation Authority for any necessary type certification in charge. The aviation authorities of the federal states would have to issue an ascent permit. And air traffic control is responsible when the drones fly in controlled airspace, i.e. in areas where instrument flight takes place. These are z. B. Parts of the area of ​​large cities like Frankfurt am Main with its large airport. There every drone would need a permit for every single flight.

Legal situation

Drones are not permitted in Germany for commercial use over longer distances.

In the United States, the responsible aviation authority published a set of rules for commercial drones in 2015. Drones may only be flown by people over the age of 17 who have passed an exam. The drone must always be within sight of the pilot (similar to model aircraft). It may only be flown during the day and not over people or groups of people. Amazon was angry about the new regulations and is now considering using its planned logistics drones in other countries.

Logistics company using drones

Productive operation

Since 2016, the supplies Rwandan companies Zipline regular blood and plasma canned , medicines and vaccines using unmanned, catapult-launched from small aircraft to various hospitals and other health facilities in Rwanda. At the destination, the cargo is dropped on parachutes made of waxed paper , and the drone returns to the logistics base. The transport time is reduced from around four hours to less than an hour, and the costs should be comparable to transport by road. According to the World Economic Forum , Rwanda is the only country that systematically uses transport drones. More than 13,000 deliveries had been made by April 2019, 65% of the blood supplies outside the capital Kigali were delivered with Zipline's drones.

Trial operation

Amazon

On December 2, 2013 ( Cyber ​​Monday ), Amazon boss Jeff Bezos announced in a CBS interview that Amazon is planning to ship orders with rotor drones for 2014 under the Prime Air label . The mission was targeted for the United States. The planned drones have eight small rotors and can transport a maximum payload of 2.5 kg. The range is 16 km. Their use for delivering food ordered on the Internet is not being considered for the time being, given their low payload.

In December 2016, Amazon first delivered a customer's order in Cambridge using a fully automated drone. It took 13 minutes from order to delivery. In the test phase, initially two customers in the area will be supplied in this way, later "hundreds".

Google

In competition with Amazon, the US company is also developing aircraft that should bring products to customers within a very short time. They are to be used in hard-to-reach areas as well as in metropolitan areas with heavy traffic. As a competitor to Amazon, Google already offers, in cooperation with retailers in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City , to deliver goods ordered on the same day. The drone system should enable goods to be delivered within a few minutes, said Google developer Astro Teller of the "Berliner Zeitung". The delivery system should be ready for the market by 2016. Google has already supplied two farms in Australia with a prototype. For safety reasons, the drones would not land and the goods would be lowered using a rope.

Deutsche Post / DHL

The German Post AG also explored the use of Paketkoptern for particularly urgent shipments. In 2014, DHL started a field trial of a liner service by parcel copter between the port city of Norden and the North Sea island of Juist over several months. DHL tested the drone together with the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen (RWTH). The device from microdrones with four electrically operated rotors automatically flew a set route over the Wadden Sea. Depending on the wind, it takes about 16 minutes for the 12 km route to the “seal” pharmacy on the island. According to DHL, a mobile ground station can be used in emergencies. Approvals from air traffic control, the Wadden Sea National Park Administration and other agencies were required.

French Post / DPD

According to its own information, DPDgroup started its first commercial line service with delivery drones in December 2016. The drone covers a distance of 15 km between a parcel shop in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume and a startup incubator in Pourrières and can transport a payload of up to 3 kg. It flies fully automatically, but is monitored from a control center.

Swiss Post

After the drone crash on January 25, 2019, Swiss Post suspended test flights for the time being. The drone crashed into Lake Zurich for reasons that are still unknown . On January 27th she was found by divers of the Zurich sea police and on January 28th she was recovered. After flight operations could be resumed, the next crash occurred on May 9, so that operations across Switzerland were again suspended. This time, the drone, weighing around 10 kilograms, fell unchecked because the parachute had detached itself from the drone, only around 50 meters from a forest playgroup (see forest kindergarten ) with children playing and their two supervisors.

United Parcel Service

The parcel service United Parcel Service (UPS) is also considering the use of automatically flying transport robots. "The commercial use of drones is an interesting technology and we are still examining this," said a spokesman for the US blog " The Verge " , according to the FAZ . UPS is already experimenting with a fleet of mini-drones for parcel transport.

Criminal Applications

As logistics drones became more widespread, so too did their use in criminal activities. Several attempts have been made to smuggle drugs and cell phones into German prisons using drones . In December 2014, a drone loaded with drugs fell on the roof of the institution while approaching a cell window of the Hamburg remand prison in the city center. Der Spiegel reported that, according to investigators, the quadrocopter was supposed to deliver a package containing marijuana, an iPhone and a USB stick with films directly to a cell. The inmate could have grabbed it through the bars.

On December 4th, a "drug drone" had already crashed in the free time yard of the prison in Bremen-Oslebshausen . On the fuselage of the DJI Phantom 1 drone hung a plastic container of a children's surprise egg filled with ten grams of marijuana.

Because the number of cases increased, the prisons first tried to disrupt the navigation of the drones with the help of GPS jammers . However, the use of these devices is problematic according to the criteria of the Federal Network Agency , since jammers are prohibited and all devices in the vicinity are also disturbed.

In September 2015 , the citizens of Bremen were the first federal state to vote on a no-fly zone over the state's prisons. The ban was suggested by the Senator for Home Affairs . Hamburg had already introduced the topic to the state secretaries' round at federal level.

See also

literature

  • Sabrina John: A new transport system for drones. In: Drone Magazine , No. 2/2017, pp. 20–23

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.service-drone.com ( Memento from January 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ blog.cebit.de ( Memento from January 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Thiemo Heeg: Air traffic control considers Amazon drones to be unlikely. In: faz.net. December 2, 2013, accessed December 11, 2014 .
  4. ↑ Aviation Authority : New Rules for Commercial Drones - Video. In: welt.de . February 18, 2015, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Martin Holland: Trendsetter Africa: Rwanda wants to expand the success of the drone system. In: heise online . September 6, 2019, accessed September 6, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Martin Holland: Rwanda: 5500 blood deliveries already delivered by drone. In: heise online . January 4, 2018, accessed September 6, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Riley de Leon: Zipline takes flight in Ghana, making it the world's largest drone-delivery network. In: CNBC . April 24, 2019, accessed September 6, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Hannes Koch: badische-zeitung.de: Drone or supermarket: In the end, the price decides . Badische Zeitung , September 6, 2014
  9. ↑ Amazon delivers first order by drone in Great Britain from www.heise.de
  10. ↑ www.tagesschau.de ( Memento from August 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Deutsche Post plans to use drones like Amazon. December 2, 2013, accessed December 3, 2013 .
  12. ↑ Test flights went smoothly: DHL satisfied with parcel drone www.general-anzeiger-bonn.de
  13. ↑ First scheduled parcel drone in southern France on the way www.heise.de
  14. ↑ Post drone crashes into Lake Zurich. In: tagesanzeiger.ch . January 25, 2019, accessed January 28, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Police find a crashed postal drone in Lake Zurich. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. January 28, 2019, accessed January 28, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Above a piece of forest - Another post drone crashed in Zurich. In: srf.ch . May 9, 2019, accessed May 9, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Fabian Baumgartner, Jan Hudec: Drone crashed on the ground in Zurich - Post describes the incident as unacceptable. In: nzz.ch . June 28, 2019, accessed June 29, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Post drone fell to the ground 50 meters next to children playing. In: blick.ch . June 28, 2019, accessed June 29, 2019 .
  19. ↑ UPS is also considering parcel delivery with mini drones. In: faz.net. December 3, 2013, accessed December 11, 2014 .
  20. ↑ Smuggling to Prison: Drone Drugs. In: Spiegel Online . January 24, 2015, accessed June 10, 2018 .