Drone delivery of medicines sees first successful trial run by UDAN, TAS in Bengaluru

Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) successfully conducted a trial run for the drone delivery of medicines in Bengaluru on Friday. The trial was led by Throttle Aerospace Systems (TAS) and UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik), under guidelines issued by the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The trial was conducted at Gauribidanur, within a 15-km radius of the region that lies on the outskirts of Bengaluru. The purpose was to test for last-mile delivery of medicines.

Two different models of the drones were successfully tested during the operation. The two models, Medcopter X4 and Medcopter X8 were programmed to deliver the medicines to UDAN customers. Deliveries weighing up to at least 2 kg were used for the trials and the distance of the deliveries varied from two to seven kilometres.

During the trials, it was observed that an average of 3.5 km was covered in five to seven minutes. Along with the weight of the package and the distance of the deliveries, the modes of deliveries were also tested. The two modes being lowering the package so that the customer can collect it and landing the drone to drop off the package.

Drones for emergency services

As the trial run was successful, it does create possibilities of using drones to deliver emergency packages to save time and effort. The use of drones would topple factors like poor roads or lack of connectivity. Once the drones are officially commercialised, they can be used to deliver packages to remote areas.

The technology involved can be helpful during extreme situations like supplying medicines to a seriously ill person or sending supplies for relief from a natural disaster in the most remote areas of the country. The trial, carried out by TAS and UDAN, was a display of their commitment to build a smooth supply chain that will ensure the supply of essentials to every corner of the country.

Soumyadeep Mukherjee, product engineer, UDAN, said, "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. 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."