I think that's answered near the end of the article:
While Zipline isn't making any specific announcements yet, Rinaudo did say that they're “working closely with a number of different states to demonstrate medical product delivery in suburban and rural areas." [...] Zipline is ready right now to operate at national scale, Rinaudo says, integrated with existing healthcare systems, making hundreds of long distance deliveries per day under just about any conditions.
160km (~100 miles) in particular seems limiting. There's a critical access hospital in the rural Oregon community I live in that occasionally needs more blood in a hurry, but it wouldn't have enough range to get out here. Plus with only a 101km/h (63 MPH) cruising speed, its not going to show up any sooner than ground transportation.
I can see why this is useful in Rwanda where the ground transportation infrastructure isn't as developed, but I'd be surprised if there are a lot of places in the US where its range is long enough to cover a hospital that can't keep its blood bank adequately supplied with ground transportation.
If I understood it correctly, the range could be doubled if there's the land/launch station at the destination.
It's hard to maintain 100 km/h average speed on the ground. Plus if you need to deliver a small but valuable package, you can save the cost of a full car and a driver.
Yeah that was a big part of my question. 50 miles doesn't buy you much in rural areas. And distance from other facilities is a requirement for critical access hospitals, with nearly every rural facility participating in that program.
They are also only going to be able to get business to the extent that they are priced cheaper than just wasting blood, so there's a cap there.
Carbon fiber isn’t even that light if your drone isn’t a quad copter that needs pretty insane rigidity to not break apart there aren’t easily available materials that are better than some form of hard coated poly foam especially for lifting surfaces.
That promotional video in the article is pretty cool. The drone is shown "landing" by catching a taut cable with a hook, midair. Even if there's a human pilot doing that part, that is no small feat.
Would agree, I thought that was pretty impressive. That said, it seems a bit risky, since if you miss the target it's pretty much a guaranteed crash. I wonder why this approach was preferred to just using a net or similar, it seems like that would be substantially simpler. Landing with the cable is definitely cool looking though.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 61.1 ms ] threadWhile Zipline isn't making any specific announcements yet, Rinaudo did say that they're “working closely with a number of different states to demonstrate medical product delivery in suburban and rural areas." [...] Zipline is ready right now to operate at national scale, Rinaudo says, integrated with existing healthcare systems, making hundreds of long distance deliveries per day under just about any conditions.
I can see why this is useful in Rwanda where the ground transportation infrastructure isn't as developed, but I'd be surprised if there are a lot of places in the US where its range is long enough to cover a hospital that can't keep its blood bank adequately supplied with ground transportation.
It's hard to maintain 100 km/h average speed on the ground. Plus if you need to deliver a small but valuable package, you can save the cost of a full car and a driver.
They are also only going to be able to get business to the extent that they are priced cheaper than just wasting blood, so there's a cap there.
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32508914119.html?trace=wwwdeta...
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2042139-Viper...
Carbon fiber isn’t even that light if your drone isn’t a quad copter that needs pretty insane rigidity to not break apart there aren’t easily available materials that are better than some form of hard coated poly foam especially for lifting surfaces.
https://youtu.be/U6OloUUhMeg
How do you figure? If you miss the target, you're still flying, come around for another pass.
If you hit the target with something other than your hook, then you crash, but just make the hook long enough that thats not a concern.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Insitu_ScanEagle
Am I just hearing things?