Tokyo (SCCIJ) – The Swiss city of Zurich is showing the future of drone delivery with the longest urban commercial flight route worldwide. The firm Matternet is to transport diagnostic samples between two hospitals. This endeavor will serve as a template for other cities in Europe and the USA.
A leading developer of commercial drone delivery systems has started test operations in Zurich (© Matternet).
More efficient transport
The test drone flights take a five kilometers long beyond-visual-line-of-sight route over the city of Zurich. The two hospitals both belong to Stadspital Zürich, a municipal central hospital. “Launching this new service is an important moment for the future of both health care and logistics services,” said Andreas Raptopoulos, founder and CEO of Matternet. “Leveraging the longest urban drone route to transport biological samples for diagnostic testing on-demand creates new efficiencies.”
Matternet is the leading developer of commercial drone delivery systems for urban and suburban environments. The company is actively working on drone delivery networks that can fill urgent logistics needs in health care and help transition on-demand e-commerce to a sustainable mode of transport. To date, its technology has enabled over 20,000 commercial flights.
Positive attitude to drones
The project is a new phase of activity for Matternet in Switzerland, where in 2017 the company became the first to fly commercial BVLOS drone delivery flights over urban areas as part of its multi-year trial with the nation’s postal system. The country’s activist attitude toward unmanned automated vehicle operation, Raptopoulos told the online magazine Dronedj, means its project in Zurich likely won’t be its last.
“Switzerland has established itself as one of the most advanced countries in the world for scaled drone delivery operations,” added Raptopoulos. “And this new route in Zurich – built on the foundation of five years of successful operations in Switzerland – will help us create insights into developing a city-wide medical network that can become a template for similar networks in Europe, the U.S., and beyond.”
Substitute of car transport
Transportation between the two hospitals and their laboratories takes just seven minutes. This test is demonstrating the potential for drones to provide fast, on-demand delivery for individual urgent shipments, without congesting Zurich roads or emitting CO2. Matternet drones carry medical items with a secure end-to-end chain of custody and operate autonomously with remote supervision through Matternet’s Mission Control center in Zurich.
Currently, hospitals rely on ground transport to deliver samples to laboratories for testing. This usually means that large batches are sent via car or van, which can result in significant delays. This approach also creates a major burden for lab staff with huge influxes of tests received at once instead of a steady flow throughout the day. Additionally, for urgent, single-patient diagnostic tests, hospitals also rely on vehicle-based couriers, which can be even slower and less efficient.
Text: SCCIJ with material from Business Wire
