Tanzania becomes the latest country to use Zipline drones for medical deliveries

[kogepathic]

This service has already been running in Rwanda since 2016 with positive results. [0]

It's great to see other countries trying out this form of delivery, as rural roads in Africa can be quite bad.

I'm interested to see if this trial is successful in Tanzania, given that it's geographically much larger than Rwanda and has a much lower population density.

Tanzania: 47.5 persons/km^2 [1]

Rwanda: 445 persons/km^2 [2]

Rwanda is more dense by an order of magnitude.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37646474

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda

[notahacker]

75km radius according to their promotional material so they won't be covering the whole country without multiple stations to load supplies from. Big contrast with Rwanda where it looks like you can serve the majority of the country from a single depot in the capital.

My guess is they'll focus on a single mountainous area initially.

[zx76]

I hadn't heard of this service before - all very interesting. I found another article on Wired [1] that gives a good overview.

It's unlikely to be an issue in the wide open spaces of these countries - but an autonomous equivalent of the ATC system for drones will be needed when Amazon et al. start doing these deliveries in first world cities. Do you know of any companies working on this problem?

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/05/zipline-drones-rwanda/

[theklub]

Vice doc on the roads in africa... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GslPzhFLyas

Also the "long way down" is good.

[brass9]

Interesting! This is the first time I'm hearing about Zipline in Rwanda.

We're establishing a pharmaceutical (generics) formulation plant in Kigali. Technologies like zipline could come in handy for our project...

[yawgmoth]

The company I work for, LLamasoft, works with Zipline to model and optimize their supply chain. We did a press release Aug 30th, if anyone is curious. Fortunately we have had support for different modes of transport for a long time, so adopting drones into our model was trivial.

https://www.llamasoft.com/llamasoft-supports-zipline-improve...

[dmix]

In the video the drone dropped the package on the roof using a small parachute. Many buildings shown there seem to have those walled flat roofs which are accessible via stairs which is also popular in the middle east.

That seems to be a critical part for implementing this in an urban delivery system. People will likely need to install some sort of out-of-reach delivery chute on their roof or some sort of box on the buildings to prevent theft.

It will make it more expensive to implement but I can't see how deliveries would work without some sort of on-the-ground infrastructure like this.

But when it does happen though it will be glorious.

[baldfat]

I think flying drones for home delivery will be the new flying car. I think autonomous road vehicle is the future for cities with an attempt to deliver to the home and then to a central pick up.

Reason is money. UPS or the USPS can do it if Amazon and Walmart don't beat them first. Salaries and benefits are the biggest slice of the pie for expenses.

[razster]

If the drone has a precise drop rate then you could just setup a catch net, then simple lower the net and retrieve the package.

[kwhitefoot]

At last a real use for drones. And also drones and launch systems well designed for the duty.

[falcolas]

FWIW, multirotors and RC aircraft with camera systems have been in use in the US for search and rescue operations for years.

[Mangalor]

They're also good for concert videos. But yes, not much else yet. Needs real-time obstacle avoidance.

[atupis]

There might be other startup opportunities here. Our postal service at least has this where they has to deliver letters 5 days of week and cost can be pretty high https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

[lucaspiller]

It sounds like this is more a political issue rather than a technological issue.

[kelvin0]

This is really a great application for quick transportation to a remote zone, which is so crucial in remote areas. But I can't help think that for each 'good' application, there might be dozens that are not so beneficial, for example : Drugs and Arms delivery across border, just to name few ....

I have nothing against the technology, I'm just really curious about it's more 'nefarious' uses.

[mfoy_]

Any technology can be used in ways the inventor had not intended, and possibly would not wish.

[jm666]

According to zipline website [0], there will be 4 stations, Mwanza, Geita, Mbeya and Dodoma. Looking on maps, Geita and Mwanza are really close to each other, moreover looks like at least third of potentially covered land around Mwanza is water. Wonder what is the reason behind this.

[0] http://www.flyzipline.com/service/

[EGreg]

While I liks the drone idea, I have to be pedantic here:

But that mission can be a challenge during emergencies, times of unexpected demand, bad weather, or for small but critical orders.

Um 2-3 out of those four will not be improved by drones!

Using drones for just-in-time deliveries will allow us to provide health facilities with complete access to vital medical products no matter the circumstance,” concluded Bwanakunu.

Including bad weather eh?

[anigbrowl]

Yes, including some bad weather scenarios. Drones are likely not great in torrential rain, but things like flooding and fog shouldn't be issues for them whereas they would for drivers.

Emergencies (presumably political or military) will bring challenges of their own (since drones could conceivably be doing espionage and might be shot at), but can be routed around, and for times of unexpected demand it's a lot cheaper to store and launch many drones than it is to whistle up many trucks and drivers.

OF course the use case is limited at present due to payload limitations and so forth, but is there anyone who doesn't expect that to keep improving?

[patrickmclaren]

While drones are indeed still susceptible to a multitude of bad weather scenarios in the air, they do bypass several major scenarios on the ground that frequently interrupt supply lines like flooding, fires, avalanches, etc.

[mleonhard]

Heavy rains can make dirt roads impassible. This is why transportation to clinics in remote villages becomes unreliable in the rainy season.

Example: http://www.frontpageafricaonline.com/images/countynews/bcty-...

[viaart]

There is a relevant drone competition called the UAV Challenge Medical Express where teams have to retrieve a blood sample from a remote location. https://uavchallenge.org/medical-express/

[jessriedel]

Is there more extensive description of what the Medical items delivered actually are? I guess it's mostly just blood?

[seabird]

It's not just blood, but that's a large portion of it. Flying out supplies really makes sense when you consider material that needs to be refrigerated (like blood). Rural African roads during wet season can be outright unusable; moving stuff can be a matter of weeks just to move something a few miles.

[giarc]

Could also be vaccinations that require a cold chain.

[rabbitonrails]

Tanzania launches the world's largest 2015/16 drone-hype VC funding delivery service

[danmaz74]

What if, instead, we reached the "slope of enlightenment" and these are useful applications that will lead to the plateau of productivity?

[juiyout]

This title "...latest..." threw me off a bit. Somehow associated "last" with that. Yet I have no problem when it comes to "latest tech", "latest research". Weird.