Drone-to-door medicines trial takes flight in Ireland
By David Molloy and Jen Copestake
A drone company that had to abandon its fast-food delivery tests has partnered with Ireland's health authority to deliver prescriptions instead.
Manna Aero is working with the Health Service Executive to deliver medicines and other essential supplies to vulnerable people in the small rural town of Moneygall.
The company's trial uses autonomous drones made in Wales.
And it is looking at the possibility of testing in the UK within weeks.
The UK has already announced a test of drones to carry supplies to the Isle of Wight during the pandemic.
Also, in Florida, care home residents will soon be able to have their prescriptions delivered.
But those tests are on fixed flightpaths.
And the Irish flights are going straight to homes, the final stage of a "closed loop" end-to-end system the company says is a first.
'Absolutely brilliant'
Local GPs write prescriptions after a video consultation, which drones then drop off at patients' homes.
The craft can also deliver essential supplies - such as milk or bread - to those who are not supposed to go outside.
Fidelma Gleeson, 70, said it was "absolutely brilliant".
image copyrightManna Aeroimage captionAfter a video consultation, Fidelma's medicine arrives at her door by drone
"I thought I would never see the day that there would be such technology that I wouldn't have to be driving into town and back up to get my medicine - brilliant," she said.
Dr Colm O'Reilly, a GP in nearby Toomevara, said it was "a great assistance in a rural area where there may not be as much support as you might have in the city".
"In these troubled times, it's great to see how technology is coming together to assist us in helping our patients," he said.
Manna Aero chief executive Bobby Healy said he wanted to bring the trials to the UK to "show people what we can do - perhaps work with the NHS".
"We are actually looking to do that in the next few weeks - on the assumption that lockdown is going to continue," he said.
Lift-off delayed
The idea was born after a very different trial - to deliver takeaways to college students in mid-March - was put on hold because of the pandemic.
The drone can carry up to 4kg (9lb) in its cargo cassette, which is about the size of a large shoebox - but the focus has shifted.
"We're not going to be selling hamburgers," Mr Healy said.
"We're going to be selling what the elderly people really need to have - so basic necessities."
image copyrightManna Aeroimage captionThe drone has a cassette-loaded cargo bay to hold small packages for delivery
The mobile command centre for the drones is based at Barack Obama Plaza, a motorway services renamed in 2011 when the US president came to visit the home of one of his Irish ancestors.
Manna Aero says it is equipped to handle up to 100 deliveries a day.
And with some 500 towns in the Irish Republic of roughly the same size, it hopes the Moneygall test will "validate the concept" for rural deliveries across Ireland and the UK.
"It's about proving that if there's a world in future where you need to do a lockdown, at scale, that drones can be a massive solution," Mr Healy said.
Wales' aerospace excellence
The drones are built about 10 miles north of Cardiff - a centre of excellence for aviation already home to thousands of Airbus employees.
They can fly in moderate gales, though Manna chooses not to, has redundant batteries and flight computers, and a parachute for gentle descents if a "one in 10 million" failure happens.
In fact, Mr Healy prefers to call them aircraft - and points out his company is regulated as an airline.
"It's not particularly beautiful," Mr Healy said.
"It's not particularly fast or any of those things.
"It's just incredibly safe."
image copyrightManna Aeroimage captionChief executive Bobby Healy is based in Dublin but the company has more employees in Wales
And although the drones are completely autonomous, a pilot is present at all times to intervene.
The UK Space Agency is looking at the possibility of creating air corridors between different locations in the coming months - to aid the fight against Covid-19.
"This is going to be something where you find a few hospitals who are aware of the challenges that they are facing and up for engaging with us," applications strategy head Emily Gravestock said.
But maintaining public safety during such trials was the biggest concern of all involved, she said.
"That's the thing that has absolutely got to be proven before we put any kind of air corridor or opportunity in place," Ms Gravestock said.
"You've then got to work with the local community.
"It could concern people to have drones flying over delivering services across their properties, across their gardens."
Joe Blundo, So To Speak | The sky is the limit for drones to deliver the absurd
You might have heard that Kroger plans to experiment with drone delivery from one of its grocery stores in Centerville soon.
Only neighborhoods near the store are eligible, and the package can’t weigh more than 5 pounds. Kroger said it could foresee such uses as people on a picnic calling for a drone delivery of the mayonnaise they forgot.
Given the American taste for instant gratification, I foresee far more creative uses for drone delivery than that. And also high potential for unintended consequences. Here is my forecast, based mostly on my bias for absurd outcomes:
Drones will deliver to moving vehicles
We all know hard-charging vacation dads who are hellbent on driving 1,200 miles in a single day. So I’m sure there will be a demand for drones that can drop an 18-piece bucket of fried chicken through the sunroof of an SUV at 75 mph.
Everybody eats, no lunch stop required.
Little kids will order deliveries by mistake
Recently a 4-year-old in New York managed to order $2,600 worth of SpongeBob SquarePants Popsicles on Amazon. They were delivered the old-fashioned way. But it’s easy to imagine a resourceful preschooler with smartphone access directing a fleet of drones to carpet-bomb his front yard with 5,000 pounds of Gummi Bears.
Home improvement will get complicated
I don’t know about your house, but in mine every do-it-yourself project involves at least three hardware store visits per eight hours of labor. This provides valuable thinking time. When nuts, bolts, rivets and rolls of duct tape can be air-dropped in 15 minutes, however, there will be nothing to slow me down. And that’s not a good thing.
Pizza piracy will rage
Doesn’t pizza by drone sound like the holy grail of food delivery? No more 90-minute waits on a busy Friday night. But I predict all those airborne, extra-large pepperonis will be too much for hungry thieves armed with slingshots to resist. Anti-aircraft fire will fill the skies, and armored pizza drones with fighter escorts will become commonplace.
Your cravings will be exposed
Gluten-free vegan by day, junk-food addict by night? The whir of approaching propellers might well tip off the neighbors. And if not, everybody has a security camera now. The footage is clearly going to show that bacon cheeseburger arriving by air at 1 a.m.
Amusing collisions will dominate the news
With the skies full of delivery drones, funny mishaps seem unavoidable: A pharmacy drone bearing antacids collides with a diner drone delivering chili dogs. A peanut butter drone smacks into a jelly drone, raining an elementary school lunch on a quiet neighborhood. QAnon adherents awaiting a delivery of tin-foil hats are outraged to learn that the drone crash-landed at Bill Gates’ house.
Where will it all end? I don’t know, but it will be a long way from mayonnaise.
Blue Dart to operate drones for delivery of vaccines and medicines
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has granted the project with necessary exemptions and rights to fly drone flights on an experimental basis in Telangana
Blue Dart Med-Express Drone flights will deploy an immersive delivery model to optimise the current healthcare logistics within Telangana
According to a press release from the logistics major, Blue Dart Med-Express Consortium is part of the 'Medicine from the Sky' project in collaboration with the Telangana government, World Economic Forum, Niti Aayog and Healthnet Global.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has granted the project with necessary exemptions and rights to fly drone flights on an experimental basis in Telangana.
The aim is to assess an alternate logistics route in providing safe, accurate and reliable pickup and delivery of healthcare items (medicines, Covid-19 vaccines, units of blood, diagnostic specimens and other lifesaving equipment) from distribution centres to specific location and back, the release said.
Blue Dart Med-Express Drone flights will deploy an immersive delivery model to optimise the current healthcare logistics within Telangana.
The model will enable deliveries from district medical stores and blood banks to Primary Health Centres (PHCs), Community Health Centres (CHCs), Blood Storage Units & further from PHCs/CHCs to Central Diagnostic laboratories, it said.
Balfour Manuel, Managing Director, Blue Dart said, "As an organisation Blue Dart has always been surrounded with the technology of the future. It is this ability that has helped us to not only withstand the pandemic but thrive with growth.
While we reach out to over 35,000 locations across the country, the current situation calls for a much deeper penetration of vaccines."
Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, IT and Industries, said "Telangana is one of the most proactive states looking to adopt emerging technologies, and the 'Medicine from the Sky project using drones is in line with the same principles.
This project is one of the first such programs in the country...The vision is to ensure healthcare equity for rural areas."
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)