Zipline - How Rwanda Built A Drone Delivery Service

Delivery drones are definitely unnecessary in densely populated areas. It's cool and futuristic, but it's not economical at all, it's very unsafe and also loud. However it's a wonderful thing for rural places with poor infrastructure. For example Zipline in Rwanda, one of the most interesting solutions an engineering perspective too: [VIDEO]

The catapult launches the drones into the air, which then parachute the package to the location. Real Engineering [1] and Wendover Productions [2] have really nice videos about their system currently deployed in Rwanda. [1]: [VIDEO] [2]: [LINK]

The website includes a video [0] that explains how it works in more detail too. It's quite interesting how they evade issues with landing and lifting the plane, lifting the plane by shooting it off a rail seems like a common approach but landing it by catching it using a small hook at the tail of the plane isn't that common I presume. On their website it says "Gas combustion vehicles break down, get stuck in traffic jams that prevent urgent response, and put human drivers at risk behind the wheel, particularly when the route is rough and treacherous. Zipline’s drones are battery powered and fly quickly and directly to their destinations, leaving ground vehicles behind." That sounds like an unfair comparison, a more accurate comparison would have been to gas powered drones. Is it still the case for gas powered drones that they're more unreliable than electrical drones? It's probably because of the weight of a gas powered engine in such a small drone no? [0] [VIDEO]

I learnt about Zipline in a talk at JuliaCon by Tucker McClure who spoke about how they use Julia for designing and tuning their aircraft. Had the great fortune of spending an evening at the conference to learn more about the company itself, how it got started and their use of Julia. Recommend the 2019 JuliaCon video on how Zipline uses Julia for vehicle simulation: [LINK] And this video by Real Engineering that does a great job of explaining how the whole thing works: [VIDEO]

If we're talking about fixed wing drones in rural environments then it does makes sense. A good example of that is this drone delivery service in Rwanda [VIDEO]

flyzipline is so cool! I saw an AMA they did on reddit a while ago and their tech for the thing landing where it hooks onto the the wire is really neat! [VIDEO]

There's an American company[1] in Ghana sending medical supplies around the country with small launchable planes.[2] 1: [LINK] 2: [VIDEO]

> Even if they're literally worse at everything than the alternatives, cost more, are less reliable, etc. Drones may be better for very quick delivery or where road network is very poor. See [LINK] with amazing [VIDEO] (delivery of medical supplies in Rwanda) and mentions ship-to-ship transport.

I was also going to mention zipline in Rwanda, last video I saw was two years ago but it looks like they’re doing well enough to be hiring interns in San Fran. Really cool tech, the way they have a sort of assembly line for getting ready-to-fly parts on the package in the space of minutes - these are life and death deliveries out here! [VIDEO] [LINK]

For those blocked by a paywall, Real Engineering did a video on it [ [VIDEO] ]. The most interesting aspects to me were: - The drone is not a quadcopter, they are too inefficient. Mini plane design. - GPS device is directly attached to the swappable battery unit to ensure it is always connected to a satellite, eliminating satellite connection delays when the drone powers up. - It is launched into a sky by a powered rail. It doesn't need to land to deliver the goods, the items get parachuted down. No infrastructure needed on the receiving end, the item just drops from the sky. - For landing the drone flies past an aircraft arresting wire while hooking onto it which decelerates it and causes it to swing down (suspended above the ground). Easy to retrieve.

They’ve been doing those deliveries in Rwanda for 6 years! Very impressive. This video has a bit more info and is less rushed: [VIDEO]

One of my favorite companies since I heard about them - [VIDEO] I personally believe this is the way forward, like in a star wars movie full of a plethora of "dumb" robots who have a specific work task, and are almost self sufficient. Like you have a robot that fix delivery drones, a robot that assembles them, and etc. Drones will be also much better at avoiding obstacles, and they will be much more efficient than cars. I am not really sure why there isn't more competition in this market. I believe they can build an autonomous delivery hub, and factory. I wish them all the best.

If you watch the video, at the end they show a road runner. I was bracing myself for the poor little guy to get blasted to atoms. Spoiler: road runner survived. I work in the opposite field of weapons but from the moment I saw zipline I thought their quick launching and distance was interesting. Maybe this is already how drones are launched in places like Ukraine, I don't know. I do understand that the road runner is probably much faster and able to intercept jets. [VIDEO] I'm not really looking forward to drone warfare, tbh.