Food delivery gets airborne with first drone tests in Singapore
While living chicken do not fly very well, fried chicken do: This was demonstrated by food delivery firm Foodpanda at a recent press event in Singapore, where delivery was done by drones.
Foodpanda showed the first delivery test flight of its new initiative “pandaFly,” a drone-based food delivery initiative in collaboration with ST Engineering. The maiden flight delivered an order of five packets of fried chicken from central Singapore to a vessel with hungry sailors three kilometers offshore, in less than ten minutes.
With the usage of drones, Foodpanda said it aims at making long-distance deliveries better, faster and cheaper for all customers and seeks to complement, not replace its existing delivery network of riders. On the mainland, the intention is that drones ideally will pick up orders at designated collection points located across the city state and transport it to another where one of Foodpanda’s currently 12,000 riders will be waiting to complete the last-mile delivery.
Reduced delivery times and remote locations
It would greatly reduce delivery times, particularly over longer distances, the company said. The drones can carry two kilogrammes of weight and travel up to a distance of 54 kilometers, and delivery could made to remote locations while traffic could be avoided at all. It also has the potential to make food delivery cheaper and easier for many food delivery companies that would adopt this business model.
In the pilot project, Foodpanda is using ST Engineering’s DroNet, a drone network solution designed for autonomous operations in an urban environment.
“Delivering with drones has always been part of our long-term plan, and to see our Foodpanda box up in the air today takes us a big step forward to be the first food delivery platform that makes drone deliveries a reality,” Luc Andreani, managing director of Foodpanda Singapore, said.
More commercial drone solutions on the way
The drone delivery trial shows that Singapore is developing into a forerunner of commercial use of drones, with more companies turning to unmanned aerial vehicles for purposes such as infrastructure inspection and goods deliveries.
In April, local start-up F-Drones became the first company to conduct drone deliveries in the city-state. It signed a one-year deal with shipping giant Eastern Pacific Shipping to deliver items to vessels anchored offshore.
Another start-up, Aerolion Technologies, was granted funding by government agencies to develop a building cleaning drone. It also recently won a contact with a local utility company to deploy drones for canal inspections.
An order of fried chicken flies to hungry sailors off the coast of Singapore While living chicken do not fly very well, fried chicken do: This was demonstrated by food delivery firm Foodpanda at a recent press event in Singapore, where delivery was done by drones. Foodpanda showed the first delivery test flight of its new initiative “pandaFly,” a drone-based food delivery initiative in collaboration with ST Engineering. The maiden flight delivered an order of five packets of fried chicken from central Singapore to a vessel with hungry sailors three kilometers offshore, in less than ten minutes. With the usage...
While living chicken do not fly very well, fried chicken do: This was demonstrated by food delivery firm Foodpanda at a recent press event in Singapore, where delivery was done by drones.
Foodpanda showed the first delivery test flight of its new initiative “pandaFly,” a drone-based food delivery initiative in collaboration with ST Engineering. The maiden flight delivered an order of five packets of fried chicken from central Singapore to a vessel with hungry sailors three kilometers offshore, in less than ten minutes.
With the usage of drones, Foodpanda said it aims at making long-distance deliveries better, faster and cheaper for all customers and seeks to complement, not replace its existing delivery network of riders. On the mainland, the intention is that drones ideally will pick up orders at designated collection points located across the city state and transport it to another where one of Foodpanda’s currently 12,000 riders will be waiting to complete the last-mile delivery.
Reduced delivery times and remote locations
It would greatly reduce delivery times, particularly over longer distances, the company said. The drones can carry two kilogrammes of weight and travel up to a distance of 54 kilometers, and delivery could made to remote locations while traffic could be avoided at all. It also has the potential to make food delivery cheaper and easier for many food delivery companies that would adopt this business model.
In the pilot project, Foodpanda is using ST Engineering’s DroNet, a drone network solution designed for autonomous operations in an urban environment.
“Delivering with drones has always been part of our long-term plan, and to see our Foodpanda box up in the air today takes us a big step forward to be the first food delivery platform that makes drone deliveries a reality,” Luc Andreani, managing director of Foodpanda Singapore, said.
More commercial drone solutions on the way
The drone delivery trial shows that Singapore is developing into a forerunner of commercial use of drones, with more companies turning to unmanned aerial vehicles for purposes such as infrastructure inspection and goods deliveries.
In April, local start-up F-Drones became the first company to conduct drone deliveries in the city-state. It signed a one-year deal with shipping giant Eastern Pacific Shipping to deliver items to vessels anchored offshore.
Another start-up, Aerolion Technologies, was granted funding by government agencies to develop a building cleaning drone. It also recently won a contact with a local utility company to deploy drones for canal inspections.
