Zipline - How Rwanda Built A Drone Delivery Service

What people said

zx10rse · 2023-09 · Strong recommendation

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.

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gniv · 2023-09 · Recommendation

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]

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SPBS · 2022-04 · Recommendation

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.

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