Drone Delivery Starts In India: Swiggy Tests 300+ Drone Deliveries For Food, Medicine Without Any Accident

In a trial, Food delivery unicorn Swiggy and integrated airspace company ANRA Technologies have jointly conducted over 300 drone-led deliveries of food and medicines in India. 

Drone-led Deliveries For Food and Medicines

Reportedly, these trials were part of a project awarded to the companies by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Ministry of Civil Aviation. 

These are meant to help prepare for the next set of drone rules for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. 

According to the companies, this was the first time such missions had been carried out in India.

What Is BVLOS? 

Basically, BVLOS is a type of drone mission where the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) goes outside the usual visual range of the pilot. 

These trials requires complex technologies, mapping and much more, in order to be carried out successfully.

  They were conducted by ANRA’s flight team at the Indian Institute of Technology- Ropar campus in Punjab and in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district.

In total, 352 drone trials were conducted for over 100 flight hours, covering 1,100 kilometers of incident-free operations. 

ANRA’s Contribution In Drone Trials

Further, these multirotor drones used ANRA’s SmartSkies CTR and SmartSkies DELIVERY platforms.

Basically, these two platforms helps drone operators with tracking, monitoring, deconflicting and other information crucial to conducting low-altitude BVLOS missions.

How Does This Help? 

On this occassion, the chief technology officer (CTO) of Swiggy, Dale Vaz said, “The recently concluded pilot will help pave the way for usage of commercial drones in enabling the middle and last mile journey for our consumers,”.

 The project was meant to help develop “independent, self-directed, and scalable” systems to manage and monitor BVLOS drone operations at scale, according to the companies. 

These operations require operators to factor in information on terrain, possible obstacles, airspace traffic, weather, and more. 

Moreover, these systems makes the information available to service providers. 

It can further send notifications to external stakeholders, including government agencies and public safety bodies.

According to the companies, the system can ensure that only authenticated and approved drones are allowed to fly in the airspace. 

 In order to provide real-time situational awareness, monitoring and approval of these experiments, ANRA’s unmanned air traffic management (UTM) system was provided to government stakeholders, and Indian Air Force.