
Tanzania becomes the latest country to use Zipline drones for medical deliveries - maged
https://www.iafrikan.com/2017/08/31/tanzania-becomes-the-latest-country-to-use-zipline-drones-for-medical-supplies-deliveries/
======
kogepathic
This service has already been running in Rwanda since 2016 with positive
results. [0]

It's great to see other countries trying out this form of delivery, as rural
roads in Africa can be quite bad.

I'm interested to see if this trial is successful in Tanzania, given that it's
geographically much larger than Rwanda and has a much lower population
density.

Tanzania: 47.5 persons/km^2 [1]

Rwanda: 445 persons/km^2 [2]

Rwanda is more dense by an order of magnitude.

[0]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37646474](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37646474)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda)

~~~
zx76
I hadn't heard of this service before - all very interesting. I found another
article on Wired [1] that gives a good overview.

It's unlikely to be an issue in the wide open spaces of these countries - but
an autonomous equivalent of the ATC system for drones will be needed when
Amazon et al. start doing these deliveries in first world cities. Do you know
of any companies working on this problem?

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2016/05/zipline-drones-
rwanda/](https://www.wired.com/2016/05/zipline-drones-rwanda/)

~~~
tim333
There seem to be some people working on ATC for drones. Google, NASA, "experts
at Nanyang Technological University and the Civil Aviation Authority of
Singapore" etc
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ATC+system+for+drones](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ATC+system+for+drones)

It's quite interesting technically. Regular ATC works by keeping flights quite
far apart and separated by 1000ft or more in barometric altitude which
wouldn't work with delivery dones but maybe you could use phone style gps
location. It's not considered reliable enough for airliners but might be
acceptable for drones.

~~~
abakker
Yes, the work at Google, NASA, and the FAA comes to mind. They are very aware
of the need for handling this for the delivery space. With drones, as you
pointed out, the flight path "conflicts" are much smaller. There are no
wingtip vortices, and the drones take up much smaller physical space. The
flights also start and stop much more rapidly. Right now, my impression is
that the FAA is not equipped to process a major increase in flight path data
with different flight conflict characteristics. Especially when the flight's
round trips include a takeoff and landing. There are no "air corridors" in
drone delivery, since below 400 feet, many more obstacles go into a flight
path, and every house becomes its own airport.

As for drone GPS, there are VERY high accuracy options available using RTK.
Especially RTK over satellite with systems from Trimble and Leica coming to
mind. These are typically used in terrestrial survey and allow very high
degrees of confidence in the physical location of the drones. I don't believe
RTK works for planes, but it is in commercial use in drones all over. s

------
yawgmoth
The company I work for, LLamasoft, works with Zipline to model and optimize
their supply chain. We did a press release Aug 30th, if anyone is curious.
Fortunately we have had support for different modes of transport for a long
time, so adopting drones into our model was trivial.

[https://www.llamasoft.com/llamasoft-supports-zipline-
improve...](https://www.llamasoft.com/llamasoft-supports-zipline-improve-
performance-public-health-supply-chains-using-drones/)

------
dmix
In the video the drone dropped the package on the roof using a small
parachute. Many buildings shown there seem to have those walled flat roofs
which are accessible via stairs which is also popular in the middle east.

That seems to be a critical part for implementing this in an urban delivery
system. People will likely need to install some sort of out-of-reach delivery
chute on their roof or some sort of box on the buildings to prevent theft.

It will make it more expensive to implement but I can't see how deliveries
would work without some sort of on-the-ground infrastructure like this.

But when it does happen though it will be glorious.

~~~
baldfat
I think flying drones for home delivery will be the new flying car. I think
autonomous road vehicle is the future for cities with an attempt to deliver to
the home and then to a central pick up.

Reason is money. UPS or the USPS can do it if Amazon and Walmart don't beat
them first. Salaries and benefits are the biggest slice of the pie for
expenses.

~~~
dmix
Are automated ground based vehicles really going to out perform automated
flight based ones?

I can see that for large packages (~50% of current parcel delivery?) but that
still leaves all standard envelope based mail and smaller package. Such as
books by Amazon or the very broad group of various daily products people would
START purchasing online if they could get same day delivery.

If we look merely at how things work _now_ \- yes - I believe what you're
saying makes the most sense. Because it's merely a big optimization of the
current systems.

But I believe this downplays the innovation that very fast same-day delivery
of packages (within a few hours even) that drones could provide. It would
seriously expand the scope of services businesses like UPS and Fedex can
provide.

Suddenly pharmacies, drug dealers, restaurants, local bakeries, convenience
stores, gas stations, liquor/wine stores, etc, etc have a new retail venue.

Why stop at the busy gas station to fill your cars tank before the daily
commute when you can wake up to a prepaid jerry can in your drone box?

I'd bet the answer will likely be a combination of both with a much higher
volume in the drone delivery side.

------
kwhitefoot
At last a real use for drones. And also drones and launch systems well
designed for the duty.

~~~
falcolas
FWIW, multirotors and RC aircraft with camera systems have been in use in the
US for search and rescue operations for years.

------
atupis
There might be other startup opportunities here. Our postal service at least
has this where they has to deliver letters 5 days of week and cost can be
pretty high
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.posti.fi%2Fprivate-
news%2Ftiedotteet%2F2016%2F20161003_posti-toteuttaa-5-paivaista-yleispalvelua-
turun-saaristossa.html&edit-text=&act=url)

~~~
lucaspiller
It sounds like this is more a political issue rather than a technological
issue.

------
kelvin0
This is really a great application for quick transportation to a remote zone,
which is so crucial in remote areas. But I can't help think that for each
'good' application, there might be dozens that are not so beneficial, for
example : Drugs and Arms delivery across border, just to name few ....

I have nothing against the technology, I'm just really curious about it's more
'nefarious' uses.

~~~
mfoy_
Any technology can be used in ways the inventor had not intended, and possibly
would not wish.

------
jm666
According to zipline website [0], there will be 4 stations, Mwanza, Geita,
Mbeya and Dodoma. Looking on maps, Geita and Mwanza are really close to each
other, moreover looks like at least third of potentially covered land around
Mwanza is water. Wonder what is the reason behind this.

[0] [http://www.flyzipline.com/service/](http://www.flyzipline.com/service/)

------
EGreg
While I liks the drone idea, I have to be pedantic here:

 _But that mission can be a challenge during emergencies, times of unexpected
demand, bad weather, or for small but critical orders._

Um 2-3 out of those four will not be improved by drones!

 _Using drones for just-in-time deliveries will allow us to provide health
facilities with complete access to vital medical products no matter the
circumstance,” concluded Bwanakunu._

Including bad weather eh?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, including some bad weather scenarios. Drones are likely not great in
torrential rain, but things like flooding and fog shouldn't be issues for them
whereas they would for drivers.

Emergencies (presumably political or military) will bring challenges of their
own (since drones could conceivably be doing espionage and might be shot at),
but can be routed around, and for times of unexpected demand it's a lot
cheaper to store and launch many drones than it is to whistle up many trucks
and drivers.

OF course the use case is limited at present due to payload limitations and so
forth, but is there anyone who doesn't expect that to keep improving?

------
viaart
There is a relevant drone competition called the UAV Challenge Medical Express
where teams have to retrieve a blood sample from a remote location.
[https://uavchallenge.org/medical-express/](https://uavchallenge.org/medical-
express/)

------
jessriedel
Is there more extensive description of what the Medical items delivered
actually are? I guess it's mostly just blood?

~~~
seabird
It's not _just_ blood, but that's a large portion of it. Flying out supplies
really makes sense when you consider material that needs to be refrigerated
(like blood). Rural African roads during wet season can be outright unusable;
moving stuff can be a matter of weeks just to move something a few miles.

------
rabbitonrails
Tanzania launches the world's largest 2015/16 drone-hype VC funding delivery
service

~~~
danmaz74
What if, instead, we reached the "slope of enlightenment" and these are useful
applications that will lead to the plateau of productivity?

~~~
have_faith
>the plateau of productivity

Google title for a book. Start a kickstarter and get rich $$$.

~~~
Piskvorrr
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

------
juiyout
This title "...latest..." threw me off a bit. Somehow associated "last" with
that. Yet I have no problem when it comes to "latest tech", "latest research".
Weird.

