In order not to make noise while staying at altitude and to ensure precise parcel deposits, Zipline has designed a cargo drone that fits in a drone. Original.
Among the precursors to drone delivery is Zipline. The start-up claims to have already flown its autonomous drones more than 38 million kilometers since 2014. Its P1 Zip aircraft are mainly used to deliver blood and medical supplies to hospitals in Rwanda over distances of around 100 kilometers . Packages are delivered by airdrop. Delivering medical equipment is one thing, but delivering parcels or meals at home in urban areas is a different matter.
If Wing relies on gantries to be able to easily collect parcels, Zipline relies on its P2 Zip, a brand new drone capable of depositing a parcel on a garden table without having to land. The drone would be able to carry a load of more than 3.6 kilos over a distance of 16 kilometers in about ten minutes. This payload capacity has been determined to correspond to the weight of the majority of packages delivered to the United States. The drone consists of a large wing overhung by two beams parallel to the cabin. They are the ones that carry four motors to lower or raise the drone vertically for its delivery operations.
The aircraft looks like an airplane. To make the delivery, it hovered at a height of 90 meters. He then drops his droid, a sort of cargo drone that will drop off the package at the chosen location before going back up into its hold. © Zipline
A funny droid
To place the package, it positions itself in hovering flight at approximately 90 meters from the ground. He extracts from his hold a module called a droid which descends, attached to a rope. The droid also has a propeller propulsion system to adjust its approach and place the package in the desired location. Once its task is completed, the cargo module goes up. A propulsion propeller located at the rear of the V-tail of the P2 Zip then takes over to set off in cruise mode.
With this combination, the drone would be seven times faster than other delivery methods according to the leader of Zipline. The other advantage of the Zipline P2 Zip is that it can dock and power itself at its charging station. The firm imagines a base of drones whose supports could be along a building wall. Finally, still according to the firm, these drones also solve the problem of noise, because they are barely audible given the height at which they drop their droid. But, before going further, Zipline first plans to carry out more than 10,000 test flights with around a hundred drones.
