Drones are helping in almost every field, from aerial surveillance to the exploration of oils, gas, etc. And now, you can get your food delivered to your doorstep through a drone. Zomato has successfully tested delivering food using a hybrid drone, with a fusion of rotary wing and fixed wings. The drone covered a distance of 5 km in 10 minutes at a peak speed of 80 km per hour.
“The drone was tested last week at one of the remote sites approved by the DGCA. Such tests are done at very remote sites which are specially designed to conduct such tests,” said Zomato in a statement.
The company has not revealed the location where the drone-delivered the package, but it carried a payload of five kg.
Since the regulations do not allow such experiments and drones carrying payloads outside the visual line of sight, DGCA has asked the interested organisations, through a notification released on 13 May, to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the DGCA for conducting experimental Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations (BVLOS) of drones. The regulations have said that the rules will be evolved for the companies that will bring new technologies.
Zomato, last year, acquired the drone delivery startup TechEagle Innovations in order to experiment with the food delivery through drones, such that to serve its customers better. The company has revealed that it is forming a consortium to carry out such practices and move forward with its new idea of deliveries through drones.
“While regulatory hurdles are not trivial, and the government’s concerns need to be looked at from various (valid) points of view, the tech is ready to fly and I am confident that drone delivery will be commonplace sooner rather than later,” said Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO, Zomato.
The company is stepping towards deliveries through drones, to reduce the congestion on the roads and to provide faster deliveries to the customers. Though the average delivery time, the service takes to deliver food, is 30 minutes and with drones, the company wants to achieve lesser delivery time.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.