DHL Parcel Germany is testing urgent deliveries by a ‘parcelcopter’ drone to the North Seaisland of Juist to step up its unmanned delivery research.
The small unmanned aircraft will transport medications and other urgently needed goods at fixeddelivery times to the car-free holiday island off the Lower Saxony coast.
It is the first time in Europe that an unmanned aircraft will be operated outside of the pilot’sfield of vision in a real-life mission with regular flights, the company said. The test representsthe next phase of the parcelcopter research project launched in December 2013.
In cooperation with its two research and development partners, the Institute of Flight SystemDynamics at RWTH Aachen University and Microdrones GmbH, DHL Parcel has completed a comprehensiveconsultation and approval process led by Lower Saxony’s Ministry for Economics, Labour andTransport. A restricted flight area has been established exclusively for this research project.
Since its very first flight last December, the DHL parcelcopter has been further developed, withoptimised flight duration, flight range and speed to cope with the challenges arising from the windand marine-weather conditions in the North Sea.
“Our DHL parcelcopter 2.0 is already one of the safest and most reliable flight systems in itsclass that meets the requirements needed to fulfill such a mission,” Jürgen Gerdes, CEO of DeutschePost DHL’s Post – eCommerce – Parcel Division, said. “We are proud that this additional service cancreate added value for the residents of and visitors to the island of Juist and are pleased withthe support we have received from the involved communities and agencies.”
The optimised DHL parcelcopter will cover the distance of roughly 12 km to the island, with theflight being completely automated for the first time. This means that a pilot is not involved atany time during the flight. For safety reasons and in compliance with the requirements set by theresponsible agencies, the DHL parcelcopter will still be constantly monitored during the flight bya mobile ground station in Norddeich. This way, immediate action can be taken in case ofmalfunction or emergency. The ground station will also be in permanent contact with air trafficcontrollers.
To ensure reliable and safe operations of the DHL parcelcopter, an autopilot with automatedtakeoff and landing functions was developed. This robust and reliable system has been extensivelytested. At an altitude of 50 metres, the parcelcopter can travel up to 18 metres per seconddepending on wind speed. It will primarily transport medications from the mainland to the island ofJuist at certain times during the week and on weekends when no other delivery alternatives such asferries or flights are available.
The parcelcopter will take off from the harbour in Norddeich. It will land at a dedicated launchpad and landing field on the island of Juist. From there, a DHL courier will then deliver the goodsto the recipient. To optimally secure the goods during transport, DHL Parcel developed a specialair-transport container that is extremely light in terms of weight as well as weather- andwaterproof.
The medications for the transport can be ordered from the Seehund pharmacy with which DHL Parcelis cooperating as part of the pilot project. Once the project starts, vacationers and islandresidents can find out more about how they can place orders at www.dhl.de/paketkopter.
Microdrones GmbH, one of the leading providers of automated copters, has been involved in theproject from the very beginning and developed the DHL parcelcopter on the basis of one of itsflight platforms.
DHL stressed that it doesn’t plan to use the parcelcopter in normal parcel delivery operationsfor now. The aim of the research project is simply to test and evaluate the possibilities of suchdelivery methods. However, it considers parcelcopters as an interesting option for the future todeliver urgently needed goods to thinly populated or remote areas or in emergency cases, if theiruse proves technically feasible and economically sensible.
