Irish Post Delivery Drone?

Irish Post Delivery Drone?

by | Jul 10, 2018 | Air, News Brief | 0 comments

“Drone deliveries will not replace regular (mail) service, but it is going to be part of the future.” Delivery drones and postal deliveries go hand in hand, just take a look at DHL’s Parcelcopter or Singpost’s mail delivery concept and you get an inkling of the huge potential. Last Thursday, Ireland’s postal service (An Post) flew a delivery drone, nicknamed “Postman Padraig”, to complete Ireland’s first ever autonomous parcel delivery from mainland to island. The DJI based drone flew 5,561 meters (~3.5 miles) in 11 minutes and 20 seconds over water to deliver a small trinket to a customer on Clare Island (please see flight path below). Not much else is known at the moment except An Post is considering more plans to incorporate drones to complement its service in rural areas. More info...
Deutsche Post To Test Ground Based Mail Delivery Drones

Deutsche Post To Test Ground Based Mail Delivery Drones

by | Oct 23, 2017 | Land, News Brief | 0 comments

Mail delivery robot “assistant” will automatically follow postal workers in Germany PostBOT is an all-weather, ground-based drone that will accompany postal workers along their delivery routes. It can carry up to 150 kg (330 lb) of mail and packages. The robot was designed with considerable input from Deutsche Post personnel and was built by the French company Effidence which won the DHL Robotics Challenge last year. The main goal of this mail-toting machine is to ease the physical challenge of the job even as the postal workers continue to age. The current version of PostBOT is 150 cm (4 ft 11 inches) tall and can travel at speeds of up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph). In case you are wondering how the four-wheeled mail delivery bot will handle steps, well, according to The Postal Hub there are no steps in Bad Hersfeld where the six week trial is set to begin later this year. It will be interesting to see how PostBOT will interact with the Parcelcopter, DHL’s tiltwing delivery...
Drones Going Postal – A Summary of Postal Service Delivery Drone Trials

Drones Going Postal – A Summary of Postal Service Delivery Drone Trials

by | Jun 25, 2016 | Air | 3 comments

27 JUNE, 2016 Postal Delivery Drones With the rapid demise of snail mail and the explosive double digit growth of e-Commerce, postal companies have been forced to seek new ways to expand beyond their traditional letter delivery business models. Given the online consumer’s expectation of fast parcel delivery, it is not surprising that many of these postal service companies are now turning towards delivery drone technology to remain afloat. This article focuses on the recent activities different postal companies from Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore and Ukraine have undertaken as they test the feasibility and profitability of unmanned delivery drone services.  Although the general consensus is that it will still take a while for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to become the defacto parcel delivery mode given a variety of existing obstacles (e.g. consumer expectations, end recipient safety, threat of theft, regulatory frameworks, battery life limitation, etc.), the current trend does indeed point to a time where Fido won’t be able to savor the mailman’s leg. The Australia Post parcel delivery drone in action. Photograph by Eddie Jim via the Sydney Morning Herald Australia Post In 2015 Australia Post reported their first full year loss in over 30 years of operation. Their AU$222 million (US$171 million) loss was a dramatic change compared to their AU$116.2 million (US$89.72 million) profit in 2014. What they did see however was that although letter volumes fell by 7.3%, parcel revenue rose by 3.6%. Ever since then, this government owned postal company down under has been quite active in the testing of delivery drone usage “It is not a matter of if, but rather of when” This...