by Ric | Jul 10, 2018 | Air, News Brief |
“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...
by Ric | Oct 23, 2017 | Land, News Brief |
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...