Drone Delivery FAQs
Welcome to our Drone Delivery FAQs page. Here we will seek to answer some of the often-asked questions about commercial drone delivery. Here you will discover what drone delivery is capable of, how it all works, and some of the innovative ways that commercial drone delivery operations are impacting innumerable industries around the world.
We will continue to adapt this FAQ page to answer popular questions about drone delivery, so please make sure to bookmark this page and check back for new insights.
Table of Contents
1. What is drone delivery?
Drone delivery leverages unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to move payloads from one location to another. While the most-commonly envisioned drone delivery is for retail deliveries such as food or parcels, delivery drones also service a wide array of industrial applications from rapid medical deliveries, to search and rescue support, shore-to-ship harbor logistics, and more.
2. What are the benefits of drone delivery?
Compared to traditional delivery trucks or vans, delivery drones can complete individual deliveries faster while helping to decrease roadway traffic congestion. In rural or remote areas, as well as hard-to-access locations, delivery drones can realize even more efficient deliveries without being constrained to winding roads. Additionally, as most delivery drones are battery powered, they represent a unique opportunity to mitigate much of the carbon emissions of traditional ground transportation vehicles.
3. How does drone delivery work?
Delivery drones transport payloads from a logistics hub to their final destination. For small scale drone delivery operations, payloads can be loaded manually and delivery flights can be conducted manually by individual pilots. As drone delivery operations scale, though, more complex systems are necessary to automate loading, automate navigation, and often fly missions and deliver payloads autonomously. Drone deliveries are considered a “last-mile delivery solution,” because they are ideal solutions for short-range payload delivery. With evolving regulatory allowances around the globe and advancements in drone capabilities, delivery drones are now also conducting beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) missions over the horizon.
4. What is beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone delivery?
Drone regulations in most countries require a pilot, or a forward observer, to maintain line-of-sight with their UAV at all times. For basic consumer operators this is an important safety requirement that ensures they have full awareness of their craft and its surroundings during flight. BVLOS drone flights operate without necessitating full-time visibility of the UAV platform. Such operations rely on intelligent systems to monitor airspace, drone performance, etc. to ensure safe operations, and in most countries such missions require special authorization from local regulators.
5. What is autonomous drone delivery?
Autonomous drone delivery are missions conducted with human operators taking an oversight role while the drone flies itself to its delivery location and automatically deposits its payload. Commercial delivery drones often leverage sophisticated systems to identify data important to autonomous flight. Lidars provide extremely accurate readings of the drone’s distance from the ground or obstacles. Detect-and-avoid systems monitor for aerial traffic, and smart delivery mechanisms transmit payloads to their ground destinations. With all of these systems working together, commercial drone delivery operators can monitor multiple delivery drones to more effectively scale a drone delivery ecosystem. Autonomous drone delivery capabilities are also imperative for conducting safe and reliable BVLOS missions.
6. How do commercial delivery drones differ from consumer drones?
While consumer drones are often small, lightweight aircraft outfitted with small gimbal-mounted video cameras for photography purposes, delivery drones are larger, more robust platforms specially designed for their delivery missions. The size of commercial delivery drones can scale to meet their mission parameters, though most top out at a total take off weight of 55 pounds to meet FAA regulations. Commercial delivery drones are also designed to maximize their range to extend the reach of their service area, and can operate at higher speeds than most consumer drones to improve delivery efficiency. Most importantly, commercial delivery drones feature specially-designed cargo bays, servo release mechanisms for dropping packages, or purpose-built drone delivery winches for safely lowering payloads to the ground.
7. What is a commercial drone winch?
A commercial drone winch, or UAV winch, is a purpose-built solution that allows payloads to be quickly, and accurately, delivered from a drone at altitude to the ground. Some drone delivery winches can also pick up payloads in the field. More than just a simple reel, commercial drone winches incorporate redundant safe features to keep payloads locked in place during flight, confirm payload weights to ensure safe flight characteristics, and smart mechanisms that alert pilots if the winches tether becomes entangled during a delivery. Beyond just delivery, a commercial drone winch can also be used for lowering sensors for water testing or other remote sensing applications, enabling service providers to diversify their offerings. A2Z Drone Delivery created the industry’s first purpose-built commercial drone winch in 2020, and has continued to evolve its winch design and software systems to meet the growing needs of commercial drone delivery operators.
8. Why is winch delivery a preferred drone delivery method?
There are multiple delivery methods that commercial delivery drones use to deposit payloads. Some delivery drones need to land and await a recipient that then removes the payload from the drone’s cargo bay. Completing deliveries from altitude is a preferred paradigm though. By delivering payloads from altitude, spinning propellers are kept far from people and property on the ground. The UAVs are also less likely to become entangled in ground obstacles such as power lines to trees. Transiting a payload from a drone at altitude to the ground is done in multiple ways. Some operators rely on parachutes to glide packages to the ground, others use a simple servo release that freefall a payload to the ground. These methods are less accurate and require payloads to endure hard shocks as they land. Winch delivering payloads from a drone at altitude is the ideal balance of speed, gentle landing, and accuracy allowing.
9. What types of cargo can drones deliver?
Drones are able to deliver just about any payload within the size and weight parameters of the delivery drone, with a few exceptions. Drones are an ideal delivery method for more than just packages, food, many medicines, mission-critical tools and equipment items. Delivery drones are already helping to bridge the gap where traditional delivery methods are either very costly, time intensive or simply impossible. For example, shore-to-ship deliveries speed delivery of paperwork and currencies to ships anchored in busy harbors. First responders leverage delivery drones to quickly deploy life-saving AEDs in traffic-congested urban environments that slow rescue vehicles. Also, search and rescue operators are using delivery drones to expedite delivery of triage equipment to victims in remote areas. That said, some items are currently prohibited for delivery by drone. These prohibited items vary depending on local regulation but can often include hazardous materials, biohazards and some medical drugs.
10. Is drone delivery legal?
Generally, leveraging drones for deliveries is allowed in most countries, and while local regulations do not prohibit delivering payloads from drones, regulations for drone operations do vary greatly from country to country. Differing regulatory environments may limit operational altitudes for drones, control flight paths and in which areas drones are allowed to operate, and each has its own independent safety requirements for drone platforms and their operation.
11. How far can drones deliver?
The serviceable range of commercial delivery drones depends on local regulation and on the individual drone platforms themselves. While nationwide regulations may allow BVLOS operations, where drones can fly outside the sight of their operators, the technical specifications of each drone airframe will dictate the drone’s delivery radius (i.e. the effective round trip for a drone delivery). It is important to remember that when drone manufacturers refer to a delivery drone’s range, that figure is often representative of maximum flight time with a sample payload. Also, as the weight of a delivery drone’s payload increases, its range decreases slightly. For example, the A2Z Drone Delivery long-range delivery drone, the RDSX Pelican, can fly up to 60 km with a 2 kg payload, or 40 kg with a 5 kg payload.
12. Can drones deliver in bad weather?
A commercial delivery drone’s capability to operate in foul weather will depend on the airframe itself. For example, the A2Z Drone Delivery RDST Longtail heavy-lift drone is offered in a rainproof Premium edition, this airframe is able to conduct operations in light rain and snow. Wind speeds can also be a deciding factor for whether drones are able to operate safely. The Longtail, for instance, is rated for operation in maximum wind resistance speeds up to level 7-8. Weather conditions can also be a limiting factor for visibility. For drone delivery operators requiring line-of-sight to the drone, this visibility is an important deciding factor for whether they can safely operate on a given day.
13. What happens if a drone malfunctions during delivery?
Delivery drones are equipped with numerous redundant safety measures to help ensure safe flight operations. As with most airframes in the aeronautical industries, delivery drones are often designed with the assumption that the worst could happen during a flight. For this reason, most delivery drones rely on multi-copter designs that can still maintain safe flight if some of its motors or propellers are taken offline. Considering the staggering volume of flight hours drone delivery operators have conducted to date, the industry as a whole has seen very few incidents of drone failures. Should a delivery drone experience a complete power failure, though, most commercial platforms can be outfitted with an automatically-deploying parachute that allows the airframe to gently glide to the ground.
14. How are privacy concerns being addressed in drone delivery?
Privacy is a significant concern for the commercial drone industry as whole, and drone delivery providers address these concerns in numerous ways. It is important for drone service providers to take necessary steps to protect the personal data of customers placing orders through automated systems with proper encryption and data security measures. Another common privacy concern of consumers is that drones could possibly peak into their home when conducting residential deliveries. To mitigate this concern, A2Z Drone Delivery relies on a winch delivery method that enables the drone to remain at altitude high above private property while safely and accurately lowering payloads on the winch tether for delivery.
15. Are drones an environmentally friendly means of delivery?
Electric delivery drones can seriously reduce the carbon emissions produced by traditional last-mile delivery methods such as cars, vans and trucks. As a more eco-conscious solution for some last-mile deliveries, many fleet managers are opting to move towards multi-modal delivery fleets that incorporate commercial delivery drones to augment their carbon-based fleet. Additionally, traditional ground transportation relies on economies of scale to make them an affordable delivery option for shippers. While urban and suburban communities offer the density of deliveries that make these carbon-dependent deliveries economical, in rural or remote communities, drones can present an economical advantage to their terrestrial alternatives.