冰岛开始使用无人机送货上门
Locals in Reykjavik are now getting their takeaways delivered by drone. The world's first operational drone delivery service has launched last week in Iceland's capital city. The drones transport a range of goods, including groceries and restaurant food, much faster than delivery vans. The company behind the service plans to scale it up in the next few months to make hundreds of drone deliveries each day. The drones are operated by Flytrex, an on-demand drone delivery firm based in Tel Aviv. The company claims that deliveries that would take 25 minutes by car in Reykjavik can be completed by a drone in just four minutes. CEO of Flytrex, Yariv Bash, said that 'this is a working system, not a one-off wonder.' Deliveries are made by Flytrex's autonomous delivery drone 'Mule', which can carry up to 6.5 pounds (three kilograms) for distances of up to six miles. To make a delivery, the drone lands in a field in the suburb of Grafarvogur. Here, it is met by a courier who either drives or walks, depending on the distance, to make the delivery directly to a customer's home. The flights are held as part of a partnership with AHA — Iceland's largest shopping and retail website which operates in Reykjavik. The company is currently only carrying out one delivery at a time. It claims, however, that multiple deliveries are possible, and one controller can fly a number of drones simultaneously. Flytrex aims to make 20 deliveries per day and says it will be adding more over the next few weeks. In the next few months, it plans to scale that up to hundreds of deliveries a day. So far, AHA has claims there has been a 60 percent reduction in drone delivery costs compared with land-based and sea options. AHA has been delivering goods since April 2011, using a fleet of delivery vehicles, focusing on products, groceries and restaurant food in Reykjavik.
Maron Kristofersson, CEO of AHA, said: 'In the recent months there has been a tremendous increase in our online delivery orders, especially in the retail products and we are forecasting a very expedited growth in the grocery deliveries in the coming months. 'Over the last four years we have been monitoring online delivery solution technologies around the globe, and feel that Flytrex has a smart, safe and commercially viable solution to the problem. 'We hope to co-operate with them not only in Iceland, but also internationally in the future.' |