Rwanda first to employ a drone delivery system
You would think a first world country might be first to employ a drone delivery system, but it is in fact Rwanda and for a pretty good cause - emergency blood delivery.
Rwanda became the first country to embrace the usage of a drone delivery system from Zipline, which is currently used to transport blood to hospitals in remote areas of the country.
Rwanda is the first country to officially use drones to delivery much needed blood to remote hospitals as fast as 15 minutes. <br> Image Source: The Verge
"I think a lot of people are very cynical in terms of drone delivery because it’s just not practical...however, you can do hundreds of deliveries a day, where each delivery is potentially saving a human life," said Keller Rinaudo, CEO, Zipline.
The service began earlier last week. Zipline’s drones can carry up to 1.5kg of blood and make round-trips of 150km in about 15 minutes. These drones are stored in distribution centers throughout the country where they will have their batteries replaced and be reloaded with blood between four to five minutes.
The drone delivery system currently covers about 11.26 square kilometers of western Rwanda, but the government aims to expand the service to eastern Rwanda in 2017. Once a drone reaches a hospital that had ordered some blood via text message, the drone will drop the blood down via parachute. This system eliminates the need of using cars or trucks to traverse difficult terrain as well as the need to fit in onboard insulation and refrigeration.
Commercial drones were supposed to be deployed in the U.S. in August, but there are still many policies that needs to be worked out. Zipline is also in talks with UPS and GAVI to explore how the system could be used to transport other types of medicines or vaccines as well.
Source: The Verge
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