After Google and Amazon announced a willingness to use drones for the so-called “last mile” to deliver items, some have already announced a breakthrough in logistics. Proponents of such solutions even say that in 10 years the traditional parcel delivery will be just a memory. Will trucks and couriers become relics of the past or will we see autonomous drones which will carry objects for us instead of vehicles driven by people?
Last year in England Amazon successfully delivered a package to their client using a drone for the first time. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) believes that one day delivery drones will be commonplace. They will be delivering packages within half an hour. Today, Amazon battery-powered drones, which are still being tested, can rise to the height of over 120 m and fly at speeds of up to 80 km/h. The maximum distance exceeds 20 km. They can already transport goods of up to 2 kg. In the USA more than 10 thousand commercial drones have already been registered.
Transport experts keep their feet on the ground. AsstrA transport-logistics company experts emphasise that while drones are increasingly better each day, they will not have a significant impact on global logistics in the foreseeable future. The reason is quite prosaic: weights and amounts are simply too great.
They give numbers as a proof: the largest transport system in the world, the American one, annually transports nearly 15 billion tons of raw materials and finished products. Only in Europe the transport numbers reach up to 2.2 billion tonne-kilometres annually. The weights are enormous. Currently the average fourth-generation drone can carry up to 5 kg during one 10-minute flight (some goods cannot be divided to be lighter than 5 kg). The longest flight possible for existing drones is approx. 30 minutes. The reach up to 40 km/h when it comes to speed.
It is easy to count: if one drone can carry a load of 5 kg then only in the US 3,200,000,000,000 drones would be needed. The situation, according to experts, will not change radically even after a half of a century, although it doesn’t mean that the drones will not cooperate with the traditional transport.
Among others, UPS tested the possibilities of such cooperation. The package can be sent via a drone for the last few kilometres. Amazon, on the other hand, wants to launch a giant, high altitude airship which will be able to distribute individual drones to carry shipments to customers. People would be piloting the “mothership” but the distribution of individual orders would consume less energy than right now.
The use of combined solutions is already proven by the existence of adVANce, the world’s first fully electric utility car which features a fully automated cargo space and integrated delivery drones. For example, when the supplier stops their car in a residential area, the delivery can be carried out not only personally but autonomously by air. The work efficiency in the last stage of the delivery is expected to increase by as much as 50 percent.
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