Drone Delivery Firms Zipline, Wing Prepare to Ramp Up Service

Zipline on Monday announced plans to significantly expand a medical drone delivery initiative within the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) in collaboration with Apian—which, interestingly, partnered with Wing in August. The program will roll out in fall 2024.

“Today, 3,000-pound gas vehicles driven by humans are used to deliver 3-pound packages billions of times per year,” said Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, CEO and co-founder of Zipline. “It’s expensive, slow, and bad for the environment. This decision means that the NHS can start to transition delivery to solutions that are 10 times as fast, less expensive, and zero emission. This service will be delivered at a fraction of the cost of the existing solution and will help drive financial savings to the NHS in the longer term.”

Meanwhile, Wing, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet, announced last week that the FAA approved it for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations without visual observers (VOs), or humans who are stationed below the flight path to keep an eye on the drones. Coincidentally, the approval is a summary grant based on BVLOS exemptions the regulator awarded in September to four firms—including, you guessed it, Zipline.

As of mid-December, Zipline drones have made more than 850,000 deliveries. The company says it completes a trip every 70 seconds. Zipline got its start operating in sub-Saharan Africa before expanding to the U.S. and Japan, picking up customers such as Walmart, Pfizer, and Cleveland Clinic. But it hasn’t yet reached the U.K.

The firm hopes to change that by working with the NHS, Europe’s largest employer, and Apian, a healthcare logistics provider co-founded by a team of former NHS doctors. Apian’s flagship product is an automated, on-demand delivery system that will allow Zipline to easily fulfill orders placed by the NHS.

The new service will provide on-demand drone delivery of prescriptions, wound care, and other medical products to more than 30 hospitals, general practitioners, and care homes across the region.

“I’ve seen firsthand the impact that running out of supplies can have on patient health outcomes,” said Dr. Christopher Law, medical director and co-founder of Apian. “Healthcare should benefit from on-demand delivery, much like consumers now do in their personal lives. Delivering critical products with drones, where and when they’re most needed, will improve supply chain efficiency and give doctors, nurses, and clinicians more time to focus on the most important thing—their patients.”

Zipline will build a hub for the service near the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Northumberland, England. From there, its autonomous, fixed-wing drones—or Zips, as the company refers to them—will travel up to 130 sm (113 nm) round trip in most weather conditions, floating packages gently to the ground using parachutes.

The Zips use technologies, such as artificial intelligence and an acoustic detect and avoid (DAA) system, to navigate around tall buildings or other aircraft. Each is equipped with redundant safety systems and supervised by trained personnel, who can track flights and intervene when needed.

Zipline intends to centralize inventory of the NHS’ most frequently ordered products: prescription medicines, wound care products, and joint replacement implants, to name a few. These will be flown to Hexham General Hospital, Wansbeck General Hospital, Haltwhistle War Memorial Hospital, and other regional health facilities, within minutes of receiving an order.

Eventually, the partners expect to deliver to “significantly more” health facilities. According to Zipline, the service should help providers move away from last-minute logistics to reduce the number of canceled procedures, which could reduce wait times. It’s expected to launch next year with Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

“This expansion with Zipline and Apian is an exciting next step as we strive to improve services for the hundreds of thousands of patients we serve,” said James Mackey, CEO of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. “We believe this innovative technology could be used to improve healthcare outcomes, save money, and eliminate supply chain complexities, and we're keen to get started.”

Wing—which primarily delivers items such as food, wellness products, and household essentials—is working with Apian to add its own drones to U.K. medical logistics networks. The two plan to deliver pharmacy items, lab samples, and medical devices and supplies in South Dublin, Ireland, as early as this year.

However, the Alphabet subsidiary remains heavily focused on the U.S. market.

As Zipline adds a previously announced Wing partner, Wing is leveraging a previously announced Zipline approval to bolster its own operations.

The company on Friday said the FAA approved its DAA tech for BVLOS operations without VOs, allowing its drones to use ADS-B instead. The new permissions extend to the airspace above Dallas, where Wing serves customers within a 6-mile radius out of a Walmart Supercenter in the suburb of Frisco.

The firm said the exemption will allow it to remove VOs across Dallas and similar airspace around other major U.S. cities. Following Zipline’s landmark flight last month, Wing will be one of the first drone delivery providers to fly unencumbered by VOs.

“Overall, the FAA’s approval for DAA and recognition of broader strategic deconfliction and [uncrewed traffic management] applications will allow us to operate more efficiently and work toward scaled operations nationwide,” Wing wrote in a blog post. “Starting with communities across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, this action supports our path toward expanding our service across the U.S.”

Wing’s approval is a summary grant, which is essentially a streamlined authorization for a “copycat” company with similar infrastructure, aircraft, and technology to those who have already been approved. In lieu of a final rule on BVLOS operations, the FAA expects to use summary grants to enable early services without overbearing restrictions. Amazon Prime Air, for example, is another recipient.

It’s unclear which of the initial approvals Wing piggybacked off of to obtain its new permissions. But of the four firms to receive exemptions, Zipline’s is the most similar—it too was permitted to replace VOs with its DAA system in a few key markets.

“Our holistic approach to BVLOS flight has been used for commercial deliveries on three continents for several years,” Wing said in its blog post. “It is grounded in avoiding potential conflict before flights ever take off and utilizes in-flight DAA to add an additional layer of safety. Wing has demonstrated the effectiveness and safety of this approach with operational flight data, extensive simulation, and flight test.”

While not as flashy as an international expansion, the removal of VOs could be a big deal for Wing. Without the need to station humans on the ground, the company could greatly expand its delivery range while lowering operational costs. It’s one of the few paths to scale available to industry players, who are just beginning to turn visions of drone-filled skies into reality.

The updates from Wing and Zipline may also have implications for smaller industry players and startups. Having each made several hundred thousand deliveries, the two firms already have a leg up on the competition. Now, the rich are getting richer—and lesser known rivals may need to do even more to catch up.

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