You may have heard or read that Holly Springs has been chosen as a possible test market for drone delivery. If Holly Springs becomes the first municipality in the country to offer drone delivery at any level, rest assured that it will make national headlines.
Drone delivery is not as simple as it may sound. The challenges certainly out-number the benefits in the beginning. The benefits are obvious. Drone delivery will offer much faster delivery and would lower traffic on the streets. Taking a pizza delivery car or truck off the streets would arguably offer an emissions benefit as well.
The challenges aren’t obvious until you dissect the process. One of the local challenges is that not everyone embraces technology. How would you feel about having a drone flying over your backyard? Would you feel confident that there is no way it could glitch and drop from the sky and land on Fido? How about a package coming loose from the drone and smashing through your windshield? What if the pizza you’ve ordered and paid for gets delivered to that very same neighbor that drives you crazy when they put grass clippings on your property? Now he’s going to be eating YOUR pizza!
These questions are only a sample of why we don’t already have drones buzzing throughout our skies. Amazon, Walmart and the like are investing millions in drone technology in an effort to reduce delivery times, and get an edge in a billion-dollar industry where you can now get practically anything you want with the click of a button.
Are you willing to sacrifice your unobstructed view of the clouds for the convenience of immediate delivery? It’s a question that many in Holly Springs are asking following the announcement of Holly Springs possibly being a test community for Flytrex, the Israeli start-up that’s behind this project.
Let’s start with some of the logistics in an effort to dispel some of the myths or theories that you may already hold based on the initial announcement.
Who is Flytrex, and why are they partnering with Holly Springs?
Flytrex is the Israeli start-up responsible for launching the world’s first autonomous urban drone delivery system in Reykjavik, Iceland. One of the reasons that Reykjavik was chosen was the layout of the town. Reykjavik is split by a large lake. The only way to get from one side of the town to the other is to go around the lake – which takes about 25 minutes. They are now doing food drone delivery from one side of the town to addresses across the lake, which were not easy to deliver to traditionally. The drone can cross the lake in about 4 minutes, any time of day, making the delivery of a hot meal a reality.
Holly Springs doesn’t have the same challenges geographically, but what we do have is forward-thinking town officials. Aaron Levitt is the Assistant Director of Engineering for Holly Springs, and a drone enthusiast. His passion and drive to take advantage of this technology at work led him to developed a drone users group involving several staff from different departments in Holly Springs government. Since he spends some work time and a lot of his free time in “drone circles,” he was made aware of the FAA’s pilot program that was unveiled late last year. After applying to the program as a secondary applicant, he was then approached by Flytrex that was looking for a host community, and Aaron entered Holly Springs into the ring on the NCDOT team. To be clear, this is NOT a Town of Holly Springs operation. This is a private company that has selected Holly Springs as a location to do business. Flytrex is a new business coming to Holly Springs, and they are in the drone business. They would like to work with the town to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
So what are some of the concerns? We’ve tried to address some of the citizen concerns below.
I don’t want anyone taking unauthorized photos of me or my property.
We don’t think anyone wants to feel like they’re being spied on. Drones have gotten a bad reputation for photography since that’s the first real use that consumers started buying them for. The Flytrex drones DO NOT have cameras. It’s that simple. They are controlled autonomously by either cell signal or GPS navigation.
I don’t want to see drones flying all over my neighborhood for deliveries.
The flight paths for the drones will be specific. Remember that this is to test the system. Approximately 95% of the route will be over the woods. You will not be racing drones down Main St.
If my property is in the flight path, how do I know that a drone isn’t going to run out of power or malfunction and drop on my house – or my kids!
Safety is an important topic, and one that has kept the FAA from allowing drone delivery already. Flytrex is especially concerned that each drone is equipped with a secondary battery if the first battery fails or runs low on power. The drone can fly safely on five engines, and these drones have six engines, making one of the engines redundant. The final failsafe is that the drones are equipped with parachutes that will deploy if the drone goes into a free-fall for any reason. If the parachute were to deploy, it would cut power to the propellers and also trigger a loud piezo that will beep as the parachuted drone descends, to ensure that anyone below will know it’s above them. The drone weighs about 29 pounds.
How do I know that a drone coming to my house for a delivery can safely land, and how will I know when it’s there?
The drones won’t land. During their route, they will travel at about 200 feet up. A phone app will provide the customer with the status of the order. The drone will arrive at the delivery spot and remain airborne, about 50 feet off the ground, awaiting confirmation that the customer is in position nearby. Then the drone lowers the food package by wire to the ground and releases it.
Flytrex would like to begin operating in Holly Springs before the end of the year, but it’s subject to regulatory approval, and that’s a pretty big subject.
The program would start with takeout delivery from one or more local restaurants to a neighborhood or park close by, and expand gradually over time. At first, the drones would operate under existing Federal Aviation Administration restrictions limiting flights to daytime and line-of-sight operations that don’t fly directly over people. “Flytrex’s technology can be utilized by local business owners that don’t have the capital or ability to invest in this up and coming delivery method,” Levitt says. “It will help level the playing field with giant corporations that have millions invested in drone technology and your locally owned and operated businesses.”
Holly Springs and Flytrex are part of a broad-ranging, three-year national program to safely test innovative uses of drones. They are working with the N.C. Department of Transportation, which heads a team of industry and government partners.
The FAA is overseeing the various drone usage ideas. It will evaluate results of the program as it considers changes to rules governing drone usage. Another partner on the NCDOT-led team is WakeMed, which is expected to test the use of drones in delivering medical supplies, as well at T-Mobil in order to possibly use cellular signals for operation.
Yariv Bash, chief executive officer and co-founder of Flytrex, said the company was excited to work with a town as receptive to innovation as Holly Springs to demonstrate the social, environmental and economic benefits of airborne delivery.
At press time, the restaurant(s) to be used in the testing had not yet been decided. Pending approval of the program, the restaurant can start to use the system for specific deliveries. If you were to call a restaurant order in, a Flytrex representative on site loads a food package of up to 6 pounds and selects the delivery location and route in the Flytrex operations platform. The drone takes off and travels the short distance to the predetermined, approved area in the neighborhood or park nearby. The drone has a range of six miles.
Keep in mind that a lot of this should be classified as “yet to be seen” due to all the regulatory restrictions. If all goes as Flytrex and the Town hope, it will definitely be something to see, and something to talk about. Don’t worry, it will be a far cry from War of the Worlds.
