You’re lying in bed, hung over from a night of excess, and nothing sounds better than filling your belly with a plate of greasy food. But nothing sounds worse than leaving the house to go and find it. Sigh.
In the past you may have summoned the pizza delivery guy, but in Reykjavik, Iceland — a city divided by inlets and waterways — traditional delivery by vehicle isn’t necessarily the quickest way to satisfy your cravings. These unique conditions, and the increasing demand for food that can be ordered online, have inspired one company to map out a drone delivery route.
Flytrex — an Israeli drone logistics company — claims to be the “first ever drone delivery system deployed in an urban environment”. More like one of the first.
Amazon made its first autonomous drone delivery — a bag of popcorn to a shopper in the UK in December. An Estonian company is also testing a drone delivery system for cold drinks.
Flytrex was recently granted permission by the civil aviation authority in Iceland to make commercial drone flights. To satisfy its customers’ cravings, they’ve partnered with AHA, an online marketplace that offers deliveries for restaurants and grocery stores lacking the resources for selling their food online.
Flytrex and AHA are using a hexacopter (a modified DJI Matrice 600) to deliver food orders.
The drones have a cargo compartment about the size of a mailbox that can transport packages up to 6.5 pounds a distance of six miles, according to Flytrex.
—By arrangement with The Washington Post
Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2017
