Drone delivery enters Sri Lanka through Zipline

By Uwin Lugoda Recently, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones has been making waves in many industries globally, including the likes of retail, construction, and even, in some cases, food. The key factors fuelling this development are quicker delivery and the positive impact on the environment due to the reduction of carbon emissions from delivery vehicles. Companies including UPS, Google, and DHL have already taken steps to explore ways to deliver packages via drone, with even the founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, predicting that future Amazon deliveries would mostly utilise drones. However, the use of drones for deliveries is an altogether alien concept to Sri Lanka, with drones mainly being used for surveys and recreational use. But now, drone delivery is ready to enter Sri Lanka and service a most basic need – healthcare. Accessibility to good healthcare is something many of us take for granted, but many regions in developing countries similar to Sri Lanka lack the resources to match the medical demands in terms of both, urban and rural health facilities. This unfortunate drawback is especially highlighted during natural disasters, where getting lifesaving medication to hospitals and dispensaries in the affected areas is difficult. In order to circumvent these issues, the state of Maharashtra in India introduced on-demand medical delivery drones that give seven-days-a-week access to lifesaving and critical medicines for each of its 120 million citizens. The Government of Maharashtra joined hands with Zipline, the world’s first and only national-scale drone delivery service, to use a logistic network of autonomous delivery drones to help transform the region’s medical industry. Significant impact The US-based company was originally founded four years ago, in 2015, and works towards ensuring the accessibility to medical supplies by everyone, regardless of where they are located. Zipline has already introduced its drone delivery system to both developed and developing countries, including the likes of Rwanda in 2016, where it is now a national on-demand medical drone network, delivering 150 medical products, mostly blood and vaccines, to hard-to-reach places. Zipline’s on-demand delivery of blood has even attributed to the decline of maternal mortality rates in the country. The company is also currently working with the US State of North Carolina to launch medical drone delivery as a part of the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) UAS Integration Pilot Programme (UAS IPP) in 2019. The drones utilised by Zipline are made in their own factory by in-house engineers and designers. These drones are currently the fastest non-military drones in the world, and are capable of manoeuvering through all types of weather. Zipline works on an on-demand basis where healthcare workers will place orders via text message or call and promptly receive their deliveries in 30 minutes on average. Once the drone is close to the facility, it drops a message to the health worker to come outside, after which it drops the package within a three-metre radius. Even during strong winds, the drones are equipped to accurately assess when and where to drop the package so it lands in the intended spot. This process in turn ensures an increase in access to medical supplies, as well as the reduction of medical waste. The usage of these drones also cancels out the need for any sort of runways, so they operate on a much smaller footprint. Potential SL collab During a press briefing on 1 October, Zipline Global Business Development Lead Yaniv Gelnik, stated that the company is currently in conversation with several Sri Lankan authorities, including the Ministry of Health, Civil Aviation Authority, Ministry of Defence, and the President’s Office on the possibility of implementing Zipline drones in Sri Lanka by the year 2020. “Due to the speed of our drones and the record we have in other countries, we are really happy to say that we have proven that it works really well.” Gelnik explained that the company will be fully monitored and tracked by Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence, under the protocols of the Government – should the offer be taken up. “We have the only drone traffic management system in the world, which will be open to Sri Lanka’s Civil Aviation Authority as well so they would have real-time visibility into all our drones – where is it going? What is it doing? And if there is anything unexpected, then they would have tools to tell the drone to go home or make an emergency landing.” During the briefing Colombo South Teaching Hospital obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr. Naveen Udawella spoke on the applicability of the technology when it comes to assisting infrastructure and bridging the gaps we currently have in healthcare. Dr. Udawella explained that these drones will fulfil two logistical needs of the industry: emergency supplies and routine supplies. He went on to state that this need is currently being satisfied by stocking medical supplies, which sometimes lead to wastage. “The deliveries will be needs based with a short delivery time. This mechanism will be of immense use in the events of mass casualties, national disasters, and epidemic situations. The service could be improved with a logistical delivery solution.” Dr. Udawella stated that with Sri Lanka’s organ transplant sector growing, drones would be the perfect solution as a rapid delivery system for organs. “The need to accelerate the supply chain management vis-à-vis traditional vehicles has been identified by many healthcare professionals despite Sri Lanka having one of the best healthcare systems in the region. “The need to incorporate faster access to critical healthcare for all the citizens as and when they need it is essential during crisis situations where inventories that are available in hospitals are insufficient.” Currently, Zipline is prominently active in Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Americas, where they are expected to save of thousands of lives over the next several years. Zipline’s goal is to serve around 700 million people in the next five years, and expand into other parts of the world.