Africa Surveyors January-February issue 2023 digital

DRONES
A Wing drone flying in Lusk Image: WING
The Wing Delivery Network comprises three
basic hardware elements.
• the delivery drones
• pads where drones take off, land and
recharge their batteries
• autoloaders that allow companies to
leave packages for collection
Using these elements, the company says,
drones can pick up, drop off, travel, and
charge in whatever pattern makes the most
sense for the entire system - rather than just
flying from one base to a customer and back.
"A tangible example of that would be: the
aircraft takes off at one location, it might
fly to another business to go pick up a box,
and then it might fly to the delivery location
and then, rather than returning to the pad
it took off from, fly to another adjacent one,"
Mr Woodworth told the BBC's Tech Tent
programme.
An advantage of the system working as a
network is it is able to quickly adapt to peaks
in demand in particular areas. Charging-pad
locations can also be added rapidly.
The autoloader resembles a pair of fishing
rods, angled in a V shape. Shop staff hang
small packages from a hook and the drones
hover above to winch them up.
A Wing drone flying on a delivery taskImage: WING
The system also involves a high level of
automation - when an aircraft is turned on,
the company says, it checks it:
• is in the right place
• has the right software
• is approved to fly
And ground-based pilots can supervise
fleets of delivery drones to ensure they are
operating safely and efficiently - rather than
just monitoring a single aircraft.
Mr Woodworth said more civil-aviation
regulators around the globe were adopting
rules that would allow these sorts of
operations.
But there are challenges to be overcome.
Wing has faced complaints about noise from
some Logan residents.
The company has invested "a lot of work into
making the aircraft as quiet as they can be",
Mr Woodworth says. And planning software
has been designed to avoid creating "drone
highways", where every flight passes over the
same houses.
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January-February issue l 2023 25