AirBox Technologies has successfully demonstrated secure drone delivery into the company’s AirBox Home smart receptacle, a solar-powered system designed to facilitate UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)-based package delivery for homes, care facilities and other civil applications. The demonstration, which took place on the vacant campus of St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, VA, was designed to simulate critical healthcare delivery such as may occur with samples for COVID-19 testing or medication delivery to a patient.
The vacant college campus provided an ideal complex community environment for the testing of drone package delivery under a variety of conditions. During the three-day exercise, tests were also conducted by Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology (CIT), DroneUp, UPS, and Workhorse Group.
AirBox Technologies used its DroneX heavy-lift UAV for the demonstration, a multirotor platform capable of carrying 15 pounds over 6 miles. It was able to perform multiple deliveries without fail, in spite of wind gusts to 28 knots that day at the college campus. The AirBox Home is drone-agnostic, and the DroneX can carry most types of boxes and does not require specialty containers.
Because of COVID-19, in addition to drone delivery, AirBox Home is receiving much interest in helping businesses with contactless delivery during social distancing and stay at home orders. The smart delivery receptacle, accessed with a phone app, can be used in front of a restaurant or business to allow the customer to retrieve their food or products without human interaction. Likewise, senior assisted living centers, nursing homes, and restaurants can immediately benefit from contactless ground courier deliveries.
Dr. Jeremy Tucker, emergency physician and co-founder of Airbox’s parent company Drone Delivery Systems, commented: “Medical delivery and healthcare applications for drone delivery are being looked at nationally as a delivery method for critical medications and supplies due to the pandemic. AirBox Home can play an important part in this logistics supply chain and create a secure endpoint for valuable products. With COVID-19, we need to leverage the most cutting-edge technologies to help defeat the virus.”
