This is a first in France. An air route commercial just be allowed once per week, to allow for drones to make package deliveries between the two cities Var. At the initiative of this project, the French company DPDgroup, a subsidiary of the La Poste group. The opening of the experimental phase of this line, long a fifteen kilometers has been officially announced Thursday, December 15, 2016, after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has given its approval for its implementation.
The flying machines will thus be able to deliver packages from Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Baume, to the town of Pourrières, where is, “a business incubator is isolated, which includes a dozen of start-ups in the field of technology,” explains the press release, the DPD Group. In addition to its relative isolation (“it is necessary to pass through a small stretch of track before you can recover a piece of the road” gave us a contact person from DPD Group), the site of Pourrières was mainly chosen because it is home to the CEEMA (Centre of studies and tests for autonomous models) which has been working for eight years to conceive, fabricate, and evaluate drones to accompany their growth. And the company with which the group The Position is required to work for at least two years, has to do this to an extensive test area where there are regular drones.
This line of air shipments do not, however, transform the area into a buzzing hive. During the experimentation phase, the machines will make only one delivery per week, under the leadership of the DGAC. It is this authority that will be tasked to open the air corridor at a date which may vary from one week to another depending on the weather conditions, and, in particular, the main limiting factor for the uav : the wind.
The packages are transported to a sort of “pigeon” for drones, that the post office had tested in September 2015. The implementation of the goods (3 pounds maximum) on the drone is automated by a system of rack-and-pinion that comes to drop the packet between the “legs” of the drone. Once his package has been loaded and locked by a system of “arm” swing, and drone, a powerful hexacoptère, can then fly off to its destination 30 km/h and cover a distance of twenty kilometers. The flight is automated, but monitored by an operator who views that record the cameras, and can regain control at any time in the event of a problem. In the event of a technical failure, the drone of the DPD Group is provided with a parachute to safety. Once his destination is reached, the machine rests on a device similar to the one from which it took off, to drop off his package. For the moment, the operation stops there. In the framework of this new phase of experimentat ion, it is not intended to relaunch the machine so that it returns to its starting point. Its autonomy announced of 20km does not allow him yet. It is therefore a small step for drones, but a big step for their commercial exploitation.
Although the Post says that this is a world first, this is not quite accurate. In October 2014, DHL had put in place the first service delivery by drone. The German company was for this purpose developed a large quadcopter answering to the name of the “Parcelcopter” to make deliveries (mainly of drugs) between the German port of Norddeich and the island of Juist located in the North sea, 12 kilometres from the German coast. Since then, their device has evolved into an aircraft with wings that swivel, able to land and take off vertically. And he also is now provided with a loading station and automatic unloading.
delivery by drones had been at the scene in December 2013, when the american company Amazon has wanted to deliver packages this way. Three years later, the utopian project is starting to become a reality. Amazon has also announced that it has completed the December 7, 2016 the first delivery of its service, Primeair, via a flying machine.
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