Today, it is the logistics industry, and not the Urban Air Mobility sector, that leads the way in already-operational UAV use cases. This is largely thanks to the growing number of national authorities that have issued permits allowing companies to trial commercial cargo drones, led by pioneers such as Australia, Singapore, Iceland, and Switzerland. These usually involve firms being allowed to operate fee-charging UAV services at certain times and surveying customers afterward to improve their offerings.
Currently, there are four different cargo drone use cases, in varying states of implementation: automation of intralogistics, covering factories and warehouses; parcel delivery (first/last mile), catering to dense urban areas; supply of medical goods, normally to hard-to-reach places; and transportation of air freight, usually in rural areas.
Each aims to automate the transportation of goods while offering faster, more flexible, less expensive, and more environmentally friendly service than the alternative. But an important question for players in the industry is which will be first to dominate the air space and set the pace and regulatory framework for the others. To answer it, we first need to look at each use case and some examples in more detail.
Automation of intralogistics
Manufacturing processes often depend on the just-in-sequence delivery of materials. In order to ensure the availability of the right material at the right time, indoor drones can be deployed to deliver single items directly to the production line. Carmaker Audi, for example, is currently piloting an indoor drone at its Ingolstadt plant. Navigating via sensors, it autonomously transports automotive parts up to 2.0 kg in weight directly to the required step in the manufacturing process. The drone can travel at up to 8 km/h.
Parcel delivery
For logistics companies, the first and last mile constitute the most expensive and least efficient part of a delivery, requiring significant manpower, vehicle numbers, and time. They, therefore, view it as ripe for automation.