Image: Zipline
There’s much to be said about drones. Recent stories of the unmanned aircraft crashing into passenger planes or chopping body parts have painted the new technology a bad image, but a startup called Zipline is working on using drones for the better.
Founded by the remaining members of fallen robot startup Romotive, Zipline is a drone delivery startup working to make medical aid accessible in developing countries. The problem is simple by looking at the numbers: the WHO estimates that over 6 million children under the age of five die every year because they lack access to simple and affordable medical interventions. Developing countries around the world have little access to medical intervention due to the hindrance of the lastmile problem. The lastmile problem is the inability to deliver medicine from city to remote area due to lacking transportation, communication, and supply chain infrastructure.
But Zipline has the solution. Use a fleet of fixed-wing drones to deliver said medical interventions.
The startup plans on working with national governments directly to provide public health agencies with on-demand, cross-country deliveries of medicines. With their drones, they plan to overcome to the inept infrastructure of impassible or, in some cases, non-existent roads. In addition, Zipline is looking to provide medical facilities with deliveries twice a day, where as they usually only receive two a year. Coupling these efforts could put Zipline on a flight path to save millions of lives.
Zipline’s current drone is aptly-named Zip. It’s a stout fixed-wing drone designed by a team of seasoned individuals from companies like SpaceX, Google, and NASA. Zip differs from the traditional quadcopter design in that it can fly in inclement weather and for long durations, a perfect set of features for extended deliveries. Each Zip weighs about 10 kilograms and can fly autonomously with the help of Zipline’s proprietary software. With its onboard payload holder, a single Zip can carry about 1.5 kilograms of medicine over a 120 kilometer distance. It does this on a single charge.
Zips flock together to form ground bases called Nests. Each Nest is a modified shipping container put next to an existing medical center. The drones take off and land at Nest, and they make deliveries by dropping off supplies near the medical facilities they’re serving.
Currently, Zipline has partnered with the Rwandan government to deploy a large number of drones working to deliver blood across the country. According to the WHO, Africa has the highest rate of death due to postpartum hemorrhaging, excessive blood loss after giving birth. This year, Zipline expects to make 50-150 deliveries a day to Rwanda’s twenty one transfusing facilities in the Western half of the country, providing vital amounts of blood for life-saving transfusions.
By 2017, Zipline should be able to fly over the Eastern half of the country and put a majority of Rwandans within medical reach. Over the next few years, Zipline could expand to vaccines, treatments for HIV/Aids, and other medical technologies.
Source: Zipline
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