Switzerland Warms Up To Drone Deliveries, SwitzPost to trial new drone

by Sonny Jones | Techonology

The news Tech Crunch broke in April is finally coming to maturity. Namely that Switzerland was the latest EU country to embrace drone technology for deliveries.

The Matternet ONE

Swiss Post is now  testing that technology and if successful, are set to launch their drones for post deliveries.

The company optimistically behind this technology is called Matternet, based in Menlo Park, California and their product is called ONE.

Matternet ONE is described as the first smart drone for transportation, which can magically send things through the air, with the touch of a button, revolutionizing last-mile logistics and transforming the way you access things locally.

Founded by Andreas Raptopoulos and Paola Santana, the company was rooted in Raptopoulos dream of building a flying car. And Matternet ONE is exclusively designed for transportation, because its centrally-located payload makes it exceptionally easy to load and unload, the founders say.

"Its unique architecture makes it light and strong enough to transport 1 kilogram over 20 kilometers on a single battery charge. Secure routes that adapt to weather, terrain and airspace allow Matternet ONE to fly autonomously beyond line of sight, without the need for a human pilot." the company said on its website.

“Our product is vertically integrated into a complete transportation solution. Swiss Post comes to us, we supply them all the technology (drones, landing pads, batteries, charging stations, cloud software) and they just focus on operations,” Raptopoulo told TechCrunch in April.

Matternet One in action

“Quadcopters may be the biggest invention in vehicle technology since the internal combustion engine. They allow us to build vehicles that are extremely simple mechanically and are 90%+ software which is bound to improve dramatically over then next 3-5 years. Things like weather performance, performance in GPS-denied environments, ‘sense and avoid,’ etc will make these vehicles way more robust and useful by the end of the decade. This platform will allow software to eat transportation,” he said.

According to Industry Week, The limited run of deliveries will continue through the end of the month, with the Matternet-manufactured drones carrying loads of more than two pounds farther than six miles.

The snow-white drones consist of four branches with propellers on the end extending from a hollow ring the size of a toilet seat. A yellow box, bearing the postal service logo, is lodged in the middle.

* by Benson Agoha (with lead contribution from Industry Weeks).