Challenges and opportunities for drone cargo delivery
CHENNAI: Chennai-based drone startup Amber Wings recently launched a hybrid drone - Atva. It is focused on cargo, mapping and surveillance applications across industries. Atva drone has a payload of 6 kg and can fly up to 100 km on a single charge with a top speed of 100 km per hour. It has electric propulsion, powered by a lithium-ion battery and has 4G and satellite communication and edge computing capabilities. It also boasts AI for precision landing.
As the name indicates, it can take off and land vertically, making it suitable for urban air mobility. The total weight of the Atva drone, made of carbon fibre, is 15 kg (including payload) and can typically carry 2-3 laptops. The price starts from Rs 19 lakh and varies based on customization.
Amber Wings, spun out as a sister company of the flying taxi startup eplane, by its founder, Prof. Satyanarayanan Chakravarthy is taking the cargo route to faster commercialisation.
The cost of delivery is a primary concern for the adoption of drone-based delivery. Amber Wings says its drone cargo has great potential in the quick commerce sector and claims it can deliver orders in a jiffy.
However, the cost of delivery can be 2X- 3X more than that of land-based delivery. Though Atva can’t match the ground-delivery prices, it can deliver items much faster. It is betting on its ability to move a large number of cargo in a shorter timeframe.
At present, opportunities lie with companies trying to manage inventories across warehouses, Vishnu Ramakrishnan of Eplane told TNIE. He believes that as consumer demand increases, companies could deploy drones in crowded metros and at a later stage, even small-ticket e-commerce drone deliveries are possible. Consumers are willing to pay extra for the speed, he adds.
Amber Wings’ target customers are cold storage chains, warehousing companies, and pharma and healthcare firms. It has signed an MoU to explore medical trails with Spice Xpress, the cargo division of Spicejet, for using drones for the first and last-mile deliveries.
For its long-range surveillance use cases, it is in talks with Railways for track inspection. Talks are also on with power grid operators and mapping vendors for multi-sensor imaging. It has both a selling and leasing model and expects a few hundred orders in the first year.
The company is working on a 50 kg-payload model, around the size of Maruti 800.While these are suitable for last-mile delivery, there are some players globally working in the mid-mile delivery segment with pistons instead of electric propulsion.
Amber Wings thinks there are enterprises ready to procure 600kg models but the current Drone rules 2021 sets the upper limit for commercial applications at 500kg in total including the vehicle’s weight. However, it is tinkering with 100kg design for defence applications, expecting a grant from the Army Design Bureau.