Zomato successfully tests drone technology; aims to get food to customers in less than 15 minutes

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Zomato, an Indian restaurant search and discovery service, has announced that it has successfully tested its drone technology.

The company says that it met all of its parameters during the non-commercial delivery, which covered a distance of five kilometers in about 10 minutes. Using a hybrid UAS—a fusion of rotary wing and fixed wings on a single UAS—the company reached a peak speed of 80 kilometers per hour, carrying a payload of five kilograms.

Zomato's goal is to develop technology that gets food to customers in less than 15 minutes, so that they can enjoy their food as close to the state in which it was prepared by the chef at the restaurant. But the company says that 15 minutes is only possible if they take an aerial route.

With this in mind, Zomato recently acquired UAS company TechEagle to help achieve its goal of food deliveries under 15 minutes. Zomato envisions a scenario where a UAS picks up the food package from a restaurant hub (a dispatch station around a cluster of restaurants). The UAS will then deliver the package at a customer hub (a landing station close to dense communities) before returning to the dispatch site using a mix of different and appropriate flight modes.

“In recent years, we have witnessed the inevitable rapid urbanization in many areas, leading to an increase in pollution and congestion on roads,” Zomato says

“Using drones for delivery would be a big game changer for metros as the idea is to scrape unnecessary traffic off the roads and direct it skyward. Plus, there is less chance of the package being damaged during transit and handling.”

The final design of Zomato’s UAS is lightweight. With safety being a priority, the UAS is equipped with inbuilt sensors and an onboard computer to sense and avoid static and dynamic objects, which makes it more efficient for autonomous flights, the company says.

While the UAS are fully autonomous, each drone is currently being tested with remote pilot supervision to ensure 100 percent safety. Zomato says that over time, though, as it acquires more data, the UAS might not need remote pilot supervision.

On May 13, India’s Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a notification for interested organizations to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the DGCA for conducting experimental beyond visual line of sight operations (BVLOS) of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS)/UAS. Zomato says that in response to the notification, it is forming a consortium per DGCA’s guidelines to conduct experimental BVLOS operations.