At the rate its going, freight drones will be widespread in a matter of three to five years in the developed world. And we are going to start seeing them in Africa in about the same timeframe. This is according to Bill Gee, chief marketing officer at Endurance Drones. “There are drone deliveries of up to 200kg taking place in Scandinavia and the United States already. It will soon rise to 500kg, and there are a number of companies developing even heavier solutions,” he says. While the 500kg drones are multi-rotor units, the twotonne varieties are currently fixed-wing aircraft. “Those will be used for all sorts of applications, including freight deliveries (particularly in Africa) because of the continent’s poor road infrastructure. Sending 200 or 500 kilograms of cargo to small farming communities that are off the beaten track is a smart and economical use case,” Gee argues. He says some companies are developing drones that are about a quarter of the size of current intercontinental air freighters. “Those will be unmanned, carrying 20 to 50 tonnes. They will fly at much lower altitudes over the ocean, as doing so is far more energy efficient.” Gee says drone technology is racing ahead, as people and companies are pouring billions of dollars into development. Most of the solutions today are battery-powered and therefore much emphasis is being placed on battery technology. However, like self-driving vehicles, there are a lot of safety concerns. Research, development and testing procedures are ongoing and have to be done before governments allow drones to be let loose. “We already have the technology; it’s the regulatory issues that have to be addressed.” Gee doesn’t believe that freight drones will be the death of trucking, however. “A truck is still going to be cheaper to move 20 or 40 tonnes from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Also, it’s primarily the trucking companies that are doing the development work because they have the logistics networks and the clients. So it’s going to be cooperative in nature.” Right now, drones are best suited for smaller deliveries ie, going to places that are expensive to serve regularly. Sending a car 10km to deliver a pizza is very inefficient – a drone could get there in a very short space of time, at much lower cost. In the immediate future we are likely to see hybrid delivery models, where vans handle the first leg and drones take care of the final leg, as has been tested in Switzerland.
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