Ever since drone technology started gaining worldwide traction for commercial applications around the 2010s, users have been obsessed with cutting costs as part of scaling up drone integration for various industrial uses.
Drone logistics have not been spared this requirement, which has been one of the biggest drivers behind the elimination of human pilots for each drone deployed, to remote operating centres where one pilot in a control room thousands of kilometres away can effectively monitor several drones in the air at any given time.
With cost-cutting in mind, American drone logistics provider Flytrex claims it has found another way to cut costs of package deliveries by drone, through its new physical and AI infrastructure that it says will cut cost per delivery by 60 percent and reduces delivery times to customers by half.
“Using predictive AI modelling, Flytrex will be the first drone delivery company to preposition drones at restaurants most likely to receive orders at a given time of day, so the drone arrives before the order does,” the company said in a statement.
Perhaps Flytrex wishes to convey that it will be the first company to use predictive AI to locate its drones where action is most likely to be; because we are positive that another drone logistics company, Wing, was the first to build docking hubs on rooftops and major malls.
Wing has partnered with Brookfield Properties and DoorDash to operate drone delivery from shopping centre rooftops and properties in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis.
But we digress…
“The drones will be prepositioned on merchant rooftops using a new docking system, which will enable restaurant staff to clip-on the order to the waiting drone’s hook in seconds without ever touching the aircraft,” Flytex went on.
It added that the new rooftop dock and predictive AI drone positioning technologies will be launching at active merchant locations across the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, with the installation of over 100 additional sites underway.
Traditionally, drone delivery companies have dispatched drones from a centralised location once an order is ready for pickup, which adds to delivery times and costs. In this light, Flytrex says its new infrastructure will enable drones to be prepositioned at merchant locations before an order is even received.
“The system relies on two key technologies: a docking system that enables a drone to safely land and remain at a merchant’s physical location until an order is received, and predictive AI modelling that enables drones to be allocated to merchants most likely to receive orders at a given time.
“The Flytrex docking system is installed on an existing rooftop or similar elevated area immediately adjacent to the restaurant. It requires no additional real estate, no structural modifications and no dedicated drone staff. The drone lands on the Dock before an order is placed and shuts down its motors while it waits.
“When an order is placed and the food is ready, the drone lowers a hook into a simple loading position, a restaurant employee clips the packaged order onto the hook, and the drone lifts off within seconds and flies directly to the customer.”
To make the new physical docking infrastructure work, Flytrex says it adopted a new layer of AI infrastructure that anticipates where the next order will come from.
Flytrex’s machine-learning models worky by analysing historical demand patterns, time of day, location and other signals across the network to predict where orders are most likely to originate, then proactively positions idle aircraft at those merchants’ rooftops in advance.
“Every drone delivery company has promised food in minutes. The truly challenging part has never been the flight; it’s the last few hundred feet between the kitchen and the aircraft,” said Amit Regev, Co-Founder and CEO of Flytrex.
“The Dock and predictive modelling turn every restaurant into part of the autonomous network. Our system knows where the next order is coming from before it’s placed, the drone is already waiting on the roof, restaurant staff loads it in seconds, and it’s in the air on its way to the customer.
“No courier, no runner, no Flytrex employee at the restaurant. That is what drone delivery was always supposed to look like, and it’s what makes it faster, smarter and dramatically lower cost.”
In Flytrex’s point of view, the Rooftop Dock and predictive positioning remove two of the largest costs and delays in drone delivery operations: restaurant self-loading eliminates the dedicated runners who previously carried orders from the merchant to a separate drone pickup location; while predictive positioning eliminates the pickup flight time itself.
The result is faster deliveries and fresher food for customers, higher utilisation for the same fleet of aircraft, and a lightweight, repeatable infrastructure model that can be deployed across thousands of existing restaurants and shopping centres.
The announcement is the latest among a litany of milestones for Flytrex, which recently secured investment from Uber as part of a strategic partnership to fulfil Uber Eats orders; partnered with DoorDash to launch drone delivery in Dallas; received FAA approval for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations; unveiled the Sky2, its next-generation drone with an industry-leading 8.8 lb payload capacity, in partnership with Little Caesars; opened a drone manufacturing facility in Pilot Point, Texas, capable of producing roughly 1,000 drones per year; and partnered with Nash to power an autonomous-first, multi-modal delivery platform across its DFW operations.