Ackerman, Evan. “Zipline Partners With Walmart on Commercial Drone Delivery.” IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News, 14 Sept. 2020, 14:39 GMT, spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/zipline-walmart-drone-delivery.
Article title:
Zipline Partners With Walmart on Commercial Drone Delivery
Photo: Zipline
My summary of the article:
The company Zipline and Walmart has cooperated together to produce "Zip", a fixed wing, non-rotorcraft (not a quadcopter, octocopter, etc), fixed wing drone that is designed for use in delivering health and wellness products such as medicine to remote regions where the nearest Walmart is overwhelmingly far. "Zip" comes with some advantages over the conventional rotorcraft delivery drones, such as that they are much faster and that their maximum travel distances are much longer. However, Ackerman has identified numerous disadvantages or shortcomings that may be detrimental to the release of Zipline in the US market.
Firstly, Ackerman has identified that there is currently no method in ensuring that a Zip does not collide with another drone, that be another Zip or just a civilian one. Indeed, the sky is enormous, but there still needs to be a way to make sure that collisions between drones do not happen. Secondly, Ackerman has identified that retrieval of goods released by Zip from the sky with parachutes cannot, at least with the information provided by Zipline and Walmart, be precise for release in the market. There must be a way to calculate the effect of wind, and even if there are, there are indeed other factors such as change in wind direction or the composition/structure/nature of the package that may limit the precision of the landing. Due to this, Ackerman believes that if Zip does become released in the market, its usage must be confined to rural areas for it to be safe and reliable. Given the information by Walmart and Zipline, Ackerman believes that although the use of Zip in urban or suburban areas is, for now, impossible, the use of Zip in rural areas would indeed be extremely useful for people especially in situations whereby they are very far away from the nearest market and they are in urgent need of medicine.
My response to the article:
I completely agree with Ackerman's claim that, without substantial technological advancement in aeronautics in the near future, it would be impossible for Zip to be able to precisely land a package with a parachute in urban or suburban destinations. I also agree with his claim that Zip delivery would be both very possible and highly demanding when its service is confined to rural areas where the nearest market is very far. This would be because not much precision is needed for rural delivery and there is currently no way for people living in rural areas to get items they need quick in a matter of hours.
To conclude, Zip is such an amazing breakthrough in the drone delivery industry, opening a new insight into using fixed wings, non-rotorcraft, high velocity drones. Although now it may be confined to rural delivery due to precision issues, if that be solved in the far or near future, Zip would be able to dominate the delivery market.
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