Real Engineering
9 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2019–2023
11:46 · 1.6M views · Jan 25, 2019
Real Engineering explains how Zipline built a drone delivery network for medical supplies in Rwanda. It covers the fixed-wing drones, catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind the service.
HN points to it as the best explanation of how Zipline's whole system works and as an example of drones doing real, useful work.
13 comments from Hacker News
One of my favorite companies since I heard about them - this video I personally believe this is the way forward, like in a star wars movie full of a plethora of "dumb" robots who have a specific work task, and are almost self sufficient. Like you have a robot that fix delivery drones, a robot that assembles them, and etc. Drones will be also much better at avoiding obstacles, and they will be much more efficient than cars. I am not really sure why there isn't more competition in this market. I believe they can build an autonomous delivery hub, and factory. I wish them all the best.
For those blocked by a paywall, Real Engineering did a video on it [ this video ]. The most interesting aspects to me were: - The drone is not a quadcopter, they are too inefficient. Mini plane design. - GPS device is directly attached to the swappable battery unit to ensure it is always connected to a satellite, eliminating satellite connection delays when the drone powers up. - It is launched into a sky by a powered rail. It doesn't need to land to deliver the goods, the items get parachuted down. No infrastructure needed on the receiving end, the item just drops from the sky. - For landing the drone flies past an aircraft arresting wire while hooking onto it which decelerates it and causes it to swing down (suspended above the ground). Easy to retrieve.
I learnt about Zipline in a talk at JuliaCon by Tucker McClure who spoke about how they use Julia for designing and tuning their aircraft. Had the great fortune of spending an evening at the conference to learn more about the company itself, how it got started and their use of Julia. Recommend the 2019 JuliaCon video on how Zipline uses Julia for vehicle simulation: [LINK] And this video by Real Engineering that does a great job of explaining how the whole thing works: this video
I was also going to mention zipline in Rwanda, last video I saw was two years ago but it looks like they’re doing well enough to be hiring interns in San Fran. Really cool tech, the way they have a sort of assembly line for getting ready-to-fly parts on the package in the space of minutes - these are life and death deliveries out here! this video [LINK]
Delivery drones are definitely unnecessary in densely populated areas. It's cool and futuristic, but it's not economical at all, it's very unsafe and also loud. However it's a wonderful thing for rural places with poor infrastructure. For example Zipline in Rwanda, one of the most interesting solutions an engineering perspective too: this video