Airbus and SingPost partnering on drone delivery project
Airbus Helicopters has announced that Singapore Post (SingPost) will be its logistics partner for the Skyways drone parcel delivery project. The agreement was announced yesterday (18 April) at the inaugural Rotorcraft Asia exhibition taking place in Singapore. The MoU was signed by Jean-Brice Dumont, Airbus Helicopters’ Executive Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technical Officer, and Mervyn Lim, SingPost’s Covering Group CEO.
As previously reported by Post&Parcel, Skyways is an Airbus project to develop a system for delivering parcels by drones in urban environments. A MoU was signed in February 2016 between Airbus Helicopters and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore to conduct the Skyways proof-of-concept trial.
According to Airbus, the research and development phase is now at an advanced stage, with an initial trial phase planned at NUS by early 2018. This will involve the transport of small packages within the university campus.
“As the logistics partner for Skyways, SingPost will bring its expertise in software systems that control and manage delivery networks, customer-interface systems and real-time back-end links to a delivery system that serve the last mile,” said Airbus. “SingPost will also contribute its understanding of postal and eCommerce logistics trends to ensure the solutions developed will address the future logistics needs of cities around the world.”
Mervyn Lim, SingPost’s Covering Group CEO, commented: Drones and other autonomous vehicles are in the future of the logistics industry. The demonstrator that Airbus Helicopters and SingPost will be developing is designed to address real-world challenges such as safe and accurate flight in high rise cities, while meeting the needs of customers.
“Our trial will involve SingPost’s parcel locker technology, and this MoU fits well into our long term plans to develop future generations of parcel delivery points that involve drones and the vertical dimension. Together with Airbus Helicopters’ technologists, SingPost’s engineers will be working to ensure the concept meets the future logistics needs of urban environments like Singapore.”
