Drone delivery heroes Zipline are already performing thousands of lifesaving drone delivery flights every day in Africa. 

There have been numerous natural disasters in the last ten years, the timescale in which civilian drones have truly become a thing. In 2010 volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland and the ash caused the largest reduction in civilian air traffic since the second world war.

Covid-19 is world wide and nothing on this scale has so dramatically reduced commercial air travel. General aviation is also coming to a halt as the pandemic makes it’s way around the world. Last week a small airfield in Dorset England, Henstridge, issued a warning to members of the club to not turn up if they felt ill. It cannot be long before authorities notice and close a rich man’s travel loophole. One that can leapfrog States spreading the virus.

In just a few months, Coronavirus has changed how we greet each other, how we work and how our children are educated. It’s also pushing public health authorities to develop new ways to deliver healthcare.

Over the past few months, the Chinese government has been piloting ways to incorporate drones into their response to Coronavirus. These initial experiments may serve as a model for other countries looking to respond to the current health crisis. Longer term, they can provide lessons for how public and private health systems can incorporate drone technology into their planning to mitigate future pandemics.

Here are three areas where drones have been a key tool in responding to COVID-19:

Six years ago, Quaternium startup, made a revolutionary breakthrough developing the first hybrid fuel-electric drone ever. This drone was inspired by hybrid cars from the automotive industry. In 2015 the company made a disruptive flight of 3 hours and 10 minutes with their multirotor HYBRiX, crushing all previous flight-time records. Since then, the achievements of hybrid drones have not stopped growing.

An entire new category of drones have emerged with the promise to unlock demanding commercial applications. Hybrid multirotors multiply flight time more than 10 times compared to electric solutions.

The leader of hybrid drones, Quaternium, just broke the rules again. Pulverizing any previous endurance record with an astonishing flight of 8 hours and 10 minutes non-stop. All this, with an experimental version of their new drone HYBRiX 2.1, of 25 kg MTOW.

As the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) slows in China, the country has seen an orderly resumption of work to reboot its economy. The Chinese agriculture technology company XAG is one of the first companies obtaining work resumption approval from government. It has restarted business in its Guangzhou headquarters early on February 10, with an overall 90% work resumption rate of its R&D staff on the first day. To fulfil the large purchasing orders of agricultural drones for the farming season, XAG has also set up a 20-million-yuan relief fund for its supply chain partners who struggle to reopen their factories.

According to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, only 52 percent of small-to-medium sized enterprises have returned to work as of 6 March. While the coronavirus outbreak put many businesses into difficult situation because of the longer-than-expected closure, XAG has already resumed operations in both its headquarters and manufacturing center. Five key measures have been strictly put in place to ensure that work resumes orderly without compromising the efforts to contain the highly contagious virus.

Drone Delivery Canada ‘DDC’ or the ‘Company’ ((TSX.V:FLT, OTC:TAKOF), is pleased to announce that it will begin testing of its Robin XL (Robin).  The Robin has a lifting capability of 25lbs of payload, a travel range of 60km and is designed for harsher climates.

The Robin XL is larger than DDC’s Sparrow cargo delivery drone. The Robin has an electric power plant and boasts a payload capacity of 25 lbs and a flight distance of 60km.  The Robin is engineered for harsher environments, heavier wind capability and colder temperatures than the Sparrow.

Drones are being used in Chinese villages to spray disinfectant in response to coronavirus throughout the village, to hopefully make the village a little safer to walk around in. The drones are being used around China and are being converted to help out.
A villager in Heze, Shandong province, is using his crop spraying drones to spray disinfectant over the village. The drones will be used to spray an area of around 16,000 square meters.

The Russian defense industry is working on several models of anti-drone weapons to improve the military’s protection.

Operational Solutions announces that its bespoke set of anti-drone systems has been deployed at Heathrow as part of the airport’s end-to-end counter drone measures to help to keep the country’s busiest airfield free from drones.

This one-of-a-kind Counter Drone system works by detecting and tracking drones in surrounding airspace and alerting airports of unauthorised drone use quickly and efficiently. This new and innovative system also works to locate the drone pilots themselves and can be used to identify their location.