Mumbai has achieved a first in the country after a city-based pizza outlet Francesco’s Pizzeria used an unmanned drone to execute a delivery by taking the aerial route recently, according to PTI. “All of us had read about (global e-commerce giant) Amazon’s plans of using drones. Recently, we successfully carried out a test-delivery by sending a pizza to a customer located 1.5 km away from our outlet,” said Mikhel Rajani, Chief Executive, Francesco’s Pizzeria.
Rajani stressed that though it was only a test-flight but the results confirm that it can be used routinely in a few years.
He confirmed that a four-rotor drone took off with the order from its outlet in central Mumbai’s Lower Parel area and delivered it to a high-rise building in Worli, claiming that it is for the first time that the ubiquitous drone has been used for such a purpose in the country.
The eatery, which has been in operations for two years, has made a video of the delivery, he said, adding an auto engineer friend helped with making the flight possible.
Rajani, who comes from a family that is into textiles, said the drone saves time and costs for a company like his, which would otherwise depend on a two-wheeler borne agent to deliver the pizzas.
“What we have done now will be common in the next four-five years,” he said, adding every such customised drone costs around USD 2,000. At present, there are certain restrictions on the regulatory front like the drone not allowed to fly above 400 ft altitude and barred from flying over security establishments, stated Rajani, adding the American Federal Aviation Authority’s regulations on usage of drones, expected next year, will help.
He also mentioned that apart from that there are technical difficulties like a limited operating radius of 8 km after which the batteries go dry so adding proper infrastructure like having charging stations would help.
Even though the four-rotor version drone had a limited carrying capacity, Rajani said the payload capacity can be increased to up to 8 kg in case of a an eight-rotor drone.
