Mumbai, Mar 4 (PTI) Skye Air Mobility has started its 10-day trial of deliveries through drones in Noida, Greater Noida and Meerut for diagnostic sample collection as part of its partnership with Redcliffe Labs.
On the first day of the trials at Noida, six flights were operated for sample collection, the drone delivery services provider said in a statement.
Over the next 10 days, Skye Air will conduct BVLoS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) trials in similar corridors before the commercial roll-out of the service in several semi-urban and remote locations in India, the company said.
Last month, Skye Air Mobility had announced a long-term partnership with diagnostic services provider Redcliffe Labs for faster collection of samples, especially from semi-urban and remote parts of the country.
Redcliffe is a unit of the US-based Redcliffe Lifetch Inc.
“India is poised to lead the drone delivery industry globally with progressive policies and support from the civil aviation ministry at the Centre. As a part of the trial, we will be carrying out multiple flights with diagnostic samples from semi-urban and remote corners to various Redcliffe Labs across the country.
“Today, we generally have to wait for 24–72 hours for a test report in cities, this increases in rural and semi-urban areas. Redcliffe Labs has progressive plans to cut down logistics time and bring up faster results for their patients via drone delivery at scale,” said Swapnik Jakkampudi, Co-Founder, Skye Air Mobility.
The flights conducted by drones on the first day of trials reduced the distance to 6.5 km, as compared to 15 km by road, thereby saving a lot of time as well, the company said.
Skye Air is set to carry out multiple BVLoS flights lifting a combined payload up to 5 kg of various diagnostic samples from across the country, the company said, adding it will prove to be a game-changer as it will help Redcliffe Labs to speed up the process and increase the efficiency.
“With the completion of multiple flights, we will also mark the completion of our 1,000 flights in India, which shall benchmark a new industry standard for others,” Jakkampudi said.
“A box of samples taken by drone takes almost one-third of the time to reach the lab vis-a-vis a phlebotomist delivering it by road. Faster turnaround on samples reaching the lab means conclusive diagnostic results,” said Dheeraj Jain, Founder, Redcliffe Labs.
Temperature monitoring of samples is very important for accurate results, he said, adding, with in-built temperature controlled mechanisms as part of drone technology, it’s easier to monitor real-time temperature of human specimen samples. PTI IAS HVA MR MR
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