Zipline, an instant delivery service is in the final stages of launching its first hub in Kenya.
The company that operates a drone manufacturing and delivery system, delivering medical supplies as well as non-medical products is soon expected to open a hub in Kisumu.
Winfred Muiruri, General Manager, Zipline Kenya says once everything is ready, a date for the launch will be set.
“We are in the final stages prior to launch. We will make the announcement when everything is set to launch our Kisumu hub and any other new hub as may come up,” says Muiruri.
The Kisumu hub will be set up following a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Zipline Kenya and the County Government of Kisumu in February 2022.
Health products delivery
Once the hub is operational, it will act as the base of operations for the Zipline Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and the Zipline services capable of serving health projects and facilities across the 16 Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB) Counties.
“From there, medical commodities will be delivered to over 500 health facilities while also delivering adolescent health products to communities,” noted the Zipline Kenya General Manager.
Founded in 2014, the company aims to create logistics solutions that serve all humans equally by leveraging expertise in robotics and autonomy to design, manufacture and operate the world’s largest automated delivery system.
Among the challenges that Zipline seeks to address with the Kisumu hub is, ensuring sufficient and timely delivery of vaccines, infusions, whole blood, platelets, and frozen plasma, among others despite terrains.
Further, the company is seeking to support the delivery of animal genetic material like swine and bull semen and animal vaccines.
“In effect, Zipline provides an easy, more efficient, reliable and safer means of delivery of goods to all locations, day/night, rain or shine,” notes Muiruri.
How do Zipline drones operate?
Once a medical staff, veterinary or any other designated official makes an order to the Zipline hub, the order is received and the requested product is packed into a special delivery package with a parachute.
A Zipline flight operator then packs the medical products into a drone and performs pre-flight checks. The drone is then launched with a supercapacitor-powered electric catapult launcher and accelerates from 0 to 70 miles per hour (0 to 113 km/h) in 0.33 seconds.
The drone then flies autonomously to its delivery site while a remote pilot at each distribution centre monitors all drones in flight. It then descends to 20–35 meters (66–115 ft) before dropping the package under a paper parachute.
The drone technology takes between 10 and 45 minutes to deliver the supplies within an area within a radius of 80 to 120 kilometres from the Zipline centre.
“This means a distance that could take about six hours by road will be covered in under 30 minutes by the zipline drones,” said the Zipline Kenya boss.
This technology looks good