Most drone companies seeking to make remote deliveries these days are focused on food or store items  (Walmart and Amazon) or medical supplies (Zipline).  But one Swiss company, RigiTech, is pioneering a completely new niche – spare parts.

RigiTech has already made more than 50 successful deliveries of vital replacement parts to an offshore wind turbine project owned by the Danish energy firm Orsted but managed by a single company engineer without access to a landing pad.  It’s a remarkably innovative system akin to the “last-mile” retail delivery model but without any of the attendant and cumbersome regulatory restrictions typically associated with it, especially in the United States.

RigitTech’s drone never lands on or near the turbine; it simply drops the spare parts into the outstretched arms of the waiting Orsted engineer while hovering just a few feet from the ground.

But what makes the delivery truly remarkable is the absence of remote piloting: RigiTech’s drone flies completely autonomously – but with remote monitoring – over a distance of 20 nautical miles.  And once the craft reaches the designated drop zone, it automatically releases its cargo and then flies back to shore.  The only human intervention occur when the spare parts are first loaded.

The contrast with most remote delivery operations in the United States couldn’t be more stark.  Amazon and Walmart, for example, must still limit their flights to short distances from their store outlets (usually less than a mile) and must submit to ongoing visual observation and ground management of their deliveries – which limits their scalability and also tends to discourage consumer demand.

RigiTech’s wind turbine project is far from its only foray into autonomous remote cargo delivery.  The company also conducts long-distance flights in a number of European countries with less restrictive regulatory environments, including France and Italy.  It’s part of a growing trend among European cargo drone companies  seeking to aid companies that face persistent supply chain bottlenecks and are desperate for expedited systems that can slash handling and delivery times and reduce costs while enhancing sustainability.

RigiTech’s “Eiger” drone isn’t huge: It has a wingspan of about 10 feet, a payload capacity of 6.6 pounds and can fly continuously for 62 miles.  These specs make the Eiger ideal for speedy lightweight deliveries  It also has the capacity to fly at night and in heavy winds, which helps ensure the round-the-clock “just in time” deliveries that so many companies need. And the Eiger drone is fully safety qualified, allowing it to conduct deliveries not just in remote areas, but in populated areas, too.

Rigitech isn’t operating alone. All of the company’s flights to the Orsted turbine station are closely monitored by its technology partner, Holo, an autonomous systems operator based in Copenhagen, 72 nautical miles away.  A second partner, DSV, assists with the planning and design of the cargo deliveries, which are made with centimeter-level precision.

With such expansive capabilities, Rigitech’s isn’t limiting itself to spare parts, of course.  It’s also working with a major health delivery network in France to conduct deliveries of hazardous biological samples between laboratories. A similar partnership is underway in the United States with Spright  The Eiger drone’s cargo hold is temperature-controlled, which  makes it ideal for medical and humanitarian deliveries of items such as blood or vaccines.

The wind turbine project required additional modifications to the basic Eiger platform – mainly further development of its AI algorithm to facilitate the precision cargo release.  After more than 5 years in operation, the company says it’s confident it can adapt itself to just about any customer’s future technology needs.

“This project started with a simple customer challenge: How do we get parts directly to a technician inside a wind turbine?” Adam Klaptocz, CEO of RigiTech, told Flying magazine last week. Klaptocz credited “multiple cutting-edge technologies, including AI-based flight planning algorithms, precision navigation in high-wind environments, computer vision and sensor fusion algorithms” for the company’s 100% success rate to date.

“The results speak for themselves—spare parts delivered with centimeter-level precision, fully autonomously, every time,” he said.

Previous Drone News: