San Francisco Startup To Begin Delivering Drugs Via Drone
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - A San Francisco start-up is developing a drone delivery service that promises to drug store items hovering outside of addresses in the Mission District in under 15 minutes.
QuiQui hopes to start deliveries in July, taking advantage of a recent court decision that struck down Federal Aviation Administration guidelines barring drones for commercial use.
"We're working on a collision detection and avoidance systems and being able to handle all of the logistics of working in the real world," said Joshua Ziering, founder of the 2-month-old company.
SF Start-Up To Deliver Drugs Via Drone
The FAA is expected to issue rules for the commercial use of drones in 2015, including whether movie and television filming companies can shoot aerial photography.
In the meantime, Ziering wants to seize the moment to demonstrate that autonomous robotic couriers are a viable business. QuiQui's four drones will fly about 100 feet in the air over a 2-mile radius.
"My idea is to deliver pharmaceutical products via drone in San Francisco's Mission District," Ziering said. Management plans on expanding to South of Market as the engineering challenges are solved and eventually licensing the technology to others.
The light-weight craft measure about 18 inches by 18 inches, travel about 20 miles an hour, and can stay in the air about 15 minutes.
Customers would place an order for non-prescription drug store items through a smartphone app, including dropping a pin on a map to schedule a delivery. The app receives a notification when the drone arrives.
"You'll walk outside, you'll swipe to drop, just like you would swipe to answer a phone call, your order will fall and the drone will fly away," Ziering said.
He said the company is still hammering out how best to slow the products down as they fall to the earth.
