End to End logistic support tools for effective aerial drone delivery against COVID-19

随着无人机在包裹递送领域的应用加快，无人机飞行所需的许多技术已经在很大程度上得到了解决。无人机已经在影响医疗用品和高价值紧急物品的运送，比如我们正在索伦特FMZ项目中准备在朴茨茅斯和怀特岛之间飞行癌症治疗。然而，如果系统能够支持端到端流程的各个方面，特别是当无人机不飞行时，无人机将只与人类和货车运输竞争。在飞行之前和结束时，需要处理无人机来装载货物，卸下货物和进行维护。虽然很多人都在强调无人机如何安全高效地飞行，但很少有人关注如何自主装载和递送包裹，从而使无人机能够发挥更大的功能和自主性。在过去的9个月里，Motion robotics专注于这一领域的研究；开发不同的自动化货物装卸方法，以适应不同的现实世界需求，例如向偏远地区的诊所实地补充医疗产品，自动收集废物，以及自动化仓库包裹与无人机互动。该项目的主要目标是在TRL5/6解决方案的基础上，将其提升至TRL9水平，以便在项目结束时，我们可以开始在现场部署无人机，并扩大服务规模，以便尽早在2021年满足COVID-19快速响应的需求。

As the usage of drones in the parcel delivery space gathers pace, many of the technologies required to fly drones have been solved to a large extent.Already drones are impacting the delivery of medical supplies and high value urgent items such as we are doing in the Solent FMZ project preparing to fly cancer treatments between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.However drones will only compete with humans and van delivery, if the systems are available to support all aspects of the end to end process, in particular when the drone is not flying.Before and at the end of flights drones need to be handled to load cargo, remove cargo and perform maintenance.While much emphasis has been placed on how the drone can fly safely and efficiently, very little work has focused on how parcels are loaded and delivered autonomously in such a way that the drones can function with greater functionality and autonomy.For the past 9 months Motion robotics has concentrated its research in this area; to develop different automated cargo loading and unloading methods that will suit different real world needs such as field replenishment of medical products to pop up clinics in remote areas, autonomous collection of waste and automating warehouse parcel to drone interaction.The key objective of the project is to build on our TRL5/6 solutions and take them to TRL9 levels such that at the end of the project we can begin deployment of our drones, in the field, and scaling up the service to meet the needs of COVID-19 rapid response as early as possible in 2021\.