UAVita Systems made history with autonomous drone delivery of commercial packages between two major cities, a first in world aviation industry.
The Nova Poshta commercial flight of UAVita’s DISCOVERY D-80 drone between Kyiv and Kharkiv, two major cities in Ukraine, was 480 km between takeoff and landing and carried a load of five parcels for delivery. The flight was fully autonomous from takeoff to waypoint navigation to landing and crossed several rivers, highways, avoiding populated areas, infrastructure objects and restricted airspace.
Nova poshta is a private Ukrainian postal and courier company and the leader of the logistics in the Ukraine market that provides express delivery of documents, freight and parcels for individuals and businesses.
UAVita is a designer, manufacturer and integrator of purpose-built fixed wing high payload autonomous drones. UAVita’s DISCOVERY D-80 drone was recently awarded top place in the Krypto Labs Drone X Challenge 2020. The DISCOVERY is an industry leading drone with a maximum payload of 80 kg and non-stop flight time of 10 hours or 1,000 km. UAVita is set to launch their next generation fixed wing drone that has a maximum payload of 340 kg and non-stop flight time of 30 hours or 4,500 km.
Airspace for the flight was reserved with local air traffic control, state air services, and several military authorities. The flight was operated by UAVita’s local Ukraine company, Aerodrone.
DISCOVERY’s average air speed was 100 kmph, with an altitude of 300 meters and total flight time was 4:45 hours a full hour ahead of schedule due to a tail wind.
Nova poshta’s and UAVita’s next autonomous parcel delivery test flight will take place in late August between the cities of Kyiv and L’viv. The target is to eventually reduce the flight time even further by deploying UAVita’s next generation drones.
