Performs Well During Lake Kivu Challenge

On Tuesday, May 5, the organizing committee of the Lake Kivu Challenge announced that Wingcopter was the winner of the Emergency Delivery category of the Flying Competition, which was part of the 2020 African Drone Forum that took place in February in Rwanda.

Also the recipient of a special award for its safety procedures, Wingcopter will receive prize money of GBP 65,000.

“We are very proud to be winners of the Lake Kivu Challenge, as this challenge and the African Drone Forum embody the innovative spirit of humanitarian aid and the African drone community as well as the great potential for sustainable drone deployments,” says Tom Plümmer, CEO and co-founder of Wingcopter.

“We strongly believe that Wingcopter drones can leapfrog existing infrastructure by delivering significant social and economic value in Africa and beyond.”

A first of its kind on the continent, the African Drone Forum was hosted by the Rwandan Government and inaugurated by President Kagame. The goal of the Forum was to showcase the advances in autonomous drone delivery that could have significant benefits for isolated communities and rural areas across Africa.

92 applications from 35 countries were submitted for the Challenge, but only the top ten drone companies were invited to put their drones and operators to the test through real-life scenarios at Lake Kivu in Western Rwanda.

Wingcopter had a perfect mission performance throughout the three weeks of flights. This included a fully automated delivery of an emergency package from a droneport on the mainland to Bugarura Island and a secure return landing. The roundtrip, beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight was 40 kilometers and was completed without a battery swap.

Wingcopter drones completed the one-way route to the island within just 12 minutes, which was drastically faster than completing this same task by boat, which would take more than 50 minutes. The package drop-off required no landing or human interaction.

FMI: https://wingcopter.com/