Ready To Drop Essential Goods To San Mateo & Contra Costa Counties (CA)

In an effort to get people familiar with the concept of drone-based deliveries, Dive Delivery has secured confirmation of permission from the FAA to perform drone deliveries under existing Part 107 rules and regulations.

Dive Delivery will use off-the-shelf drones equipped with drop mechanisms to conduct visual line of sight (VLOS) deliveries of face masks and other lightweight items to residential backyards.

Residents of San Mateo and Contra Costa counties in California can now sign up to participate in the trials. Upon signing up, when ready, Dive Delivery will send out a Part 107 certified remote pilot to first conduct a test flight without any cargo. After a successful test, the certified remote pilot will affix a lightweight package to the drone and conduct the actual delivery drop flight. Customers will be notified before and immediately after the operation to ensure they do not walk under the drone at any time.

Mission planning, airspace authorization (via automated LAANC requests) and flight execution are managed by the Avision App, an iOS application typically installed on an iPad. An off-the-shelf drone is fitted with an air drop system, while release control is programmed into the Avision flight platform. The drone takes off from a predefined location via an automated waypoint mission, flies to the backyard of the residential customer, lowers into the marked location, automatically releases the package and returns to the launch location via the same flight path. 

"Dive Delivery is doing groundbreaking work executing on last mile drone deliveries in the Bay Area. Working alongside a company like Dive to meet the needs of local communities in a time of crisis is really rewarding for us," says James Broniec, VP of Business Development for Avision.

For additional safety and operational visibility, Dive Delivery plans to utilize Avision's UTM platform. Once adopted by regulators, UTM technology will unlock the ability to more readily launch operations beyond visual line of sight.

FMI: www.divedelivery.com