Commercial BVLOS Drone Service uses FLARM for Traffic Avoidance
Swiss Post, the Insel hospital group, and drone manufacturer Matternet have started a commercial BVLOS drone transport service in the Swiss capital city of Berne. The drones are connecting the Insel university hospital and Tiefenau hospital, located 4 km (2.5 miles) apart, carrying lab samples and urgently needed medication. The route is located entirely inside the controlled airspace around the city’s airport.
“When lab samples need to be transported as quickly as possible from A to B, every minute counts”, says Uwe E. Jocham, Insel’s CEO. The lab samples are currently transported by courier. For urgent cases, Insel uses a taxi.
All drones are equipped with our FLARM traffic information and collision warning system. Our technology is standard in most aircraft operating in European airspace and allows both manned and unmanned aircraft to see and stay well clear of each other at any time. In addition, it enables the drones to be identified and tracked at all times, a key requirement of U-Space for the safe and efficient integration of drones into airspace shared with manned aviation.
In the near future, Swiss Post together with medical laboratory Zentrallabor ZLZ and Matternet will start another commercial BVLOS drone transport service above Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city. The service will connect ZLZ’s main medical laboratory with the Hirslanden Im Park hospital. The routing crosses the lake of Zurich and is partially in uncontrolled airspace.
The Swiss Civil Aviation Authority FOCA has been involved in the project, has inspected the drone and its safety components, defined the legal conditions for flying it, and granted approval for the flights in Berne and Zurich.
