Rigitech and Leonardo perform Italys first long range BVLOS delivery flight

RigiTech, in collaboration with Leonardo and Telespazio, have made history in Italy this week by performing long-range drone-based deliveries of healthcare material between two hospitals near Rome’s Fiumicino airport.

RigiTech have reached a new milestone on the way to opening the skies for healthcare
deliveries in Europe – the first long-range Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) deliveries of biological samples in Italy. The RigiOne, our first generation drone with vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) has made this possible several consecutive times in a safe, fast and reliable manner.

On October 19 and 20, 2020, RigiOne and RigiTech’s operations processes were put to test by connecting two sites of Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital near Rome. The deliveries were made between Santa Marinella Hospital and Palidoro Pediatric Hospital through a 32 km aerial route. Road transportation between the two sites takes from 45 minutes to one hour depending on the traffic, and the RigiOne drone was able to make this connection on-demand in just 25 minutes.

The operation was fully automatic and supervised through redundant communications linked through our RigiCloud software which enabled reliable and constant monitoring and control of the operation during, take-off, landing and BVLOS parts of the delivery. Flight data was synchronised with Telespazio’s T-Drones UTM, providing coordination with other airspace actors. Safety was assured through RigiTech’s onboard algorithms, advanced geofencing and failsafe systems, which were critical to gain support from
Italy’s Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) – the first BVLOS operation of it’s kind.

RigiTech is proud of this achievement and the fact that this operation will enable drone delivery to be a reality in Italy in the upcoming years. We would like to thank Leonardo, Telespazio, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital and ENAC for trusting us with this operation. This is just the beginning of what the future holds and the benefit that drone logistics can do for the healthcare sector.

RigiTech

RigiTech is a Swiss aerial logistics company founded in 2018 that focuses on creating fully-integrated drone delivery solutions. Its inter-city RigiOne and upcoming urban Minto drones are designed with a network-first mentality, the key to scaling drone delivery into a sustainable business model. The centralised RigiCloud software infrastructure ensures reliable, compliant communications, flight tracking and fleet maintenance management. RigiTech has secured long-range flight permissions and performed trial operations in Sweden, Portugal and most recently in Italy, focused on healthcare and in-vitro diagnostics markets.