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 During the four-day test which started on Wednesday (September 2),
the drones will be transporting parcels between mainland Helsinki
and Suomenlinna, an island fortress some five kilometers from the
city center.
According to Posti Group, it is the first company in Europe to
experiment with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for mail delivery in
an urban area, with a flight path that is partially obstructed.
During the tests, parcels that weigh no more than three kilograms
will be flown to the island by the drone, while letters and other
parcels will be delivered the usual way by boat.
Jukka Rosenberg, Senior Vice President of parcel and logistics
services at Posti, said the company was testing ways to make online
shopping quicker and better for both the sender and recipient.
"This is part of the testing new technologies in our parcel delivery
and post deliveries and this could be an opportunity which we are
now testing," he said following a press viewing on Tuesday
(September 1).
The very first drone delivery went off without a glitch, even though
it landed away from the designated landing zone.
Tero Heinonen from Sharper Shape, that is responsible for the
technical aspects and operation of the drone, said safety was a
priority and that the pilot had chosen a different landing spot
because of the windy conditions.
"Safety is very important for us and the human pilot is always in
charge of the flight and on this occasion it seems that the pilot
made a decision to land further away from the crowd which had
gathered here just as a safety precaution," he said.
The parcel was then handed to the Minister of Transport and
Communications, Anne Berner.
The test comes after her department drafted a program to promote
intelligent automation.
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According to Posti, Finland is at the forefront of using new
technologies for transportation with legislation and public
authorities strongly encouraging work in the field of automated
traffic.
Heinonen said there was great interest in drone technology and said
there were many potential uses.
"It seems that drones are one of the new technology areas which
really ignite people's imagination, so we get probably twenty
requests per week for different applications that we ever could not
have imagined. So I expect that while the technology further matures
we will see many companies doing different kinds of applications
starting from precision agriculture, forestry inventory, the
deliveries of course, power-line inspections, counting traffic," he
said.
The announcement by Amazon last year of a potential drone-based
delivery service has excited consumers, but a number of major
obstacles remain before drone delivery services become the norm,
namely weight limits, distance limits, and weather restrictions.
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