Frankfurt Common delivery drones often drop their goods with a parachute over the garden – in any weather and often clearly visible to outsiders. “But strangers can also pick up the package there – or it gets wet when it rains,” says Herbert Weirather. The 33-year-old from Liechtenstein wants to solve these problems with his start-up Jedsy: He is developing a cargo drone that can land directly on a balcony or under a window.
The concept is more complex, but Weirather is sure that it will convince customers. “In my opinion, handing over the package at the window or balcony is crucial for the acceptance of delivery drones,” says the entrepreneur. In order to develop the device to market maturity, Jedsy has just started the first round of financing.
The Jedsy drone first flies via GPS to within a few centimeters of the respective balcony. There the drone docks onto a pre-assembled linkage and is fixed with strong Velcro. When taking off, rollers then push the drone away from the Velcro again. If you don’t have such a device, you can also receive your package by classic parachute drop.
Jedsy’s 20-strong team has now registered several patents. “This primarily affects our technology, which allows the drone to land with pinpoint accuracy on balconies and windows,” says Weirather.
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The electrically operated aircraft itself has a wingspan of 2.4 meters, can fly 200 kilometers and transport loads of 2.3 kilograms. It is reminiscent of a bird: “Noise development is also important for acceptance. Our drone is modeled after a bird and is extremely quiet because it uses gliding techniques,” says Weirather. If significantly more delivery drones were on the road in a few years, noise would become a big issue.
The 33-year-old founder of Jedsy is developing more reliable delivery drones.
(Photo: Jedsy)
An important area of application for such cargo drones is medical care. “We started in Malawi with the first flights for hospitals. We fly there with the Mark 12 and 13 of our drone, these are the current versions of our demonstrator,” says Weirather. In many Third World countries, the infrastructure is so poor that important medicines can only be transported by road at an average speed of 40 kilometers per hour.
Experts confirm that the delivery drones market segment will soon reach a large volume. “It’s estimated that things will really take off in the freight market in 2024 or 2025,” says Michael Santo, CEO of H&Z, a Munich-based consultancy specializing in aviation. The venture capital firm Levitate Capital puts the volume of the cargo drone market at 33 billion US dollars by 2030.
The delivery drones have some advantages over electric VTOL aircraft with passengers. The safety requirements of the authorities are less strict because there are no people on board. Even flight vehicles that only have cargo on board must have various safety systems. After all, they can crash over populated areas and cause harm to people.
But many freight routes can be planned in such a way that hardly any residential areas have to be flown over. This means that the same connections are likely to be used to a much greater extent in freight traffic than in the transport of people. These can then even be flown off largely automatically, for example within a fixed and secured corridor. This makes this business particularly attractive for young companies.
The competition is correspondingly large. Jedsy is not the only provider who wants to conquer the healthcare market with new flight vehicles. The German start-up Wingcopter has been cooperating with the German Society for International Cooperation on its drone since 2018 and supplies islands in Tanzania. Wingcopter has also been active in Malawi since November 2020. In the US, the company has also just received a major order from a subsidiary of US company Air Methods, a medical device and drug flight service.
>> Read here: Major order for Wingcopter: US Air Service orders delivery drones
Volocopter from Bruchsal near Karlsruhe – the company is best known for its idea of an air taxi – is now active in the market for cargo drones. Last autumn, the company let its heavy-duty drone take off for the first time. Volocopter wants to establish the flight vehicle together with the rail subsidiary DB Schenker as a permanent means of transport in logistics. The Volodrone can lift pallets weighing up to 200 kilograms and fly them up to 40 kilometers.
But Weirather does not deter the competition. He appreciates the competition. The entrepreneur, who has Austrian citizenship in addition to Liechtenstein, comes from a sporting family. His sister Tina Weirather is a skier. He himself played tennis. But flying was always a great passion of the aerospace engineer.
“After I had to end my tennis career for health reasons, I took up aerobatics,” says the 33-year-old. In 2016 he then founded the Drone Champions League, a racing series for drones that can be controlled via the Playstation, for example. With Jedsy, the entrepreneur now wants to bring his passion to the market.
“When we have made enough flights in Malawi, we want to have the drone certified in the USA first. That should probably be version 15,” says Weirather. When it comes to scheduling, however, he prefers to be a bit conservative. “We’re taking one step at a time. The first thing to do now is to gain experience.”
That’s why the entrepreneur is still open as far as the future business model is concerned. It is conceivable to offer the drone itself as a service, but also to sell licenses to build the device.
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