The Israel Innovation Authority is introducing a national drone network to transport food and medicine in a project aimed at reducing congestion on public roads.
Five unnamed companies will carry out the flights in a demonstration that will perform 300 dispatches a day over the city of Hadera.
The deployment will be managed by a centralised, autonomous unmanned aircraft system traffic management located in the traffic and air traffic control centres of Ayalon Highways in the central Haifa Bay.
Dr. Ami Appelbaum, chairman at the Israel Innovation Authority, says: “Demonstrations of simultaneous flights of dozens of drones over Hadera, managed by the control centre in Haifa, are an unprecedented leap forward for the State of Israel – a monumental step towards a future of smart transportation, in which Israel is becoming one of the first countries worldwide to enable aerial cargo transport via drones.”
Around 20 drones are expected to fly simultaneously, and hundreds of others are scheduled to fly in various demonstrations over a two-week period.
This initiative is the first in a series of eight planned to take place over the next two years.
It follows a year-long collaboration in which the C4IR Center at the Israel Innovation Authority and its partners set out to promote drone Delivery as a Service as part of the NAAMA (a Hebrew acronym for urban aerial transport) Initiative.
Other partners involved in this collaboration include the Israel Ministry of Transport (through Ayalon Highways) and the Civil Aviation Authority of Israel.
Ayalon CEO Itamar Ben Meir says: “This demonstration is part of a long list of technological and regulatory developments required for the commercial operation of a national low-altitude air traffic network for drones in urban settings.”
