First drone docking station installed in Switzerland

Matternet has installed the prototypes for a first automated cargo drone station at the EOC hospital group in Lugano in the canton of Ticino. The logistics expert for drone networks, which operates in Dübendorf in the canton of Zurich via Matternet Operations GmbH, flies a temperature-sensitive hardshell case containing numerous lab samples that would otherwise be transported overland. Removing this precious cargo from the drone docking station is handled by authorized hospital staff exclusively. Matternet has provided a link on its website to an article covering this development published by Techcrunch, the online news portal for technology and internet firms.

As Matternet announced a few days ago, the company is establishing a city-wide network of 40 such drone docking stations in Abu Dhabi in conjunction with the Abu Dhabi Department of Health (DoH) and logistics company Skygo. The tests for this are expected to be completed by the end of the year, while commercial operations should be launched in the first quarter of 2022. According to an article published by the company itself, Matternet became the first drone company to deliver refrigerated COVID-19 vaccine doses manufactured by Pfizer to a hospital in North Carolina on behalf of UPS in August.  

Matternet writes on its website that its mission is to make “access to goods as frictionless and universal as access to information”. The company’s products are designed to enable organizations around the world to build and operate drone logistics networks for transporting goods on demand.