50 With the advent of uncrewed logistics solutions in air, and on land and sea, it pays to understand there are fundamental differences between what logistics operators need of their UAS, and what conventional UASs (designed most often for imaging-based work) bring to the table. For one, buying an imaging UAV is easy and straightforward, whether mapping the spread of a wildfire, inspecting power lines, surveying for coastal erosion or simply photographing scenic views or videoing a wedding. Such UAVs can practically be bought off-the-shelf. Logistics UAVs cannot be bought this way, however. Those designed specifically for logistics are nowhere near as prolific, and one may try to purchase and re-engineer an imaging drone for logistics work, but the software inside and around it will remain unsuitable for logistics. As Adam Klaptocz, CEO of Switzerland-based Rigi Technologies SA (RigiTech) says: “Almost all drone software, especially for aerial photography, is based on a principle of ‘One UAV, One Pilot’, so the GCS software in one handheld tablet connects to one multirotor, you do one of various mission profiles in your repertoire, and that’s it. “Drone delivery, however, means flying the same route back and forth five days a week, and covering many different routes across an organisation. You can’t have one person monitoring every delivery drone. It just isn’t scalable. “You need something far, far more autonomous, such that entire fleets can deliver while monitored by a single supervisor, but also configured so multiple people can interact with the same UAV. A dispatcher fits one package after another into each UAV, the receiver takes it from their UAV, technicians on the ground maintain each returning UAV, and air traffic control [ATC] manages all the aircraft in the air. It’s many individuals, interacting with many drones.” Making UAV logistics work takes more than just repurposing an off-the-shelf drone. It takes engineering a spacious UAV and a multi-dimensional cloud GCS portal from scratch. Rory Jackson interviews RigiTech to learn more April/May 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The needs of the many RigiTech has engineered the Eiger UAV and RigiCloud monitoring and management system to resolve the ‘many to many’ challenge of drone logistics (All images courtesy of RigiTech)
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