DRONE
TECHNOLOGY
DAY OF
THE DRONE
Felicity Stredder went to Madrid to see IAG Cargo’s innovative
warehouse management solution in action.
In December, IAG Cargo confi rmed that it had successfully
trialled autonomous drone technology in its Madrid warehouse
facility. The technology has been designed to automate timeconsuming,
routine freight checks to enhance operational effi ciency,
after the company discovered that it was spending an average of
6,500 hours a year recording the barcodes and location data of
freight across its individual warehouses.
In developing the solution, IAG Cargo partnered with Silicon
Valley-based drone software platform FlytBase, who built an
operating system with which off-the-shelf drone hardware could
integrate. Two separate trials have now been completed which saw
the FlytBase technology successfully enable autonomous navigation
between racks, accurate detection and reading of air waybills, empty
slot identifi cation and automatic return to the charging dock.
Already, an accuracy rate for AWB reading of 82% has been
achieved and with testing continuing apace this year, signs are
encouraging that IAG Cargo could soon be looking at commercial
deployment.
Addressing ineffi ciency
Carly Morris, Head of Innovation, IAG Cargo, explains why IAG
Cargo wants to use drones in its warehouses. “The reason is this
piece of paper here,” she says, brandishing a bond check. “It’s a
mandatory requirement that at least once per week we go around
our warehouse and write down each piece of freight that we have in
each location.” This process is carried out across many of its
warehouses, sometimes more than once a week, she continues.
“We do this process today in exactly the same way that most other
air cargo carriers do it: a cargo agent walks around the warehouse
with a piece of paper and a pen and manually writes down the
different pieces of freight and the locations. For the higher racking
positions, they have to use a cherry picker to reach the freight.”
IAG Cargo needed a solution that could reach the top of the
racking, scan and read a barcode accurately and effi ciently, and
operate safely in a busy warehouse environment. “And that’s where
drones came in,” relates Morris. “Before we engaged with FlytBase,
we actually did a short POC with a custom-built drone, but
unfortunately that didn’t turn out as we’d hoped. Using a custombuilt
drone has its problems because if something goes wrong you
FlytBase was also chosen for
its experience with indoor drone
applications. “There aren’t that
many drone suppliers out there
that specialise in operating in
indoor environments. The cargo
warehouse isn’t exactly drone
friendly: we’ve got different
pieces of freight of different
sizes, some are tall, some are
short, some are positioned very
neatly in their racking locations,
others not quite so much. The
drone has to read all the
different variations of barcodes
of which there are over 100 in
our warehouse, which makes it
quite a challenge. And some of
those barcodes might be covered
up in plastic packaging or not
very visible at all,” she relates.
Using drones also affords an
element of accountability that
manual checks do not, meaning
that any errors can be traced
and corrected.
The fi ne details
Costing around £1,500 each, the
DJI drones selected are
surprisingly affordable. Perhaps
surprising also is that they aren’t
designed for indoor use; hence,
some modifi cations were made
to the hardware, including the
addition of a 4K camera and
tweaks to the charging pad. To
operate the drone, the user
simply sets a mission and the
drone will automatically create
an optimal route through the
aisles, generating a time stamp,
barcode and image for each item
need a specialist on site to fi x it
and that can often take quite a
long time.”
IAG Cargo then found
FlytBase, who appealed for their
use of off-the-shelf DJI drone
technology. “We are benefi ting
from millions of dollars of
investment that DJI has already
spent in making sure that their
drones are reliable and that their
drones are safe. That also makes
the solution very scalable, so we
can procure drones much more
easily,” Morris explains.
We’re achieving
an accuracy in air
waybill reading of
82%, which is a
fantastic start
Carly Morris, Head of Innovation,
IAG Cargo
12 February 2020 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
/www.airlogisticsinternational.com