Volocopter’s VoloDrone completes successful first public flight at ITS Congress in Hamburg
Volocopter’s electric heavy-lift drone VoloDrone has conducted its first public flight, with a demonstration at ITS Congress in Hamburg this week.
Together with the international logistics leader DB Schenker, Volocopter demonstrated VoloDrone’s seamless integration into the logistics supply chain with an end-to-end cargo transport demonstration. The three-minute flight took off at homePORT Hamburg and reached a maximum altitude of 22 metres.
For the delivery simulation, the drone was equipped with a load-box in between its landing gear. A Euro-pallet sized load was secured, with the aircraft transporting the payload to a DB Schenker Cargo Bike and landing safely. Once the payload was transferred successfully, the Cargo Bike delivered its cargo to the final destination under the area’s park deck.
Florian Reuter, Volocopter CEO, said: “This first public VoloDrone flight is a strong sign for Volocopter´s leading position in the UAM industry. We are the only company offering solutions for passengers and goods that are flying fully scaled and publicly around the world.
“Our VoloDrone will make existing logistics processes more robust, efficient, and sustainable. DB Schenker is an invaluable partner in our endeavor to untap the massive potential of our VoloDrone’s logistics use cases.”
The demonstration in Hamburg builds upon the foundations of the static proof of concept (PoC) the partners conducted in July this year in Stuttgart. It laid out a blueprint of how to implement VoloDrone operations in logistics facilities globally.
With the first public flight of the VoloDrone, in Hamburg, Volocopter and DB Schenker demonstrated how drone operations can extend the existing logistics infrastructure for land or sea transport to create entirely new supply chains and transport routes.
Erik Wirsing, Vice President Global Innovation at DB Schenker, said: “With the VoloDrone flight today, we were able to publicly demonstrate our successful collaboration and the impressive progress on DB Schenker’s innovation and sustainability roadmap for cleaner logistics.
“Volocopter has proven again that they are the ideal partner for DB Schenker’s ambition to rethink global supply chains and bring transport logistics to the next dimension for our customers while saving emissions.”
The VoloDrone is an unmanned, fully electric utility drone designed to carry any of the six International Organization for Standardization (ISO) pallet sizes, weighing up to 200 kilograms, over a 40km range. The drone itself is 9.15 meters in diameter, 2.15 meters tall, and has a 600kg maximum take-off weight (MTOW).
As one member of Volocopter’s robust UAM aircraft portfolio, which includes its VoloCity and VoloConnect for transporting passengers, the company is also organising the physical (VoloPorts) and digital (VoloIQ) infrastructure to support these services, which are set to launch in the next 2–3 years.
VoloIQ serves as the digital backbone for operations. This platform will support ecosystem aspects like Approved Maintenance Organisation (AMO), Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO), Flight Analytics, Vehicle Connectivity and Autonomous Operations.
The VoloDrone’s first flight took place in 2019. Since then, regular flight tests have been conducted at various airfields in Germany. Future VoloDrone operations will be fully electric with autonomous beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) capabilities.