Wingcopter’s drone technology shortlisted at AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards

Wing­copter has been named a final­ist in the XCELLENCE Awards by the Asso­ci­a­tion for Unmanned Vehi­cles Sys­tems Inter­na­tion­al (AUVSI).

The awards hon­our indi­vid­u­als and organ­i­sa­tions which are inno­va­tors in the unmanned sys­tems indus­try, with a demon­strat­ed com­mit­ment to advanc­ing auton­o­my, lead­ing and pro­mot­ing safe adop­tion of unmanned sys­tems, and devel­op­ing pro­grams that use these tech­nolo­gies to save lives and improve the human con­di­tion.

Wing­copter was select­ed from a pool of accom­plished appli­cants as one of six final­ists for the Human­i­tar­i­an cat­e­go­ry, spon­sored by DJI. Win­ners will be announced dur­ing the keynote ses­sion on Thurs­day, 8th Octo­ber at AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2020 in Dal­las, Texas.

Tom Plüm­mer, Co-Founder and CEO of Wing­copter, said: “Being recog­nised for our human­i­tar­i­an efforts, some­thing that is deeply root­ed in our com­pa­ny DNA, encour­ages us to con­tin­ue on the path we have cho­sen.

“Even though we will expand our activ­i­ties in par­cel and food deliv­ery as well, we will always use our cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy for the pur­pose of sav­ing or improv­ing people’s lives, as we believe that advances in tech­nol­o­gy should not be a priv­i­lege of eco­nom­i­cal­ly devel­oped soci­eties.”

This lat­est nom­i­na­tion is not the first of this kind for Wing­copter. The com­pa­ny recent­ly won the #Smart­De­vel­op­men­tHack, a glob­al hackathon ini­ti­at­ed by the Ger­man Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (BMZ) that solicit­ed inno­v­a­tive dig­i­tal solu­tions to tack­le the chal­lenges caused by the coro­n­avirus out­break in low- and mid­dle-income coun­tries.

Oth­er exam­ples of Wingcopter’s human­i­tar­i­an mis­sions include a project in the South Pacif­ic island state of Van­u­atu, where the com­pa­ny set up a drone-based on-demand sup­ply net­work on behalf of the local Min­istry of Health and sup­port­ed by UNICEF.

By deliv­er­ing vac­cines for chil­dren to 19 remote health clin­ics, deliv­ery times could be reduced from sev­er­al hours or even days to a few min­utes. Also in Tan­za­nia and Malawi, Wing­copter was able to prove that drone deliv­ery can dras­ti­cal­ly short­en patients’ wait­ing times, espe­cial­ly for urgent­ly need­ed med­i­cines.

Bri­an Wynne, pres­i­dent and CEO of AUVSI, said: “The AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards cel­e­brate the achieve­ments of indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions who have applied unmanned sys­tems tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate solu­tions to address a range of chal­lenges affect­ing busi­ness and soci­ety. AUVSI is pleased to recog­nise these final­ists for their per­se­ver­ance and ded­i­ca­tion to turn dreams into real­i­ty.”

Ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing the lives of peo­ple world­wide, a sig­nif­i­cant part of Wingcopter’s projects are of human­i­tar­i­an nature. The com­pa­ny says its air­craft are ‘per­fect­ly fit­ted for long-range deliv­ery of urgent­ly need­ed med­ical goods in areas where infra­struc­ture is poor or destroyed, and tra­di­tion­al means of trans­port would take too long’.

Thanks to its patent­ed tilt-rotor mech­a­nism, the Wing­copter can take off and land in the small­est spaces, while at the same time fly as fast and effi­cient­ly as a fixed-wing unmanned air­craft. A pro­pri­etary winch mech­a­nism even allows to safe­ly and accu­rate­ly low­er the car­go at the point of des­ti­na­tion with­out the need for any land­ing infra­struc­ture.

For more infor­ma­tion about XPONENTIAL and the XCELLENCE Awards, vis­it xponential.org.