Is Connectivity the Key to Urban Drone Delivery? Elsight’s Halo Integrated into Drones Operating within NAAMA Hadera Intiative

Elsight Limited (ASX: ELS) has announced that Elsight’s Halo was integrated into drones participating in the NAAMA Hadera Initiative, a global collaboration that demonstrated the reality of urban drone delivery.  (Don’t miss the incredible video embedded below about the NAAMA Hadera Intitiative!)

The NAAMA Hadera Initiative was an amazing demonstration of parcel drone delivery, beyond line of sight (BVLOS) and in a crowded urban environment.  With global UTM and drone industry players watching, the collaborative performed more than 4, 000 drone delivery flights.   All of the flights were safe and successful – and “all participating BVLOS drone companies elected to equip their drones with Elsight’s Halo on board (which is now considered the new industry standard for drone connectivity),” says the announcement.

Elsight’s Halo provides the secure and robust connectivity between drone and control needed to ensure that remote pilots always have control of their aircraft – and that could be the key to enabling urban drone delivery projects and other advanced applications all over the world.   Israel’s densely populated cities provide a real-world trial ground that allows drone technology companies to prove their capabilities in a difficult environment: and the NAAMA initiative participants are rising to the challenge.

The  NAAMA project offers real benefit for the global indsutry.  “Collaborative and agile regulation brings together a vibrant drone ecosystem – by bringing together the public and private sectors, the drone ecosystem can develop a better understanding of the needs of both sectors,” says Elsight. “This conversation provided regulators with an understanding of the technical capabilities, user cases, gaps and how to support and build a more resilient regulatory ecosystem.”

If – or when – urban drone delivery really takes off, enabling technologies like Elsight’s Halo are poised to take off also, as the consumer appetite for drone delivery increases.  According to ARK Invest research:

Originally Ark Invest estimated that given regulatory approval in the US, a drone could deliver a package in less than half an hour profitably today for $0.90, cutting the cost of domestic shipping by roughly 90%. Adjusting for the efficiency of autonomous flight and the amount of human intervention, ARK now estimates that parcel drones could deliver packages profitably for only $0.25. Given frictionless and inexpensive delivery, consumers probably would buy many more goods online, growing ecommerce’s share of retail sales from 14% in 2019 to 60% in 2030, with drones delivering more than half of the e-commerce volumes, as shown below. It is further estimated that by 2024, ecommerce and parcel drone delivery combined will account to 38% of their deliveries, and by 2030 this number would grow to 60% of the deliveries^[1].

The next NAAMA initiative event is planned to take place in Tel-Aviv, Israel.