Matternet Station Makes Drone Delivery Scalable, at a Reasonable Cost

Matternet Announces Commercial Deployment of Matternet Station.

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

Matternet, the developer of the world’s leading urban drone logistics platform, announced today the first deployment of its Matternet Station at EOC hospital group in Lugano, Switzerland. The Matternet Station brings to fruition a holistic logistics system that, working in tandem with the Matternet M2 drone and Cloud Platform, will allow for automated drone delivery. This innovation will enable Matternet to expedite the launch of city-wide networks, the first of which will be in Abu Dhabi, UAE, as previously reported this month.

Matternet has had its drones flying beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) over cities in Switzerland for more than four years in its partnership with Swiss Post. After a trial period, the Station will replace human operators at EOC’s Italiano facility in Lugano, a customer which Swiss Post and Matternet have served together since 2017.

Urban drone operations look to crucially improve on-demand and last-mile logistics by making the delivery of physical goods within cities faster, cheaper, and more sustainable. The Station increases the reliability and efficiency of the Matternet platform with the integration of automated loading and temperature-controlled storage of payloads, self-serve package retrieval via badged authentication, and robust tracking and chain-of-custody reporting.

The Station’s small footprint and precision landing system allow for colocation at customer facilities and seamless integration within their operation. At 10 feet tall, the Station keeps drones out of reach to increase safety on the ground.

Matternet can aid health systems by providing every healthcare facility in a metropolitan area with a quick and easy method for delivery to one another. Current and future benefits include faster diagnostics, the shipment of time-critical supplies on demand, the centralization of inventory for just-in-time replenishment across fragmented points-of-care, and the consolidation of distributed facilities to decrease overhead.

“The Station is a critical piece of the puzzle to unlock scalable drone delivery at attractive unit economics,” said Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos. “Its accessibility and ease-of-use makes Matternet’s drone-as-a-service platform even more valuable to customers in healthcare and beyond, while significantly improving the sustainability of last-mile logistics. It is a critical piece of the puzzle that advances Matternet’s vision for global, city-wide drone delivery networks.”

Ian attended Dominican University of California, where he received a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and a keen interest in technology, he is now contributing to DroneLife as a staff writer.