Drone utilization in collaboration with businesses Komatsu City

Experimental Drone Delivery of Gyudon from Yoshinoya Store to Suburban Areas in Komatsu City

NEXT DELIVERY Inc. and YOSHINOYA CO.,LTD. conducted a drone delivery demonstration experiment in Komatsu City (September 2023) to deliver beef bowls from Yoshinoya stores to suburban areas. This experiment was conducted at the newly established “Drone Depot® Komatsu” in Komatsu City, using the new smart logistics system SkyHub®.

NEXT DELIVERY has already started a shopping service using the SkyHub® service, delivering Yoshinoya boxed lunches to homes by land transportation, and this demonstration experiment was conducted to explore the possibility of a future drone delivery service.

Outline of the Demonstration

Background and Purpose

Date
Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Flight overview
A 2.5 km one-way flight from Yoshinoya Komatsu to the Kiba Lagoon Canoeing Stadium boatyard in approximately 6 minutes

Items to be transported
Gyudon lunchboxes from Yoshinoya (4 gyudon lunchboxes per delivery)

Overview

⚫︎Four beef bowl lunchboxes prepared at Yoshinoya Komatsu Store were placed in a box and loaded onto a drone by Yoshinoya Komatsu Store staff, which took off at approximately 30-minute intervals starting at 10:30 a.m. and flew a total of nine times along one route to deliver the lunchboxes to Komatsu citizens and canoeists.
⚫︎Since the route in question flies over the planned tracks of the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line, scheduled to open in 2024, and is located in the vicinity of Komatsu Airport, the implementation was completed after prior coordination with the related parties concerned.
⚫︎The gyudon bento arrived hot and flawless performance of the delivery, with no spillage of the beef bowl sauce and no unevenness in the contents. A resident of Komatsu who received and ate a gyudon bento delivered by drone said, “It tastes just as good as the ones at the store, in fact, it feels warmer than usual.

Aircraft Used

The drone delivery uses AirTruck, a dedicated logistics drone with a maximum payload of 5 kg and a maximum flight distance of 20 km, developed from scratch by Aeronext specifically for logistics applications.

Drone delivery in Komatsu City will be combined with land transportation at first, and is scheduled to start by November, based at “Drone Depot® Komatsu”.

Starting with Komatsu City, the parties will cooperate and collaborate to develop food delivery services utilizing next-generation advanced technologies, including drones, in accordance with the needs of residents throughout Japan, thereby contributing to the revitalization of local communities.