inRes 2017 – Connect Robotics Plans to Deliver via Drone in Portugal
Connect Robotics is one of the teams participating in the 2017 edition of inRes. It was founded by Eduardo Mendes and Raphael Stanzani in 2015 and is incubated in the European Space Agency (ESA) Business Incubation Centre in Porto at the Science and Technology Park of University of Porto (UPTEC).
The project started when Eduardo Mendes was developing software to control and navigate unmanned aerial vehicles for his doctorate, and decided to turn it into a business. Now, motivated by the potential of drones to transport life-saving goods, help people in distress and reduce the isolation of people living in remote regions, they are exploring the ‘last-mile delivery market’, where the drone can deliver goods much faster, as it doesn’t face the usual transportation hurdles. This solution is gathering interest from medical distributors, postal services and retailers, who need fast and reliable deliveries at lower costs.
The ESA Technology Transfer Programme Office highlights the project on its website, with the video of one of the demonstration deliveries: a hot meal sent to an elderly person in a remote Portuguese village.
Read the full article at (July 31, 2017) and watch the video news coverage at (August 1, 2017)
