Public Meetings website <\/a>to register to participate in the online meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cNorth Carolina has been a leader in demonstrating how\ndrones can help people in times of crisis,\u201d said State Transportation Secretary\nEric Boyette. \u201cWe look forward to putting this technology into productive use\nas we work to help citizens and medical professionals during the COVID-19\npandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The initiative will be launched in May and officials are\nhoping to apply lessons learned from the effort to other drone relief efforts\nnationwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
NCDOT and its public and private partners are working to\nlaunch the following three projects to aid in COVID-19 relief:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1) In the Charlotte\narea, Zipline and Novant Health will deliver personal protective equipment and\nother medical equipment across Novant’s medical campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2) In Raleigh and\nGarner, WakeMed, UPS and Matternet are planning to start using a drone to\ndeliver non-COVID-19-related supplies and equipment between WakeMed\u2019s main\nhospital in Raleigh and the WakeMed Garner Healthplex. This will free up their\ndelivery drivers to focus on fighting COVID-19. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
3) In Holly\nSprings, Flytrex is planning to deliver food from multiple restaurants in a\nshopping center to nearby neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first two programs are aimed at reducing the strain on\nmedical supply chains, and the third will make it easier for people to follow\nthe stay at home order. Officials will use data collected during the project to\ndetermine how this technology can be used in other areas of the country.\nFunding for the individual drone missions is coming from the private partners,\nwhile NCDOT is coordinating the project. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since 2018, NCDOT has been a leading participant in using\ndrone technology as part of the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s Unmanned\nAircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program. State, local and tribal\ngovernments, and private industries are working together to explore possible\napplications of drones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Note: The April 24 forum will be recorded, so anyone unable\nto participate live can tune in later using a link on NCDOT\u2019s Public Meetings\nwebsite.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State transportation officials announced today a public-private partnership that will use drones to deliver critical medical supplies and food during the COVID-19 response. The N.C. Department of Transportation\u2019s Division of Aviation and its partners are inviting people interested in the initiative to learn more in an online public forum from 1-3 p.m. Friday. Please visit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-carolina","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/NC-Drone-Package-Deliveryedit-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15265,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15261\/revisions\/15265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}