The company Semen Cardona, specialized in swine artificial insemination, has carried out this Friday the first commercial freight transport flight in Spain with an unmanned drone, as the ACN agency has advanced. Until now, drone flights were made within the pilot’s line of sight, but this time the device has made a delivery to a farm located half an hour away by car.

The drone traveled seven kilometers in a straight line at 70 kilometers per hour and it took seven minutes. The technical director of the Barcelona Drone Center, Jordi Salvador, explained that “this science fiction that we had seen in movies and novels is already arriving, now our job is to do it safely and with costs that are not prohibitive”, in statements collected by the agency.

This Friday morning, a drone loaded a refrigerated bag with several doses of semen at the Semen Cardona facilities and transported them to a pig farm located in Montmajor, in Berguedà. There, the farmer picked up the package and took it inside the farm premises. This is an unprecedented event so far in Spain and represents the achievement of the first commercial freight transport flight with an unmanned drone beyond the pilot’s line of sight.

The drone prototype used, developed by the Barcelona Drone Center, can carry a kilo of weight and move within a radius of 50 kilometres. The company’s technical director, Jordi Salvador, has said that the main advantage for companies is time. “It took us half an hour to get to the farm with a car, while the drone did it in seven minutes. There is a 75% saving in time,” pointed out Salvador. “We are talking about science fiction that little by little is becoming reality,” he said.

In fact, until 2021 in Spain it was forbidden to use drones to deliver packages. Salvador has explained, however, that in 2021 a European law that allows distribution came into force and, in view of this, the Barcelona Drone Center presented the Semen Cardona project to obtain all the necessary permits to be able to carry out commercial flights.

Two years later the project has come true. The device that has been used this Friday can only carry a kilo of weight, but the director of the Barcelona Drone Center has said that “shortly” they hope to be able to carry up to 10 kilos of weight and also make longer routes.

For his part, the CEO of Semen Cardona, Jordi Coletas, said that this Friday is a “historical milestone”. He assures that, in addition to time, the main benefit that drones can bring to his company is “biosecurity.”

“Today there is another pressure for biosecurity on farms and making deliveries with drones prevents samples from coming into contact with people and vehicles, which are a factor in infections or the possible entry of diseases into farms,” ??he explained.

In addition, Coletas has said that this also allows them to be more sustainable, since they stop doing road transport and also reduce the plastic used by the delivery men, since they must equip themselves with gloves and foot bags.

The director of the Barcelona Drone Center explained that today, at an international level, drones applied to the world of logistics are used, above all, in the health and pharmaceutical world, since “it is where there is the greatest added value”. “With drones you can transport organs between hospitals or even a few months ago a life was saved in Switzerland because a defibrillator was taken with a drone,” he explained.

He also explains that in Africa they are used to “carry medicines or blood samples to remote villages.” In addition, pilot tests are also being carried out in the United States, Norway and Ireland where products such as coffee are delivered to end customers.

“Imagine a drone entering through a window of an apartment in Barcelona to deliver a package, perhaps we will never see it,” Salvador explained, but “little by little that science fiction that we have all seen in movies or in novels is arriving.” In this sense, Salvador says that the work of companies like the one he directs is “to ensure that these flights can be carried out in a logical and safe way and with costs that are not prohibitive.”