Vaccines from Rwandan skies,
and blood samples in North Carolina.
- These things went from toys to tools
that we might be able to use on a commercial scale.
Drones have reached a tipping point.
They're inspecting hard to reach places
and even responding to emergencies.
The largest drone delivery network in the world
just launched in Ghana.
And tech companies 
and research institutions
around the world, are closer than ever
to making drones safe enough
to operate alongside 
the rest of the airplanes in the sky.
I'm Kayle Hope. This is Quartz.
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Switzerland has become a hub of
innovation for drones.
It's home to some of the world's
leading researchers
working not just to make better
drones
but to make them safe to fly on a
large scale.
— If there is an obstacle then the
drone
can autonomously figure out how to
circumvent it.
Margarita Chli is a professor at ETH,
a leading robotics university in Zurich.
Students here are working to build
more agile drones,
that can fly on their own in any
direction.
Eventually they might be used to
assess damage
on large structures like bridges.
But for that to be really useful,
these drones need to steer themselves
to avoid hitting things.
So Margarita's team is also using
cameras onboard the aircraft
to map the environment.
- As the drone takes off,
it starts capturing data from the
environment
and building up a map.
We have come a long way.
We are seeing drones for example,
able to fly with some degree of
autonomy.
But this idea of flying from point A
to Point B
completely autonomously, no matter
the environment,
and no matter the weather,
that's going to take a few more years
to see.
And for those drones to become part
of our daily lives,
we'll also need ways to track them.
The Swiss plan to
launch the first ever system
allowing drones to communicate with
airplanes
and air traffic controllers.
And in the US, NASA is also working
to build a similar system.
- Basic rule of airspace from normal
aviation is:
the pilot's always looking out for
another airplane.
With drones we don't have that.
Mark Blanks is the director of the
Mid Atlantic Aviation
partnership at Virginia Tech.
It's one of nine test sites selected
by the FAA
to help accelerate drone innovation.
He's testing the technology needed to
allow drones
to fly vast distances over lots of
people, safely.
- We're looking at millions of new
operators,
people that are not traditional
aviators
and anytime we have a new entrant
like drone technology, it disrupts
the system.
Airports and cities across the world
like Newark,Gatwick, Dublin, and
Dubai
have all grounded planes and absorbed
millions of dollars
of losses after drones were spotted
flying nearby.
— Now we are having to use either
technology
or people on the ground, to prevent
collisions from occurring.
His team evaluates tech to help
drones avoid collisions.
They're also looking at systems
to help law enforcement remotely
identify drones.
And if a drone is someplace it
shouldn't be, to shut it down.
- In order to enable a technology,
you also have to be able to disable
the technology.
- Level of scrutiny
for the reliability and safety of
this technology
is as high as it's ever been for any
technology.
Doctor Ginn is an ENT surgeon at Wake
Med Hospital
in Raleigh, North Carolina
that became the only hospital
in the US to transport blood
supplies by drone.
The state wants to use drones for
medical deliveries
because they're cheaper and more
efficient.
Deliveries by road couriers can take
several hours,
but the drone flights are just three
minutes.
- For us clinically that makes a big
difference.
We are always trying to improve the
speed
with which we can process.
On the other end of that lab request
is the need to get the result to help
a patient.
The hope is that drones won't just
make things cheaper,
they'll make us safer.
When Hurricane Florence was heading
to North Carolina
the Department of Transportation used
drones
to make decisions on where to send
resources.
- It's a great tool to educate the
community
about where the roads were cut off
or the extent of the flooding.
And that conversation really helped
people understand
why they needed to stay off our
roads.
- I mean we're just reaching that
tipping point now.
And the industry is just starting to
take root
and this project is helping to create
the regulatory framework
that will be necessary to make that
possible.
So what I think you'll see in the
next couple of years here
is not just demonstration here,
there, around
But true broad operations that help
the public in many different ways.
