CEO of Lodd Autonomous, Rashid Al Manai, talks about the "middle-mile revolution" and how his company is spearheading it for the Middle East by connecting warehouses directly. He talks about Lodd's Hili autonomous hybrid VTOL aircraft, and how it's helping to simplify logistic solutions to meet consumer demand.

Abu Dhabi

Lodd, a company headquartered in Abu Dhabi, has introduced an autonomous cargo aircraft called Hili, targeting the middle-mile segment of logistics. The aircraft is designed to carry up to 250 kilograms over a range of up to 700 kilometers and is fully autonomous, eliminating the need for an onboard pilot.

The Hili aircraft aims to address the bottleneck in logistics between regional and local warehouses by offering a direct, infrastructure-independent solution. Developed by UAE engineers since August 2023, the system includes a fleet management platform that will eventually allow one operator to manage multiple aircraft.

Lodd Autonomous cargo aircrafts target 'middle-mile' delivery segment

So the vision behind LOD is to develop an efficient system that serves today's demand of quick and efficient logistic services. We understand today that the world is changing fast, e-commerce is increasing, global trade is expanding, and the customer expectation to receive goods is also rising. But unfortunately, today's traditional logistic solutions are inefficient, slow, and infrastructure dependent. So we are trying to come up with a logistic solution that connects warehouses directly without the requirement of airports or critical infrastructure. And you said you wanted to start a middle-mile revolution. What does the middle-mile revolution mean? The logistic journey is usually segmented into three main phases, the first mile, the middle mile, and the last mile. The bottleneck that we have found in today's logistic is in the middle mile, where it depends on multiple interdependent logistic platforms. So the middle mile mainly focuses on transferring logistics between regional warehouses to local distribution warehouses, where it is currently more complex and more time-consuming. And walk me through Hili. This is the aircraft that's going to be making its first flight this week. I've read that Hili can carry up to 250 kilos, up to 700 kilometers, right? Walk me through the development of this technology. So we started the development of the Hili here in the UAE with the UAE engineers in August of 2023. Over the past two years, we have been very focused in developing a solution that meets today's requirement for seamless cargo operation at the warehouses. So we have developed the entire solution, looking into developing a solution that's user-centric, so that we have made sure that the aircraft has fulfilled today's problem by having a hybrid propulsion system that can carry a 250-kilogram payload and a range of 250. The aircraft is fully autonomous, so that doesn't require a pilot on board. We have a fleet management system that will allow in the future for more than one aircraft to be handled by one operator.

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Breakdown