Pie in the Sky: How Russian Firm DoDo Pizza Delivers Takeaways by Drone

A pizza restaurant in the Komi Republic of Russia has announced the launch of the country's first pizza delivery service using unmanned helicopter drones, following a successful test trial.

On 21 June, the company demonstrated drone technology to residents of Syktyvkarsk, the capital city of the Komi republic, flying the drone through the city's main square to deliver pizza to a man within half an hour. The drone was able to complete six commercial orders on its first day.

DoDo Pizza have got in touch with IBTimes UK for a behind-the-scenes look at their new service, which uses tiny eight-rotor octocopters, provided by Russian firm CopterExpress and is capable of delivering up to 5kg of weight at speeds of 40km/hr.

Drone enthusiasts will be able to see the software program being used to control the drone remotely, together with another field test showing the drone hovering over a hundred feet in the air and lowering a pizza box down on a cable.

If someone were to try to steal the drone by tugging on the cable, there is a built-in emergency mechanism that releases the cable, enabling the drone to fly away to safety.

DoDo Pizza boasts they are a successful pizza restaurant chain across Russia trying out a new concept – a "smart pizza restaurant".

In addition to drones, customers can watch their pizzas being prepared in real-time on webcams. The company uses electronic tablets and a business process management system (ERP) hosted in the cloud.

DoDo Pizza also ran another experiment yesterday, where they succeeded in delivering a pizza directly to a high-rise office window, using their unmanned flying drone.

The video shows the drone's operator remotely controlling the drone, directing it by looking at video feeds from the on-board camera.