DJI, one of the world’s leading drone manufacturers, said that their drones will spray the disinfectant in Shenzhen for the next three days.
XAG's drone ready to disinfect the streets. Image credit: XAG's official website
According to Techweb, DJI’s epidemic prevention service team carried out disinfectant spraying on the 600,000-square-meter public area of Baolong industrial park in Longgang district of Shenzhen yesterday.
Recently the company also released an ‘Epidemic prevention’ action plan, setting up funds worth up to CNY 10 million, and will issue guidelines on bolstering security. The DJI anti-epidemic service will continue its spraying work until February 10 and will cover factories, communities, hospitals, quarantine areas and other areas in Shenzhen, covering an estimated total area of more than 3 million square meters.
The standards adopted by DJI have been recognized by the China Agricultural Machinery Association, the China Agricultural University’s pharmaceutical equipment and application technology research center and other relevant anti-epidemic agencies.
During the early phase of the epidemic, on February 6, ‘DJI Agriculture’ set up an anti-epidemic volunteer service team composed of its own employees to cooperate with preparations for the resumption of work and the offering of assistance to various departments in Shenzhen. On February 7, this anti-epidemic volunteer service team completed its first operation, helping nine departments in Nanshan and two other districts, covering a total area of 128,000 square meters.
The epidemic prevention spray is mainly targeted at public areas such as stadiums, roads and squares, etc. According to DJI, compared with the traditional manual spraying, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) can reduce manpower, avoid cross-infection and spray disinfectant in a three-dimensional way to achieve a larger space in a shorter time.
Other than DJI, we find XAG, a leading agricultural drone manufacturing company, announcing that it will set up a special coronavirus response fund of CNY 5 million and spray disinfectant in heavily affected areas.
XAG is actively investing in innovative technologies to combat the epidemic and help local governments improve public health safety. The CNY 5 million fund is dedicated to providing technical support to XAG's agricultural drone users to properly administer sprays, especially in rural areas with comparatively poor sanitation systems. The campaign will target densely populated outdoor public spaces and communities with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases.
XAG will pay for all spare parts and maintenance costs for those who volunteer to participate in drone disinfection operations nationwide. The disinfection will be done with permission from government agencies. The spraying campaigns have a basis in confirmed data on the virus: we know by now that the coronavirus is mainly transmitted by breathing, but also that it can be transmitted by contact with contaminated surfaces, according to the fourth edition of the new coronavirus treatment protocol published by the national health commission of China and one of the members of the world health organization (WHO).
In Shandong province, on January 28, crop protection teams deployed XAG's fleet of drones to disinfect more than 300,000 square meters of local communities in less than four hours.