Delivery drones could very well be The Next Big Thing for businesses to deliver goods to their customers. They can also be extremely helpful in transporting sensitive items such as medical supplies to areas that need them. Lately, many autonomous drone companies such as Amazon Air, Flirtey, and Google Wing have been experimenting with drone delivery, all in the hopes of one day making it mainstream.
The federal government has established laws pertaining to drone use in the U.S. Specifically, the Federal Aviation Administration has created regulations pertaining to autonomous drones. These include stipulations such as:
In addition, remember to register your drone.
Drone deliveries come with various pros, namely:
BVLOS piloting — Beyond Visual Line of Sight piloting — means controlling a drone that’s far enough away that you can no longer see it. Currently, such maneuvers are considered illegal because if you can’t see your drone, then your awareness of what’s around it becomes substantially limited. The risks of the drone crashing or being lost heighten dramatically under BVLOS conditions. This is a particular challenge for delivery drones that are automated and not piloted by a human operator.
Dronegenuity lists a wide range of applications where drone delivery is being used:
The amount of time a drone delivery takes is determined by how fast it can travel from point A to point B in a straight line. The “in a straight line” part is key, as that’s a large part of what makes drones so valuable for companies that need to transport goods quickly and efficiently.
As previously mentioned, drones can avoid the usual twists, turns, and traffic of roads, which makes them highly suitable as an alternative to traditional delivery methods. While the actual speed for delivery can vary depending on the amount of distance traveled, drones are typically capable of moving up to 50 mph.
Amazon has been experimenting with drone delivery for many years as part of Prime Air. The company first announced its intention to make Amazon drone delivery a mainstream service in 2013 as part of a 60 Minutes segment.
Since then, the company has encountered numerous difficulties and setbacks that have kept it from its highly ambitious goal of making Amazon Prime Air mainstream “within four to five years,” as Jeff Bezos stated in the interview. However, in August 2020 Amazon earned the FAA’s permission to conduct drone operations and has since logged thousands of hours of flight time, meaning the project is still alive and progressing.
Mainstream drone delivery is likely not too far off. Aside from Amazon Air, other companies have been getting in on the action as well, and might even outpace Amazon. Flirtey was the first drone company to fly an FAA-approved delivery drone in 2015 and as of 2021 is taking pre-orders for its line of drone products, according to Modern Shipper. Notably, this includes their F4.5 model, which is also known as the Eagle. Flirtey is a fast-growing company poised to contribute heavily to the delivery drone industry: As of 2021, the business was valued at approximately $100 million.
According to PC Mag, another drone delivery company, Zipline, has already started making prescription airdrops in Utah as of October 2022 in coordination with Intermountain Healthcare. Previously, in 2016, Zipline got its start in Rwanda transporting medical supplies such as vaccines. In 2020, the company signed a deal with Walmart to deliver health and wellness products via drone.
In 2021, Google’s Wing drone delivery service utilized unused space atop shopping malls in Queensland, Australia to build drone centers, according to Forbes. These hubs can transport goods straight from retailers in the mall to customers’ homes. Because flights last a mere few minutes, consumers can purchase a food item such as ice cream and the product will still be frozen when the delivery arrives. Queensland is one of three test centers for Wing, with the others operating in Helsinki, Finland, and Christiansburg, VA.
Any or all of these companies could lead the way into the future of drone delivery, but one thing appears certain: Drone delivery will be here soon as soon as all the complexities are worked out.
A drone’s cargo generally has to be fairly lightweight. Amazon Air requires packages to be less than 5 lbs, for example. Assuming the retailer's drones all have similar carrying capacities, this makes them ideal for delivering most of Amazon’s catalog, including medical supplies, food and drink, and other relatively light products.
WeRobotics has already successfully developed a delivery solution with the Matrice 300 RTK. M300 Cargo leverages a widely available commercial drone and can deliver packages up to 7km away.
A delivery drone’s battery typically lasts for about 40-45 minutes before needing to be recharged, so customers have to be relatively close by for delivery drones to be able to service them. The aforementioned hybrid solutions combining traditional delivery vehicles with delivery drones such as those from UPS hope to mitigate this limitation.
There are numerous benefits to autonomous delivery drones that make them ideal for the transportation of goods. Progress has been slow but steady, which is to be expected for such a complex and technologically advanced product that also requires oversight by FAA regulations just to be safely tested. At the current rate, though, delivery drones are set to make their impact soon through small airdrops due to their cost-efficiency, speed, and genuine practicality.
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