Consumers rely on fast and urgent deliveries. Sometimes it could be the deciding factor in whether a consumer shops at Amazon (AMZN), Walmart (WMT), Shopify (SHOP) or any other online destination.
Over the years, Amazon has set high-speed delivery standards as a new part of the e-commerce era with same-day delivery options for its estimated 150 million Prime subscribers who pay almost $15 a month or $139 annually for the company's flagship subscription service.
Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos had admitted that a fleet of self guided drones was years away when he first discussed it publicly in December 2013 while the company awaited security clearances from regulators.
Delivery Drones
And almost nine years later they're ready to fly, Amazon hinted in a company blog post.
In a recent blog post, the Seattle tech giant introduced its battery powered Prime Air delivery drones that will aim to provide value to customers and communities.
"The Prime Air drones are autonomous. To fly safely, they need some ground station support,” explained Amazon's senior software engineer Heidi Schubert. “What we do is essentially build a map of the area and use it to plan a detailed route that helps the drone get to its destination safely," Schubert added.
These unmanned aerial vehicles rely on robot motion and sophisticated software used to develop autonomous air traffic controls.
"Our work with autonomy is going to help build better customer experiences,” said Schubert. “These are tough problems to solve, but we are figuring it out. We don’t just go away and do research — we combine research with development to reach a goal," Schubert added.
“Autonomy is a burgeoning space, with a lot of people trying to solve the same problems. For us, this is about using robot motion to provide value to customers and communities. That’s what’s great about working at Amazon on Prime Air; it’s a terrific project both in terms of technical innovation and customer value,” said Schubert.
To be sure, a Bloomberg investigation revealed that Amazon's drone delivery program is still dogged by problems including mutiple safety concerns and technical snags.
Walmart and delivery startup Zipline together launched the first commercial drone delivery program in the U.S. last year. In November, Walmart launched a pilot drone delivery program in partnership with Zipline to drone deliver a select number of health and wellness items like allergy medicine, bandages and ibuprofen to people in rural Arkansas.
Zipline first started out by making emergency medical deliveries in the tiny central African nation of Rwanda.
Last week, Google's (GOOGL) commercial drone delivery service Wing said it will fly health and wellness products from a Walgreens store in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area to customer homes.
"In addition to Walgreens, we’ll be delivering items with three new partners in Frisco and Little Elm. We’re going to be delivering ice cream from Blue Bell Creameries, prescription pet medications from easyvet, and first aid kits from Texas Health," wrote Wing Chief Executive Adam Woodworth.
Drone deliveries are expected to reduce not just delivery time but also carbon footprint by reducing traffic on America's roads. However fear of a crash landing amid congested traffic still persists, according to experts.
