Amazon Delivers Packages With Drones

For years now, Amazon has been promising to deliver packages with drones. But a lot of work is required to actually bring that vision to life. The company has a team of scientists, engineers, aerospace professionals, and futurists dedicated to making the dream a reality. So far, the company has made limited deliveries with drones in two towns. But now, it’s introducing a much larger test of the program in California.

The company is opening up its drone delivery service to the residents of Lockeford, a small town in San Joaquin County. The program will allow people in the community to sign up for drone deliveries of thousands of standard items. Once they do, they’ll receive an anticipated arrival time and a status tracker for their package. The drone will then fly to their home, descend into their backyard at a safe distance to drop off the item and then rise back up to a safe height. Camera sensors will check to make sure the area is clear of obstacles like dogs, children or cars before allowing the drone to land.

If the drone doesn’t spot an obstacle, it will move on to the next delivery. It will then repeat the process until it reaches every customer in the program. If it does encounter an obstacle, it will reschedule the delivery and return to its base. Hendrickson tells CNBC that the company has a set of rules it has to follow to ensure safety for drones and people on the ground. One of those rules is that drones aren’t allowed to fly over roads or near people unless the FAA grants it special permission on a case-by-case basis.

Despite that limitation, the drones themselves are able to maneuver more freely than your average consumer-grade drone. They’re designed with multiple different sensors, and a complex suite of machine learning algorithms that run various models to keep the drones and others nearby safe. Their unique shape, which resembles a TIE fighter in airplane mode, helps them to maneuver more efficiently than the conventional quadcopter designs that are so common in today’s market.

But even with all the sensors, there’s still a human at the controls of each drone, watching its every move. The FAA has also imposed some other limitations on the use of drones for delivery purposes, including a requirement that people stand in their backyards when the drone lands. That restriction will probably limit the number of people that can take advantage of the service, though, as most apartment dwellers don’t have backyards to begin with. And it doesn’t help that the drones can only carry a certain size of box and must dump it from 12 feet in the air, further restricting the kinds of products that can be delivered.