Online shopping is a modern-life wonder, allowing you to buy stuff from your home or even your smartphone, and have them at your door. However, we still have to deal with delivery times. Although Amazon has the same-day delivery, you must be a Prime customer, it still take a few hours. To solve this kind of problem and allow faster delivery times, tech companies are investing in delivery drones, which can bring stuff you buy online at you door in a matter of minutes. Of course Google couldn’t stay out of this new frontier and the search giant’s “dark projects” company Google X has just filed a registration with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for two new drones models, which are likely to be tested for delivery purposes.
The company has been working with flying robots for a while. Last year, Google unveiled Project Wing, a delivery drone made featuring a “single-wing” design and 4 electric engines, which would fly like an airplane and hover like a helicopter to deliver a package. The model was tested in Australia, but things didn’t work well over there. There isn’t much information regarding these new models, as the FAA listing only reveals model numbers and basic specs. The company has filled for two models, called M2 and B3, with serial numbers 06101LC and 06101LB, respectively. Both are described as Electric Fixed Wing Multi-Engine, with 2 electric motors and weight up to 55 pounds (25 kg). This means that the company is likely to be testing two completely different models. The drones are registered near Boulder, CO, instead of its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. We should be hearing more news about the subject in the coming months, as Google X’s head, Astro Teller, has said in the past that there are plans to update the drone program.
The idea of having a drone dropping something at your door sounds really convenient. However, it raises other questions such as privacy, safety, etc – a city sky could get crowded with delivery drones, which would be really annoying. We are still relatively far from having this technology streamlined, as we deal with both technical and legislation difficulties. However, as the importance of drones is being increasingly recognized by authorities, it shouldn’t take more than a few years until Google, Amazon, and other companies come up with a commercial release of drone delivery services, so, stay tuned for more news.
