A new joint venture between Uber’s Saab Robotics sidewalk delivery drone and Alphabet’s Wing Flying Drone Service conducts dual testing. Both technology companies hope that flying and sidewalk drones will be able to cover areas that others can’t and speed up delivery times.
TechCrunch reported that Serve Robotics and Wing will begin deliveries in the coming months in Dallas, Texas. The test involves a selected number of customer orders being delivered by a combination of sidewalk and flying drones.
One of the biggest challenges with drone delivery is coverage. Drones that fly can only travel a certain distance from their headquarters. Sidewalk drones can have difficulty navigating densely populated areas or certain rocky areas. Drone companies often need to upgrade their facilities to accommodate these distances and obstacles.
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Serve Robotics and Wing’s idea is to use both types of drones to deliver orders to areas not covered by traditional delivery services. The Serve bot takes orders from restaurants and carts the food to an “AutoLoader.” There, Wing drones, flying drones that can carry 5 pounds and fly at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, pick up orders and complete deliveries.
It’s unclear which restaurants and stores will participate in the test, which areas of Dallas the drones will deliver orders to, and what plans the new drone delivery fleet will have after testing. Serve Robotics delivers to 300 restaurants in Los Angeles. Wing has also partnered with Walmart in Dallas and participated in pilot programs with DoorDash and Wendy’s in Virginia.
