New York - Retail giant Amazon.com has made its first
drone delivery to an actual customer, dropping off a Fire TV device and a bag
of popcorn to a house in the rural English countryside 13 minutes after
receiving an online order.
The delivery occurred December 7 near Cambridge in a zone
that UK aviation authorities have authorised for drone test flights, according
to a tweet Wednesday by company CEO Jeff Bezos and a video documenting the
flight.
While the flight was conducted under UK restrictions that
for now prohibit such deliveries on a widespread basis, it marks a milestone in
the race by companies like Amazon and Alphabet to use unmanned vehicles to
transform how customers buy and receive goods. The company is beginning broader
delivery trials in an attempt to gather safety data to justify an expansion of
the program.
Amazon is making its drone-delivery service available to
customers who live within a few miles of a facility it built to test
deliveries.
After the December 7 order was received and the items
were packaged, the cargo was automatically loaded onto the underside of a quad
copter.
The drone then lifted off and flew using the company’s
automation software for guidance. A human operator was standing by to take over
in the event of a failure.
Ground target
The drone landed with the help of a target placed on the
ground to guide the craft’s sensors to a safe touchdown zone.
Drones could play a key role in helping Amazon manage
costs while quickly delivering online orders. The company has expanded its
Prime Now service, which delivers tens of thousands of products commonly found
in convenience and drug stores in as little as an hour, to combine the ease of
online shopping with the instant gratification of getting goods at a store.
Amazon’s proposed use of drones may drive down the cost
to deliver small packages crosstown to as little as $1, a fraction of existing
same-day delivery options, according to a 2015 study by New York-based ARK
Invest that tried to quantify the savings from the use of drones compared with
delivery trucks and couriers.
Read also: Amazon forecast disappoints
In the US, Amazon faces competition from startups like
Flirtey, which in July made its own household delivery via drone from a
7-Eleven store in Reno, Nevada. Flirtey co-founder and CEO Matt Sweeny
envisions customers paying a fee of about $10 for the convenience of quick
drone delivery, and is experimenting with the convenience store chain on
delivering over-the-counter medication, which could appeal to parents of sick
children.
Project Wing, a unit of Alphabet, which also owns Google,
experimented with dropping off burritos to students and other test subjects
last September at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
All these tests were effectively simulations of how
deliveries would work and not the fully automated robotic flights the companies
hope will eventually become routine.
While routine commercial drones flights have been approved
in the US, they’re not allowed over people and must stay within sight of an
operator on the ground. Until companies can prove to the Federal Aviation
Administration and other regulators around the world that radio links,
collision-avoidance technology and guidance systems are reliable and safe,
widespread deliveries won’t be feasible.
BLOOMBERG