Imagine waiting for your grocery delivery to arrive at your home. The driver will ask you specific details about your residence and deliver it based on the scheduled time. But since it's pandemic, this option seemed to be less safe for us. To remedy that, Walmart begins testing a drone delivery service. But they're not alone.
Walmart accepts drone challenge!
Walmart Steps Closer on Delivering Goods From Skies; Amazon Laughs at the Idea
To be extra careful about preventing Coronavirus, logistics companies level up their services. For Amazon and Walmart, it involves drones.
On Thursday, Sept. 10, The Verge reported about Walmart's first-ever made drone delivery service. The company selected Fayetteville in North Carolina to begin its one week-test of the new service.
And so far, so good.
Customers were able to receive their packages in the allotted time through the flying drones. Users only need to wait outside their homes, look for the flying object, and the drone will open its box (wherein the goods are stored), and straightly lowers the package to the ground from 80 feet in the air.
So instead of drone landing itself in the ground, the package will be the one that'll be lowered-- like a man parachuting from the skies.
With the help of the drone company Flytrex, Walmart can deliver goods from literal above. But, heads up, this service is only currently "designed for the suburbs."
"We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone," said Walmart senior vice president Tom Ward, in a news post. "That still feels like a bit of science fiction, but we're at a point where we're learning more and more about the technology that is available and how we can use it to make our customers' lives easier."
Each of the drones can fly at speeds of 32 mph, travel distances of 6.2 miles in a round trip, and carry up to 6.6 pounds (or estimated eight hamburgers size).
Watch the actual video of the delivery here.
Amazon gets drone delivery approval
Walmart Steps Closer on Delivering Goods From Skies; Amazon Laughs at the Idea
Before Walmart started announcing its week of drone delivery trial, its company rival, Amazon, already wins the approval of The Federal Aviation Administration to begin testing of air deliveries with Amazon's so-called Prime Air drones.
This means that compared to Walmart, the Prime Air drones may be approved to deliver packages in a larger area.
"This certification is an important step forward for Prime Air and indicates the FAA's confidence in Amazon's operating and safety procedures for an autonomous drone delivery service that will one day deliver packages to our customers around the world," David Carbon, Amazon's vice president of Prime Air, said in a statement.
As additionally stated, Amazon also wants to fulfill its promise of 30-minute delivery with the newly-approved drone service.
Though approved, it doesn't mean that you will see flying drone packages next week. Amazon is still working on its test trial for now.
ALSO READ: Are We Prepared for Drones Being Used for Terrorist Attacks? Researchers Don't Think So!
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Jamie Pancho
