A custom UPS van equipped for drone delivery.
UPS and Workhorse Partner on Drone Delivery
What can brown do for you? Well, soon you may be getting your orders with a drone delivery, without a human present.
The future is upon us, where drones descend from the sky with your Amazon orders. At least, that’s what UPS and Workhorse are hoping the future will hold.
Not everyone is a fan of drones. Some people think they’re always spying. Some people think jet trails are full of mind control agents. Maybe if drones start bringing online purchases right to our doorsteps attitudes will change.
The Idea Behind Drone Delivery
Some people have talked about sending a fleet of drones into cities for package or pizza deliveries. This brings up all kinds of logistical issues.
Drones don’t have batteries that last forever, so what kind of range would they have? Where would they launch from? How would coverage of the whole city be achieved?
The further a drone flies, the more chances for something to go wrong.
In this setup, instead of guys sitting in a dimly lit room miles away, flying drones like they’re playing a video game, UPS is looking at taking drones out on trucks.
They’d fly short routes, but without anyone directing them. We’re about to have an invasion of autonomous brown drones.
This idea’s possible because UPS is special. The FAA has been clamping down on drone use. After all, some people and even businesses are, shall we say, less-than-responsible.
Because UPS is a good citizen, it’s one of 35 organizations that sit on the FAA drone advisory committee. The package carrier is helping pave the way for safe commercial drone use. Helping with that is experiments like this latest one.
The Machines
If you haven’t heard of Workhorse before, you’re likely to start hearing the name often. The company not only created the drone used by UPS, but also the all-electric delivery truck.
Workhorse is also currently working on what will be the first all-electric pickup truck.
The drone is the Workhorse HorseFly UAV Delivery octocopter. That means eight rotors, which gives it better stability, so it won’t drop your commemorative Katniss glassware set. To help with longer flight paths, Workhorse designed the HorseFly to be efficient.
The HorseFly can fly up to 30 minutes or about five miles between chargings. Maximum payload is limited to 10 pounds, so the thing won’t be delivering any big packages.
As for the truck, it runs on nothing but electricity. Beyond that, there are some mods so it can work with the drone.
A dock on the roof gives the drone a perch where it recharges the battery. A cage and cutout in the roof sit right by the drone dock. That cage goes down into the main part of the truck.
Everything, including the dock, drone and cage opening, is covered with a sliding cover. The driver can close it when the drone’s just sitting, then open it while the drone goes out for a delivery.
Without the cover, the drone and everything else just sits exposed to the elements, and potential theft.
When the driver wants to send a package via drone, he opens the cover. Then he puts the package in the cage, then gives some commands on a touchscreen.
From there, the drone flies autonomously. In other words, the driver doesn’t need to sit there and control the drone. He can keep driving and delivering packages while the drone does its thing.
To see how this whole drone delivery idea would work, UPS selected Tampa, Florida. It ran successfully, the drone making its delivery and returning to the truck dock without any human intervention.
The Implications
You might think that drone deliveries will be especially helpful in cities – I did. Mark Wallace, UPS senior vice president of global engineering and sustainability, has a different perspective.
