Drones for carrying out deliveries have been on the cards for a while and even countries like India have started making plans to make it a legal operation. But before we see Domino’s Pizza being delivered at our doorsteps, Google’s parent company Alphabet and its independent business called ‘Wing’ are set to take off with such activities.
The entity has been conducting test flights for over six years in countries like the US and Australia and finally it seems ready to go mainstream.
Project Wing or Wing as Alphabet calls it, is an autonomous delivery drone service intends to make goods available widely, and also reduce traffic congestion at the same time.
Using drones would also make a huge impact on the environmental side, with less carbon emissions.
Wing claims to have developed an unmanned traffic management platform that will make sure operating and managing airborne drones can be easily handled.
Wing has designed light, energy-efficient drones which can fly at 120km/hr with zero carbon emissions. With the help of machine learning algorithms, the drones will be set to deliver goods flying up to a range of 400 feet above the ground. They will be able to detect trees, buildings and power lines to safely get the job done.
Project Wing belonging to team ‘X’ graduated to become an independent Alphabet business in July 2018.
Google isn’t the only major technology giant to eye drones for some purpose or the other. Amazon and Facebook have tried their hands on drones, to offer internet in areas where accessibility and network setting up will be a challenge.
Amazon has also thought of using drones for delivering goods, but that’s yet to come to fruition. Transportation of goods in the US, according to a study quoted by Wing, contributes to 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Now imagine that figure for a country like India, which has cities topping the ‘highly polluted’ charts.
But it’s not just large foreign companies eyeing drones for delivery. Zomato in India bought a drone-making startup, and plans on deploying them for delivery in the years to come.
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