A new joint venture between Uber's Serve Robotics sidewalk delivery drones and Alphabet's Wing flying drone service will conduct a dual test. Both technology companies hope that flying and sidewalk drones can cover areas their counterparts cannot and speed up delivery times.
reported that Serve Robotics and Wing will begin delivering in Dallas, Texas, sometime in the coming months. The trial will include a select number of customer orders delivered via a combination of sidewalks and flying drones.
One of the biggest challenges for drone delivery is coverage. Flying drones can only travel a certain distance from their headquarters. Sidewalk drones may have difficulty navigating in densely populated areas and certain rocky terrain. Drone companies often have to upgrade their facilities to address these distances and obstacles.
The idea of Serve Robotics and Wing is to use both types of drones to deliver orders and cover areas that traditional delivery services cannot. A Serve robot picks up a restaurant's order and transports the food to a “Forwarder” where a flying drone that can carry five pounds and fly at speeds up to 65 mph picks up the order and completes the delivery.
It is not known which restaurants or merchants will be part of the test, the areas of Dallas where the drones will deliver orders, and post-test plans for the new drone delivery fleet. Serve Robotics delivers to 300 restaurants in Los Angeles. Wing also works with Walmart in Dallas and participated in Virginia.
