Wing, the drone company of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), has unveiled the first drone in a new series: larger aircraft, designed to carry heavier packages. A necessary innovation to make aerial deliveries via drone a reality: the new devices can carry packages up to 1.3 kilograms.
Wing launches new larger drones, for heavier packages
Wing’s new flagship drone is designed to handle payloads of up to 2.5 lbs (about 1.3 kilograms), with the ability to increase to five pounds (2.6 kilograms) without compromising load capacity. The drone’s battery offers enough autonomy to cover 12 miles (about 19 kilometers) round tripreaching speeds of up to 65 miles per hour (104 kilometers per hour). All improvements compared to the past, essential to make the service offered by Wing more efficient.
The company explained that the use of larger drones allows customers to place orders for a greater variety of items, making the service more useful and convenient. A good example is ordering all the ingredients that are missing to cook dinner: with drones, delivery is quick, but if they can’t hold the weight, multiple round trips will be needed.
The strategy of grouping orders is based on the data collected by Wing. Which highlight that pis 70% of orders it just is a drone, while the remaining 30% require two deliveries. The addition of larger and more capable drones aims to optimize the service.
Wing, which has already completed further 350,000 deliveriesis preparing to deploy the new drone in the communities where it operates within the next few years 12 months. The company currently operates in Australia, Finland and the United States, with deliveries for large chains such as Walmart.
In addition to working on larger drones, the company is also experimenting with tools to make it easier to deliver products to the drone. Using, for example, Autoloaders where packages can be delivered and ropes on drones to eliminate the need to land.
As The Verge points out, the declared goal of this type of delivery is to reduce the time and pollution of vans and scooters. But there are many logistical difficulties to overcome.
