Project Wing, a drone delivery initiative of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), will this week start a demonstration in Australia where Mexican food and medicines will be delivered via small drones in the country’s rural areas. This was revealed by James Ryan Burgess, a Project Wing co-lead in an online posting. In the project, Google is partnering with pharmacy chain Chemist Warehouse and Mexican fast food restaurant Guzman y Gomez.
“We needed to replicate the Guzman y Gomez kitchens and still deliver quality food in a remote area where our authentic Mexican menu could be prepared on site fresh daily. We won’t compromise on quality…” wrote Guzman y Gomez in an online posting.
On-board sensors
The flying speed of the Project Wing drones is around 120 km/hr. these drones carry the deliveries on their underside and when they reach the delivery point they lower themselves without having to land.
According to Google route pre-planning is being done using flight planning software while the on-board sensors that are present on the drone take the responsibility of evading obstacles during the flight and at the point of delivery. Currently just a couple of testers will get drone food deliveries in order for Google to determine how viable rolling out a bigger delivery network would be. Google expects the testing period to last a couple of months.
Drone deliveries
In 2016 Domino’s became the first food chain to deliver food by drone when pizzas were delivered to the doorsteps of customers in New Zealand. The drone that was used in this case was developed by Flirtey. Domino’s chief executive officer at the time promised that drone deliveries would in the future become one of the main ways the pizza chain would use to make pizza deliveries.
Last year also saw Amazon deliver online purchases in a test to a home in England. Amazon chose the United Kingdom to try out its delivery drones due to the fact that aircraft regulations there are more accommodating compared to the ones in the United States.
In Monday’s trading session shares of Alphabet Inc edged downwards by 0.15% to close the day at $1,009.35.
