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Amazon eyes customisable drones

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 23 Aug 2016
Amazon's future door-to-door delivery drones may be built specifically each time to suit the size and weight of the goods on board.
Amazon's future door-to-door delivery drones may be built specifically each time to suit the size and weight of the goods on board.

One of the world's largest online retailers, Amazon, not only plans to use drones for delivery but wants to build customised unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to suit the weight and size of each package.

This week, the company filed a patent application for modular air delivery.

The patent application states that each time a delivery comes in, a variety of specifications will be considered (including weight of the goods, size, weather conditions and route) and this information will then be used to build a UAV best suited for the particular delivery.

Another factor that will be taken into consideration when building the drone is the delivery address and how the device is expected to land. For example, a drone going to a block of flats may be different to one going to wide-open land, such as a small holding.

The UAV, or drone as it is more commonly referred to, will be assembled from separate modular components in Amazon's warehouses by another machine.

This machine will process all information when a customer places an order online.

It will then build UAVs composed of the best platform, propellers, sensors, control system, wings, battery and loading bay, for the specific flight and load.

The patent application forms part of Amazon Prime Air, which the company describes as: "A future delivery system designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using small UAVs."

The company says it aims to make delivery faster and more efficient. Using modular drones could be a way of achieving this.

However, filing for a patent does not mean the company has already developed the technology, or that it will ever come to fruition. But it indicates what the company thinks it needs to cover for future developments.

Long time coming

Amazon has been hankering after drone delivery since 2013.

At the time, it was predicted Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos' vision to deliver goods using a fleet of unmanned drones was unlikely to become a reality this decade.

This is because the technology which would enable the drones to fly, unaided, to millions of pre-programmed addresses, was still early in development.

Also, this would require countries to write regulations for civilian unmanned aircraft systems which could take years to be passed.

However, in March last year, the US government gave the company the go-ahead to start testing outdoor delivery and assess safety and privacy concerns.

Similarly in July, Amazon entered into a partnership with the British government to speed up the process.

It has been reported that Google and DHL have also tested delivering goods with drones.

Wal-Mart stores said in June it was six to nine months away from beginning to use UAVs to check warehouse inventories in the US.

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