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| Drone delivery service is a success |
Wing, a drone delivery company owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is preparing to receive 100,000 deliveries.
The company announced that it will cross the threshold in the coming days, which is a milestone for a technology that has yet to prove its usefulness on a large scale.
As the prices of mainstream quadcopters fell and artificial intelligence control systems became more reliable, delivery of drones caught the public's attention in the early 2010s.
In 2013, Amazon then promised to make drones an integral part of its delivery empire.
But so far, the technology has succeeded on a much smaller scale, delivering high-quality but small materials like vaccines and blood to remote areas.
However, Wing's success suggests that the future of drone delivery may be in the suburbs.
Wing currently operates in three countries: Australia, the United States, and Finland. The biggest success was in Logan, Australia, a suburb of Brisbane, where more than 50,000 vehicles were delivered.
Logan has a population of about 300,000 and the Wing can accommodate more than a third of its population.
Users can download the Wing app and order a small amount of goods. Including coffee, groceries, sushi, cake, pet food and sportswear.
Delivery is usually within 10 minutes, and Wing's delivery time is 2 minutes 47 seconds from order to arrival.
A Wing spokesperson said, "Wing's expansion of Logan shows that the company can create a service that is secure, scalable, and acceptable to the community."
In terms of size, there are hundreds of cities around the world like Logan: New Orleans in the US, Manchester in the UK, and Florence in Italy to name a few.
Google's success in drone delivery services
A Wing spokesperson noted that more than two billion people live in cities of no more than 500,000 people. However, he also explained that Wing also has ambitions to work in major cities.
Part of Wing's success lies in the details of its design. The aircraft can be used as a fixed-wing aircraft and as a hovering helicopter.
Unlike Amazon's delivery planes, Wing can deliver goods without landing. The wing flies into place, lowers the height to 7 meters, and then uses ropes to lower the beam to the ground.
However, all UAV delivery methods limit the customer base for this technology. In densely populated urban areas, it is difficult for customers to find a suitable delivery location.
For example, Wing users need to find a small area that does not have trees, wires, or other obstacles to receive data packets.
It is not clear whether these delivery economics on a larger scale make sense. "Compared to the current delivery method on the ground, the cost of delivering drones is much lower," a company spokesperson said.
This claim must be proven through growth and profit. For now, drone delivery is still an emerging technology. But she could grow up soon.