Amazon is most likely the first name which comes to one's mind when talking about e-commerce stores. It is perceived as a company that wants to be able to sell anything and everything to its customers. They have also entered the groceries and fresh food market recently. Given the amount of inventory they need to store at any given moment in time, they need a vast amount of space. Additionally, they also need a mechanism to keep deliveries as fast and accurate as possible.
The first problem is more-or-less solved by maintaining massive warehouses. However, these godowns are usually located on the outskirts of the city. The company tried to address the second issue by considering drone-based delivery. However, that would be cost effective only if the warehouses were near to densely populated areas. A recent patent aims at solving this problem.
The idea is to set up big, multi-level, cylinder-shaped drone-delivery hives in the cities. Trucks or other road transport vehicles will deliver the goods to these hives at the truck bays around the ground level. Robots will then load and configure the delivery drones, which will enter and exit through several windows present at the sides of this structure for last mile delivery.
The windows will be secure to prevent unauthorized access. How will this be implemented, or how secure this will be is unclear at the moment. Also, it does not make sense for a third-party to fly-in their drone and get captured! The launching bays at each window will be capable of throwing the drones to get the initial trajectory and speed boost, so the machines do not have to take-off themselves. The flight control system will prioritize most of the flights at the top levels of the structure to minimize the annoying buzzing sound around the ground level.
The future of delivery is here, well at least the concept is.
Source: USPTO via Silicon Beat
 |
| Amazon patents drone-delivery towers for cities (Credit: USPTO) |
The problems
The first problem is more-or-less solved by maintaining massive warehouses. However, these godowns are usually located on the outskirts of the city. The company tried to address the second issue by considering drone-based delivery. However, that would be cost effective only if the warehouses were near to densely populated areas. A recent patent aims at solving this problem.
The idea
The idea is to set up big, multi-level, cylinder-shaped drone-delivery hives in the cities. Trucks or other road transport vehicles will deliver the goods to these hives at the truck bays around the ground level. Robots will then load and configure the delivery drones, which will enter and exit through several windows present at the sides of this structure for last mile delivery.
The windows will be secure to prevent unauthorized access. How will this be implemented, or how secure this will be is unclear at the moment. Also, it does not make sense for a third-party to fly-in their drone and get captured! The launching bays at each window will be capable of throwing the drones to get the initial trajectory and speed boost, so the machines do not have to take-off themselves. The flight control system will prioritize most of the flights at the top levels of the structure to minimize the annoying buzzing sound around the ground level.
The future of delivery is here, well at least the concept is.
Source: USPTO via Silicon Beat
About the author
0 comments:
Post a Comment