Skip to main content

Burritos delivered by drone – Alphabet’s Project Wing in South Eastern Australia

It has been a little quiet around Alphabet’s Project Wing, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any progress. Over the last few years, Project Wing has made thousands of test flights and now they are ready to start making deliveries. The test market is Queanbeyan, South Eastern Australia, where two merchants have signed up for Project Wing. Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican food chain, and Chemist Warehouse, a chain of pharmacies. These companies will receive orders from test consumers, who’ve purchased items using the Project Wing app on their smartphones. Project Wing’s drones will then fly out and make the deliveries. The first burrito delivered by drone in Australia is now a fact. Believe it or not, this actually happened before when Google delivered Chipotle Burritos via drones to Virginia Tech college students in Blacksburg.

Burritos delivered by drone in Australia?

Project Wing chose the Australian market for several reasons, 1) the drone laws and regulations are well set up and more lax than in many other countries. Even DJI acknowledges that. 2) the typical distances that consumers have to travel to go to the store are quite large so drone deliveries offer a clear time-saving benefit.

“Project Wing is aiming to transform transportation. We want to make it easy, cheaper and more environmentally friendly to receive items, packages, whatever you may need.”

James Ryan Burges, Co-Lead Project Wing

Project Wing’s drone design

Did rooms used by Project Wing are not your typical DJI quadcopter. It is a specially designed drone with 12 little propellers for vertical lift and two larger ones attached to two small wings for forward propulsion. Without engineering complexity required for an Osprey, Project Wing is able to design a drone this way that combines impressive carrying capabilities with forward flying speed. It can reach speeds of up to 75 mph while carrying a load.

The burritos, or whatever else is being delivered, hang underneath the drone in a somewhat aerodynamic recycled carton box. When the drone arrives at the delivery location, it doesn’t actually land. Instead, it simply lowers the package and releases it. This hoisting system is a smart solution as it minimizes the risk of people interfering with the drone intendedly or unintendedly. It also reduces the noise levels on the ground. The drones are quite a bit larger than the typical consumer drone you are used to seeing by the way.

Train the software

Project Wing’s flight planning, and navigational software pre-plans the ideal route before the drone takes off. When it arrives at the location, GPS and sensors scan the area to find the perfect drop-off location. It is important to make many test flights to train the software to correctly identify obstacles such as trees, fences and backyard playsets. Even more so because most consumers prefer to take delivery in the backyard so that the package is less visible from the street.

Competition

Google’s Alphabet Is not the only company testing out drone deliveries. Recently Amazon has started its own drone delivery test program in England. Obviously, there are a lot of advantages to drone deliveries over regular deliveries, which means that there will be a lot of competition as well.

What are you think about drum deliveries? Do you only see advantages or do you have concerns as well? Please let us know in the comments below.

Gallery

Videos

 

 

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading DroneDJ — experts who break news about DJI and the wider drone ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow DroneDJ on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Comments

Author

Avatar for Haye Kesteloo Haye Kesteloo

Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys and Electrek. Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo