(Courtesy: Wal-Mart)
In one of the most unlikely business pairings in recent memory, Google’s parent company Alphabet is teaming up with the Chipotle restaurant chain to delivery burritos and other items to college students at Virgina Tech University via pilotless drone.
Many businesses, including Google, Wal-Mart, Amazon, and others are experimenting with robotic drones as a way to speed up “last mile” delivery to online customers. In this experimental program — which already has received the blessing of the Federal Aviation Administration — VTU students will be able to order Chipotle food items via their portable devices, then pick them up at one of the company’s food trucks parked on the school’s Blacksburg, Virginia, campus.
Hovering Hybrid Drones
Beginning this month, food made at a Chipotle restaurant close to the VTU campus will be flown via drone to the food truck for pickup by the customer while it is still piping hot.
The trial program, which has been nicknamed “Project Wing”, will use specially-designed self-guided drones that can fly quickly in a straight line like an airplane as well as hover in midair like a helicopter, kind of like a smaller version of the Boeing V-22 Osprey aircraft currently used by the military. Burritos and other packaged food items will then be lowered to the food truck using a winch.
Besides Google and Chipotle, many other people will be closely watching the experimental program. The FAA currently is developing rules regulating the use of commercial drones and recently asked big companies like Google and Wal-Mart to add their recommendations.
Part of the reason VTU was chosen for the experimental program was because of its distance from densely populated areas. So far, drones are not supposed to be flown over people and aren’t allowed to interfere with commercial airline traffic.
While the robotic drones will be operated automatically, there will be humans standing by to take over control of the devices if necessary.
Low-Level Air Traffic Control
If this first step is successful, the next thing to happen will be expanding the use of drones to other companies. But before that can happen the FAA and other agencies will have to develop a low-level air-traffic system that maintains order among the hundreds or even thousands of unmanned drones that will be delivering products to customers.
The system will need to be similar to the air traffic control systems the FAA uses to control commercial and freight air traffic between the nation’s airports but on a much larger scale. NASA will be working with the “Project Wing” organizers as well as the FAA to help develop such a system.