Photo by Fikri Rasyid via Unsplash
Drone delivery firm Wing has said it expects to deploy its first Autoloaders for curbside delivery later this year.
In a blog post on the company website, it said it was introducing the system so consumers could take advantage of curbside pickup without needing to get to the curb.
Over the last few years, it has become increasingly common too see parking spaces outside grocery stores reserved for curbside pickup. Autoloaders are designed to sit next to a standard curbside pickup spot, and allow delivery drones to make the pickup for the customer.
For retailers, the Autoloader means that rather than needing to wait for a vehicle to arrive before bringing a package outside, a retail worker can load the package onto the Autoloader whenever it is ready and walk away. The delivery drone will arrive shortly thereafter to autonomously collect the order.
The firm said: “By making it easy to add Autoloaders to existing retail locations, we believe we’ll be able to vastly expand the number of goods that can be delivered by drone, which will increase convenience for consumers and retailers, and further propel the growth of drone delivery across suburban and rural areas.”
According to recent data, 33 percent of adults who started using curbside pickup during the pandemic say they expect to continue using it. The Autoloader, which is a key component of the Wing Delivery Network comes with a small loading mechanism and a place to hang an order.
It has a pair of long arms, which allows certain drones to hover overhead and drop a line down into the loading mechanism. Once there, the station transfers the order onto the drone’s hook allowing it to move away without the need for worker intervention.
Video from Wing
