Food Delivery by Drones! How Practical Will the Project be?

Ubereats plans to content your hunger in not more than five minutes! Drone food delivery projects soon to be tested in San Diego.

Technological advancements and AI-driven developments have rapidly grown to an extent that it has made us realise the future is already here.

In a recent interview of Uber CEO,  Dara Khosrowshahi shared his views and vision about Uber’s technological expansions in mobility. With drones flying over your head and delivering food in the nick of time will soon be possible with Uber’s new delivery test project.

Overcoming the frailty of uncertain hurdles while improving the overall efficacy of unmanned vehicles are going to be the main objective of this test. Not only will it ensure safety and security of consumers, but also will open the doors of opportunities to incorporate the use of drones in various other sectors.

The commercial drone testing:

The United States Transportation department has chosen 10 states, local and tribal governments and some of the important tech market players to work together on unmanned aerial vehicle testing programme. The companies include Alphabet Inc., FedEx Corp., Intel Corp., Qualcomm. Inc. and Uber technologies inc. who will be given the nod to experiment and examine the commercial drone and overall performance.  

CEO’s note:

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in his statement on the new drone deliveries project said, “Push a button and get food on your doorstep,” that’s how he dreams the technology to be which he now is making it a reality. Unlike other device-driven technology companies, Dara believes Uber bridges the gap between physical and digital world.

Bettering consumer services:

As said before, drone technology will make foods reachable faster than ever before and hence consumers can order food exactly when they are hungry. With this, they’ll receive fresh food with the required temperature since it won’t take much time to get delivered at the address and the temperature will remain the same.

Challenges:

The complications in commercial drones for Beyond Vision Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations are still there and its research is underway. Though the US transportation department has given consent to operate commercial drone tests, privacy concerns have not been resolved as yet. It additionally raises legal issue concerns for the unannounced accidents and crashings which may occur in the drone delivery path. The responsibility of such uncertain and adverse events has not been taken by any commercial or government authority, neither has it been passed to the customers’ shoulder.  

Before the drone becomes an entrant in the delivery field, these factors need to be taken care of, without which, it will take years to gain trust amongst users and overall masses.

The future:

With Ubereats introducing drone technology to food deliveries, it’s indeed minimizing the time taken to deliver food from being already faster to the fastest through unmanned aerial vehicles. The testing being operated in the upcoming days will examine technical and logistical hurdles concerning with UAV in metro areas. Especially,  the areas with high drone density are likely to be given more emphasis.

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Apart from Uber conducting the drone delivery tests, unmanned vehicles of Apple, Intel and Alphabet will also soon take commercial wings in the next few months. Digital mapping, conducting surveillance are some of the projects approved by the US government. If Uber happens to succeed in its drone test, it will eventually give a green signal to other UAV projects as well.

Written by, Gauri Ludbe