Soon, drones will deliver your food. Uber on Monday unveiled a new Uber Eats delivery drone design. Showcased at Forbes 30 under under 30 summit, Uber plans to start testing delivery in San Diego next year.
Uber says its new delivery drone can carry food for up to two persons. The drone comes with six rotors. The early version of the drone can only make short trips as its battery has been designed for just eight minutes. This, however, includes loading and unloading of the meal. Uber Eat’s drone can fly up to 18 miles and can make a round-trip of 12 miles.
Uber doesn’t plan to use the drone delivery at a large scale as yet. The drone will be controlled by the company’s Elevate Cloud systems. According to Uber, after a customer has placed an order, restaurant will prepare the food and load onto the drone. The device will take off and drop the food off at a pre-determined location.
“We’ve been working closely with the FAA to ensure that we’re meeting requirements and prioritizing safety,” Uber Elevate Head of Flight Operations Luke Fischer said earlier this year.
“From there, our goal is to expand Uber Eats drone delivery so we can provide more options to more people at the tap of a button. We believe that Uber is uniquely positioned to take on this challenge as we’re able to leverage the Uber Eats network of restaurant partners and delivery partners as well as the aviation experience and technology of Uber Elevate.”
Uber will join Amazon in efforts to develop a drone delivery fleet. According to reports, Amazon Prime Air service will officially launch later this year. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has also launched a drone delivery service, under ‘Wing’ subsidiary. Wing said it is working with the likes Walgreens and FedEx Express for the drone delivery service.
Back in India, Zomato is also working on a similar food drone delivery service. Zomato in December last year acquired Lucknow-based startup TechEagle for the drone delivery fleet. The company in June this year claimed its drone had covered a distance of 5 km in approximately 10 minutes while hitting a peak speed of 80 kmph to deliver a food packet.
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