Drone deliveries a future that hasn’t arrived… yet
In 2015, I wrote an article on LinkedIn talking about how I saw the evolution of drone delivery and its integration within the e-commerce world.
I said, in this article that 5–6 years on we would all be experiencing drone based deliveries, from orders with our favourite shops through to pizzas and take aways.
Yet we’re still not quite there, at least not yet.
Where has it got to?
Every so often I’ll hear the news talk about that a certain product has been delivered by a drone. Dominos, for instance, has recently unveiled and carried out a range of deliveries of their pizzas via a drone:
Major tech companies such as Google and Amazon are both pushing and researching further into the world of drone deliveries and it is only a matter of time before these systems come online.
But why aren’t we there now?
Ultimately, it comes down to 3 areas:
- A problem known as the “the last mile problem”
- Legal issues
- Technology
Who’s going to ring the bell?
A drone has been proven to be a quicker way of delivering your e-commerce products. However, the ultimate problem with any kind of drone is whilst it can deliver your goods it can’t very easily knock on your door.
The other problem that is being face is what about narrow and tight neighbourhoods, or houses surrounded by deep forestation, I’m not sure how many of us still live in the woods but I’d suspect there is a few.
There are of course options such as settling the drone down, however this would leave the drone vulnerable to possible theft, destruction or some other strange event taking place.
What happens in the event of an error with the drone, how can the operator get it back.
In a B2B environments drones would work a treat, since we spend most of our time glued to offices. However it is not a recipe or a solution for B2C integration and therefore further works and research is needed.
Introducing a Drone Drop Point
One possible solution that I came up with in 2015 was the implementation of a drone drop point. Similar to your postbox or letterbox, this tool would open when a delivery from a drone was expected, and would then lock once the package had been delivered.
It would require the drone to hover, and drop — so packages will need to be well packaged.
It would operate by calculating the correct amount of time the drone is from your address and then once the package was received a notification would be sent to your smartphone.
Legalities
Now come on you didn’t think the government, UK or otherwise was going to allow anyone to start flying and dropping off goods via drones, did you?
When drones were first being brought in there was little regulation and the government had to play catch up.
Today a license is required to operate drones with cameras over populated areas. There are certain no fly zones, and there are also limits to the altitudes that you can fly.
Alongside this a line of sight has to be maintained of your drone.
How would companies like Amazon and other large retailers get around this problem?
Technology
Finally, when it comes to drones carrying your products there is only so much weight a drone would be able to carry.
Small packages, up to the size of a shoebox, are presently not a problem, however if you had ordered a wardrobe, chest of draws and a bed side unit a drone isn’t going to be carry all of that.
The heavier the package, the less flight time that will be available due to the stress on the batteries.
In short, drones are currently not able to sustain long flight times with heavy products.
However, at least in my mind, there are 2 options, build strong and more robust drones capable of flying further with heavier weights.
The second increase the batter life span so that they are able to go for longer trips.
Drone delivery is coming, but it won’t be here fully this year and I can’t see it being a major part of our lives for another 5 years plus.
