Amazon Prime Air service or whatever using drones to deliver packages, already operating in two small towns in California and Texas. It won’t work for every shipment or everywhere Amazon operates, but it’s the culmination of an ambitious project that seemed like science fiction a decade ago.

We still remember when Jeff Bezos introduced the Amazon Prime Air project in 2013, and jokes from users and competing companies flooded the Internet. Among the best, the company Groupon, which proposed an alternative delivery system with catapult as, stood out “a parcel delivery system that has existed since the time of King Arthur”.

Jokes aside, once they got permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly their drones, the project took place. The service was launched in sparsely populated rural areas near the cities of Sacramento and Houston. “Our goal is to get our drones into the sky safely. We are starting in these communities and will gradually expand supplies to other customers.”explain the spokesperson of this Amazon Prime Air.

Its operation is known. Residents of both cities can sign up for the service, and Amazon will confirm that the company can safely deliver to the customer’s address. Once the order is placed, the customer will receive an estimated delivery time and tracking information. «The drone will fly to the designated delivery location, land in the customer’s backyard and hover at a safe height.”they say. It then safely releases the package, climbs back up to its height and automatically returns to the warehouse using its GPS and camera system.

Amazon uses the MK27-2 hexagonal drone with six propellers, designed to minimize high-frequency sound waves, although it is already testing more advanced and lighter ones, such as the MK30, which will be able to fly in adverse weather conditions such as rain.. Currently time the company focuses on above all to achieve safe transit. While drones fly autonomously and use GPS and algorithms to avoid obstacles like power lines and chimneys, delivery is still managed by humans.

In the future, these small UAVs will be able to operate fully autonomously and deliver packages up to 2.7 kg (most Amazon deliveries), up to 10 miles away, and in an estimated time between 30 and 60 minutes.

The future of Amazon Prime Air

If the whole drone package delivery thing still sounds like science fiction to you, pay attention to what Amazon has in store for the future with “orders from heaven”.

Amazon’s patent application talked about aerial warehouses or “aerial fulfillment centers” for use with drones. A type of airship equipped with a certain amount of inventory and located near where Amazon anticipated there would be demand for certain items. Top logistics…