Home » Business News » Amazon to launch drone deliveries in California by end of 2022

Amazon to launch drone deliveries in California by end of 2022

By Nithya Bose in Business News, posted June 14, 2022

Amazon is set to take to the skies and launch its long-awaited drone-delivery service later this year this year.

Jeff Bezos' online giant will be joining other companies including Walmart and Alphabet in carrying items by unmanned aircraft.

The e-commerce giant announced Monday, June 13, that its drone-delivery service would begin in Lockeford, California, which is located in San Joaquin County approximately 100 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Amazon says its engineers have built a sense and detecting system for the drones to avoid airborne collisions and crashes on the ground.

Amazon said: “If obstacles are identified, our drone will automatically change course to safely avoid them.”

“As our drone descends to deliver the package into a customer’s backyard, the drone ensures that there’s a small area around the delivery location that’s clear of any people, animals, or other obstacles.”

Lockeford is a rural town with a population of roughly 11,700 people.

Rural locations provide difficulties for retailers such as Amazon since it is costly and inefficient to distribute items to widely dispersed places.

Drone delivery might help companies make more effective deliveries to remote areas, and the wide-open spaces make it an appealing spot for testing the drones.

However, the company didn’t specify exactly when deliveries would begin.

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The announcement of Amazon's first drone delivery in the US comes as other firms increase their drone-delivery capabilities.

Last month, Walmart expanded the footprint of its drone-delivery service to Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.

Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet, said in April that it will launch a drone delivery service in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Amazon initially stated its plans to employ drones for delivery over a decade ago.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stated in 2013 that the firm may launch the program in the US in four or five years.

The Federal Aviation Administration 2020 granted Amazon permission to establish a fleet of drones to conduct limited tests of package delivery to customers in the United States.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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