K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
Drone delivery company Wing recently celebrated 100,000 deliveries with an unusual burst of media fanfare. Australia is at the forefront of Wing’s plans, with the company’s two biggest trial sites running in Canberra and Logan in Queensland.
Wing tells a simple story of barista coffee and roast chooks dropped on your driveway at a moment’s notice. Short on Vegemite for the kids’ brekky? Hop on the app, order, and a drone will lower a new jar to your doorstep before the toast is cool. All quick, contactless, and COVID-safe.
But the real story is much more complex. Drone delivery at scale will transform the skies, change expectations for speedy delivery, and hide the labour that makes it possible.
Owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Wing has huge resources. New drone regulations are already being written, and Wing is setting itself up to be the backbone of a new aerial infrastructure.
How Wing works
Wing operates much like many app delivery platforms. After signing up, customers use the smartphone app to place their orders. Orders are then packed at local base stations and flown to their destinations by Wing’s drones. On arrival, the packages are lowered to customers by winch, automatically detaching from the drone before it returns to the base station.
Unlike the hobby drones you might see above parks and beaches, Wing’s delivery drones can operate out of the operator’s line of sight. Flight is fully autonomous, with one pilot monitoring several flights at once and able to take over or land if necessary.
Continue reading: https://theconversation.com/privatising-the-sky-drone-delivery-promises-comfort-and-speed-but-at-a-cost-to-workers-and-communities-166960
Wing tells a simple story of barista coffee and roast chooks dropped on your driveway at a moment’s notice. Short on Vegemite for the kids’ brekky? Hop on the app, order, and a drone will lower a new jar to your doorstep before the toast is cool. All quick, contactless, and COVID-safe.
But the real story is much more complex. Drone delivery at scale will transform the skies, change expectations for speedy delivery, and hide the labour that makes it possible.
Owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Wing has huge resources. New drone regulations are already being written, and Wing is setting itself up to be the backbone of a new aerial infrastructure.
How Wing works
Wing operates much like many app delivery platforms. After signing up, customers use the smartphone app to place their orders. Orders are then packed at local base stations and flown to their destinations by Wing’s drones. On arrival, the packages are lowered to customers by winch, automatically detaching from the drone before it returns to the base station.
Unlike the hobby drones you might see above parks and beaches, Wing’s delivery drones can operate out of the operator’s line of sight. Flight is fully autonomous, with one pilot monitoring several flights at once and able to take over or land if necessary.
Continue reading: https://theconversation.com/privatising-the-sky-drone-delivery-promises-comfort-and-speed-but-at-a-cost-to-workers-and-communities-166960
