Amazon wants flying warehouses, patent shows
Dec 29, 2016, 11:38 AM | Updated: 12:06 pm
Months before Amazon delivered its first package via drone, it was awarded a patent for an airborne warehouse that the company wants to use to improve delivery time.
A patent filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office is dated April 5, 2016. The patent is being dubbed an “airborne fulfillment center.”
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According to the patent, the airship would remain at a certain altitude — 45,000 feet, as an example. Drones would be deployed from the airship with ordered items.
“As the UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] descend, they can navigate horizontally toward a user specified delivery location using little to no power,” the patent says.
Shuttles would be used to replenish the mothership with inventory and fuel.
The patent uses sporting events as an example of when such a delivery method would be useful, CNN reports. Drones could deliver jerseys and food.
Exactly how the FAA would feel about this is unknown right now. However, the administration has previously come out against many aspects of drone technology. Though rules issued earlier this year loosen restrictions on commercial drones, they still limit how they are used — including drones having to stay within sight of operators.
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FAA guidelines for drones state they should be flown miles away from airports and the administration warned again flying them around stadiums and above 500 feet.
Of course, the Amazon patent may not be the wildest we’ve seen this year in Washington. The Boeing artillery shell, for example, got quite a bit of attention.
The patent from Boeing detailed the need to find alternative fire-fighting methods that don’t rely on aircraft, which deliver “fire-retarding material at a low rate which often makes them inadequate to control forest fires.” Boeing’s solution: fire shells filled with the same or similar material from a cannon.
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