Yes. Yes. We have all heard about unmanned delivery promised by Amazon, but until today, it has yet to materialize. The world’s largest online retailer hasn’t stop working on it though, both on the system and the hardware. Regarding the latter, the company has revealed its latest iteration that is vastly different, and dare we say, more sophisticated over the last one we saw flying over Cambridgeshire, England and somewhat similar in concept to the initial model.
The latest iteration of the Prime Air Delivery Drone is a VTOL. That means, it takes off and land vertically, but also benefit from fast forward flight like regular airplane. This latest Amazon Prime Air Delivery Drone employs a bunch of technology, including thermal and depth cameras, and sonar, along with onboard computers and machine learning, to navigate and also detect hazards that may come into its path. The alien-ish aircraft boasts six degrees of freedom as opposed to four found on a typical quadcopter, making it more stable and capable of dealing with gusty wind conditions, said Amazon.
It is also safe too, with its rotors fully shrouded. The shrouds also double as wings when making forward flight. Amazon said it aims to design fully electric drones that fly up to 15 miles (24 kilometers), delivering packages under 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) in under 30 minutes. While the payload does not sound like something to shout about, but Amazon assures that 75-90 percent of purchased items are within this weight limit.
So, when will we see this futuristic, alien-like aircraft zipping across the skies, dropping off packages to consumers? Well, about that, there isn’t a firm date, but instead, the company said it will be “coming months.” Anyways, while we are waiting for it to happen, you may want to see this transforming, hybrid aircraft doing its things in the embedded video below.
Images: Amazon.
