Alphabet’s Wing to Begin drone deliveries in Dallas-Fort Worth area
Wing, the drone delivery division of Google strong company Alphabet, said Wednesday that it’s expanded operations to parts of the Dallas-Forth Worth area. This is a necessary expansion into a more complex urban area, though operations so far are tiny to carrying packages from a Walgreens parking lot to residents of Frisco and small Elm on the northern edge of the metro area.
The technology uses a new drone model and flights routing technology for a “highly automated drone delivery service in more crowded, complex operating environments,” Wing said in a statement. Wing already operates in the less populated area of Christiansburg, Virginia.
The expansion marks a new chapter for drone deliveries. Operations like Wing and Amazon Air hope to shorten delivery times by sending smaller packages over the air directly to customers’ homes, the idea persons to bypass congested roads and bring new immediacy to dealing. Of course, not everyone is happy with the subjects of noise, safety and privacy drones raise.
A additional Wing launch site is in development in Frisco, too. That’s in cooperation with real estate designer Hillwood, whose AllianceTexas includes a “mobility innovation zone” that has ties to goods shipping by air, rail, trucking and Amazon Air drones.
“We’ll start a small number of test flights next week in Frisco and small Elm, and hope to set up delivery demonstrations to get feedback from the public in the coming weeks,” Wing said. “In the coming months, we expect to launch a commercial service there that would be the marvelous of its kind in a major US metro.”
Project Wing was unveiled by Google in 2014, with the drone delivery service certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration in 2019.
Wing already operates in new large city: Canberra, Australia, where its drones can execute packages for distances reaching six miles from the operation’s center. The drones travel up to 70 mph and border packages to customer properties using a cable.
In September, Wing paused operations in one part of Canberra when reports of birds attacking a drone, with one video showing a raven striking a midair drone with its feet but ultimately not moving a crash.
“It’s common during nesting season in Australia for ravens and magpies to swoop at sharp objects, including cyclists, pedestrians, cars and occasionally, drones. Our delivery drone is built with multiple redundancies to help condemned safe operations in the event that something like this occurs. Consistent with those procedures, this aircraft completed the delivery and returned to our facility safely,” Wing said in a statement around the event. “Wing has made over 100,000 deliveries with no security incidents.”
