Amazon finally gets patent for drone delivery system
Amazon has been planning to use flying robots to deliver goods to customers for quite some time and now the online retail giant has a patent for its “PrimeAir” drone delivery system.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published the patent last week. Amazon submitted its proposal for a retail delivery system using unmanned aircraft last September.
The patent awards Amazon exclusive IP related to a “system for aerial delivery” rather than relating to a specific type of drone aircraft. The first claim in the patent describes:
“1. A system for aerial delivery of items to a destination location, comprising: a plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, each of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles configured to aerially transport items; an unmanned aerial vehicle management system, including: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor and storing program instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processors to at least: receive a request to deliver an item to a destination location; and send to an unmanned aerial vehicle of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, delivery parameters identifying a source location that includes the item and a destination location; wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle, in response to receiving the delivery parameters, is further configured to at least: navigate to the source location; engage the item located at the source location; navigate a navigation route to the destination location; and disengage the item.”
A further 19 claims relate to ways the drones in Amazon’s fleet would be managed, networked, navigated, receive delivery locations from online purchases, complete deliveries, and more.
Via PCMag
