Google Parent To Start Delivering Burritos By Drone

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a burrito? Google’s parent company Alphabet and Chipotle Mexican Grill revealed a plan on Thursday to deliver burritos by aerial drone at Virginia Tech.

The Federal Aviation Administration has already approved the experimental service, which will be headed up by Alphabet’s Project Wing unit. Deliveries will begin later this month.

“We want to learn how people feel when they’re receiving a package by air, and taking someone’s time and/or money changes things more than a little,” Astro Teller, CEO of Google X, wrote on Medium on Thursday. “We want to feel the pressure of unexpected circumstances that show us how we can get better at loading and managing a fleet of planes.”

The food will originate at a Chipotle food truck near campus and automated drones will fly the burritos to their destinations. Human pilots will be available to take over flights in order to adhere to FAA rules — and to avoid any burrito-related disasters. The drones, which can fly like an airplane and hover like a helicopter, will lower the food deliveries with a winch.

Volunteers ordering the food will be a mix of Virginia Tech employees and students. Current regulations don’t allow drones to fly over people, so participants will be covered.

The experiment will give researchers some insight into how well current packaging protects the food in flight. Alphabet also hopes that the project goes one step further in proving to the FAA that drones can safely deliver products to consumers without incident. The FAA will receive data from the tests as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to regulate the drone industry.

In August, the FAA permitted Alphabet to test delivery drones in designated areas. The company can conduct operational research studies, flying drones under 400 feet, in order to develop an airspace management system. Project Wing is permitted to fly drones on testing sites carrying cargo beyond the line of sight of human drone operators. Current regulation requires companies to petition the government to fly drones beyond an operator’s field of vision.

Alphabet is pressing for product delivery-by-drone within one to three years. The technology should be available in urban areas within that timeframe if companies can agree on regulation with the U.S. government and the aviation industry.

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal, Gina Hall
Photo: Alphabet’s drone can fly like an airplane and hover like a helicopter to deliver its package