Amazon, an e-commerce giant, is gearing up for the future with some amazing new logistics technology it calls airborne fulfilment centre (AFC). And the company has now won a patent for what could be floating warehouses attached to small airships called blimps.
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This will enable the company's ability to make quicker delivery to its customers as it will be used as launch pads for the drones, CNN tech reported after CB Insights analyst Zoe Leavitt found the document and tweeted it. Recently, Amazon made its first delivery via drone to a customer in the UK.
Such a patent will allow Amazon to deliver packages in minutes, according to the company.
Amazon's floating warehouses would be circling the city at a height of 45,000 feet and it is from here that it would be launching the drones that would carry out customer's orders. The drone falls down relying on Earth's gravity and it is only in the last stretch that their motors would fire up.
After the drone has completed its delivery, it would be picked up by a shuttle that would bring it back to the blimp.
The use of shuttle becomes important since drones do not have the capability to run more than 30 minutes and are underpowered to fly back autonomously.
One place where Amazon thinks it can capitalise is sporting events. Amazon hopes it can deliver several items like food to teams. This will be helpful in cases where items have to be delivered to a large crowd in a small area, with the floating warehouse flying above the stadium.
However, it is not known if it will be successful and if stadiums will agree to such plans as they would be losing out on merchandise sales and concession. It will be also interesting to know how Amazon intends to land their drones. The Amazon's drone delivery used a designated area to land.
Apart from this, there is also the issue of drones and floating warehouses raising question about its safety and non-conformity to regulations. There is also the issue of drones fighting for space with airplane traffic.
It must be noted that this is only a patent and to actually see something like this in real-life, it might take more years.
Previous Amazon patents have revealed how the company plans to use tall buildings and structures as docking stations for the drones to recharge. It also has a patent which lets drones talk to each other, planning their routes in advance.
