Delivery by Drone?
Automation was a hot topic of conversation in the months before the coronavirus pandemic set upon us, especially on the presidential campaign trail here in the United States. Andrew Yang made automation and the resulting loss of (human) jobs a key part of his campaign platform, framing it as the biggest catalyst in the way the economy of the future will transform from the one we know today. Now COVID-19 is putting automation in a new light – namely as a means of providing services that would otherwise put people at a greater risk of contracting the disease. It’s difficult to stay six feet away from the man or woman scanning your groceries, but self-scanning stations allow for abstention from that kind of close person-to-person contact. In the Bay Area city of Mountain View, local businesses are using delivery robots to bring groceries and other goods and supplies to nearby residents, thereby eliminating another point of person-to-person contact between the consumer and the delivery driver. Amazon has publicly expressed an intention to use drones to make deliveries in the future, although they would likely be controlled remotely from a central location. Could remotely controlled or fully automated robots be the future of delivery?
Photo courtesy of The Verge
As Andrew Yang pointed out in numerous stump speeches and interviews last fall, driving a delivery truck is the most commonly held job in 29 of 50 states in the U.S. Long-haul trucking is still the most cost-effective method of moving goods between states and that figures to stay that way, especially as large semi-trucks catch up to passenger vehicles in when it comes to things like fuel efficiency and emissions standards. Yang believes the future of long-haul trucking lies with fleets of autonomous semi-trucks, although there are a few hurdles left to clear before that possibility could be realized. The networking infrastructure in some of the less populated areas of the country doesn’t currently exist to reliably ensure constant connection to an autonomous or remotely-controlled vehicle. Trucking companies would also have legal concerns and issues of liability to consider – only a small percentage of states legally allow autonomous vehicles on the roads at this point, and most of those require a human being to be in the vehicle at all times. Still, it’s not a giant leap from autonomous taxis to autonomous semi-trucks, and it’s potentially much more lucrative for autonomous vehicle manufacturers.
There are even more question marks surrounding delivery drones. How limited is their range? Typical commercially sold drones have very limited battery life and can only be controlled in relatively close proximity to their controllers. Infrastructure is also a consideration for drone delivery, and not only of the networking sort. Trucks travel in orderly fashion along highways and byways – how would entire fleets of drones manage the same air space without smashing into one another? Would that airspace have to managed by a larger federal agency the way the FAA oversees commercial and recreational aviation?
While predominantly remotely-controlled or autonomous delivery way still be a ways off, things do seem to be trending in that direction. Automation has already completely transformed many areas of manufacturing, but automating the way goods are moved between vendors and consumers would likely result in a total reconfiguration of the economic landscape. E-commerce (re: Amazon) has already revolutionized retail – delivery could be next. We’ll monitor developments in autonomous delivery in this space to see whether Andrew Yang’s predictions become a reality.