Uber Technologies Inc is testing restaurant food deliveries by drone.
The company’s Uber Eats unit began the tests in San Diego with McDonald’s Corp and plans to expand to other restaurants later this year.
The service should decrease food delivery times, Uber said.
Photo: AFP
It works this way: Workers at a restaurant load the meal into a drone and it takes off, being tracked and guided by a new aerospace management system.
The drone then meets an Uber Eats driver at a drop-off location and the driver delivers the meal to the customer.
The company said that it wants to land drones atop parked vehicles near delivery locations and secure them to the vehicle for the final 1.6km of the delivery.
Last year Uber and San Diego, California, won a bid from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test food delivery by air.
“We’ve been working closely with the FAA to ensure that we’re meeting requirements and prioritizing safety,” Uber Elevate head of flight operations Luke Fischer said in a statement on Wednesday.
The company said the knowledge it gains from the tests would help with Uber’s planned aerial ride-sharing network.
Uber also announced that it would work with Volvo Cars to build a vehicle that comes off the assembly line capable of driving autonomously.
The ride-hailing company’s self-driving system would be installed in production versions of the Volvo XC90 sports utility vehicle.
The vehicle’s steering and braking systems are designed for computer rather than human control, including several backup systems for steering and braking functions, and battery backup power, the company said.
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