UPS Has a Mother-Truck of a Delivery Drone Idea

(upbeat music)

[Narrator] Another day, another ton of deliveries.

But for this UPS man, things are about to get special.

For Sid Perron deliveries in this rural area

outside Tampa, Florida usually mean long detours.

Today though, she has a high tech helper.

Sid can load a package into this basket in the roof

of her truck, and then with a couple of taps

she can launch it like Airwolf

from it's secret mountain lair.

(drone buzzing)

Instead of having to take a winding road through

a blueberry farm, Sid can just get on with her next delivery

while the octocopter does it's thing,

dropping the package autonomously.

It weighs just 9.5 pounds, and it can fly for 30 minutes.

It can use GPS for that autonomous

flying where it's allowed.

By the time Sid's done, the drone is too,

and it just comes home to roost.

Movable roof rack like sleds on the roof of the truck

lift and grab the drone and position it perfectly,

so that it can plug in and charge

from the truck's on board power.

This is the more realistic future of drone deliveries.

They're not going to replace trucks with fleets of drones

leaving faraway warehouses, but they'll supplement vans.

UPS calculates that cutting one mile every day

from the route driven by each of its 66,000 drivers

would save 50 million dollars a year.

Although this is just a one off demonstration,

and it needs a lot of steps, including regulatory approval,

before it becomes a reality,

other companies are working on similar ideas.

This is the Mercedes Vision Van.

It's very obviously still a concept.

So for now, it will be smiling drivers like Sid

ringing your doorbell to let you know you have a package.

But one day, you could be listening out

for that buzz of the drone.

(drone buzzing)