Food delivery apps are more common than ever, but a new partnership by Postmates means the next time you order dinner in Washington, D.C., your delivery man might be a drone. Postmates has partnered with California robotics startup Starship Technologies to run a pilot program in D.C. for its on-demand delivery service to use a small fleet of drone vans for food delivery.
"You order the food like normal and the [restaurant] puts the food in the compartment [of the drone]. Then it's piloted to you and your phone tells your order has arrived," Postmates senior vice president of business, Holger Luedorf told DC Inno in an interview. "Then you input your code and open the door to get your food."
The drones (pictured above) are like tiny vans. Controlled by a remote pilot, they will travel on sidewalks to within about a two-mile radius at about four miles per hour, about walking speed, and can carry up to a 40 pound delivery. Along with the pilot, there's a reactive computer that takes in visual input and combines it with map data to find its destination. Starship is running a similar pilot with DoorDash in Redwood City, CA.
If Starship sounds familiar, that's because it's the company that grabbed headlines by delivering legislation by drone to the D.C. City Council last year. That legislation was to legalize and regulate delivery drones in D.C.
"We're running the pilot in D.C. because it's a good environment for them," Luedorf said. "The city knows what we are doing and approved the pilot."
Although Luedorf wouldn't say how many are in the fleet in the pilot, he did say there aren't nearly enough drones to make sure your next meal is delivered by one. If it goes well though, it could easily become a model for a bigger project.
"It's just the beginning right now," Luedorf said. "It's very exciting to see where it could go."
