Amazon Files Patent for Drone Parcel Delivery via Parachute Drop

Amazon is always looking for ways to do their delivery as fast as possible and sometimes the ideas they come up with venture into the bizarre and crazy including floating warehouse airships. Two months ago, Amazon Prime Air performed their first successful delivery in the UK, fulfilling a the 30 minute delivery window guarantee with ease and finishing the delivery in just under 13 minutes. Now the online retail giant is refining their idea of drone delivery further with the use of parachuting parcels.

Unlike regular drone delivery, the parachute idea does not require the drone to land and just requires the drone to lower down to a low enough altitude to accurately do a parachute drop accurately to the intended residence. It is not as simple as it sounds hence the patent. The delivery has to account for variances and environment which could affect proper delivery so these are factored in the solution as well. To ensure proper delivery, the drone will remain hovering and monitoring before the package lands so that a wind does not carry it into a tree or pushes it on another building for example.

To counter-act such factors, the drone will instruct the box to deploy measures to correct the trajectory and as the patent explains: “The package delivery system can apply the force on to the package in a number of different ways. For example, pneumatic actuators, electromagnets, spring coils and parachutes can generate the force that establishes the vertical descent path of the package.”

For now, Amazon is continuing to do their real-world trials with drone delivery in Cambridgeshire, as the location is ideal for drone landing because of the size of the gardens in each property. Shipping is also currently limited to items that are under 2.6kg in weight. Currently only two Amazon Prime members are taking part in the Amazon Air Prime trials but the company expects to expand this to dozens within the following months.