Google drone delivery could take flight in 2017

Look skywards and you may catch sight of a package carrying drone as it buzzes its way to the delivery address. Search giant Google has announced a date for the launch of its drone delivery service called Project Wing, the initiative aims to be delivering goods to consumers using the robot aircraft sometime in 2017.The announcement came from David Vos, the project leader for the delivery service.

“Our goal is to have commercial business up and running in 2017,” said Mr. Vos during a speech at an air traffic control convention being held in Washington. No details have been given about what type of drones Google might use for the service nor what type of packages they will be delivering.

Details about Project Wing emerged in 2014. Initially it was run inside Google X – the firm’s secretive research lab. It is now believed to be under the control of Alphabet – the parent company that the former divisions of Google now operate under. For that early work the company built its own drones and flew them in trials in Australia. Early reports suggested the drones would be used for disaster relief or to deliver urgently needed medical supplies.

Google’s custom-designed drones can hover and winch packages down to the ground for delivery.
Amazon has already detailed its plans to use drones to deliver goods. It said its octocopters could ferry 2.3kg of goods to customers within 30 minutes of an order being placed. In addition, in early 2015, China’s largest online retailer Alibaba carried out a three-day trial of drone delivery around its offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Project Wing first hit the headlines in 2014 when Google showed off footage of a remotely controlled flying machine that was part copter and part plane. However, the design team returned to the drawing board earlier this year after concluding a fresh approach was required. After several months of hearing next to nothing about its drone plans, a second Project Wing machine buzzed out of the workshop a couple of weeks ago, Besides delivering goods to customers possibly as part of Google’s existing Express service the company is also keen to use the technology to carry vital supplies to people stranded in area hit by disasters.