A patent granted to Amazon reveals its plans for delivery drones, the BBC reports.
Filed in September last year and granted at the end of the last month, US Patent No. 20150120094 relates to the use of “an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) configured to autonomously deliver items of inventory to various destinations.”
The patent seems to fit well with what we already know of Amazon’s drone intentions. The UAVs may be able to deliver to a variety of locations, and may even follow customers using GPS to deliver to them no matter where they are.
When Amazon announced it planned to deliver good with drones in December 2013, the news was treated with some skepticism, but since then it has pushed ahead with trials.
Much of its testing has been carried out in the United Kingdom in Cambridge, due to restrictions on the use of UAVs in the United States (although the company was granted a license to conduct US trials by the FAA last month).
Key Details:
A diagram accompanying the patent showing possible drone delivery options
It’s worth noting that being granted a patent doesn’t necessarily mean that company will follow through the plans. Many companies - notably Apple - file thousands of patents a year that are never used. These can be purely precautionary, or intended to tie up competitors in distracting litigation.
Read the full patent application
Source: Business Insider
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