Late last year, Amazon introduced Amazon Prime Air, its ambitious effort to bring a delivery-by-drone experience to customers. I don’t suppose it should come as much of a surprise that Google is also working on delivery drones. Perhaps a little more surprising is that they’ve been doing so for two years in secret.
The secret is out. Google made the announcement last night, sharing the following video.
This is Project Wing.
“As part of our research, we built a vehicle and traveled to Queensland, Australia for some test flights,” Google says in the video description. “There, we successfully delivered a first aid kit, candy bars, dog treats, and water to a couple of Australian farmers. We’re only just beginning to develop the technology to make a safe delivery system possible, but we think that there’s tremendous potential to transport goods more quickly, safely and efficiently.”
Project Wing is a project from Google [X], the arm of Google that is responsible for things like self-driving cars, Google Glass, Google contact lenses, and Project Loon, Google’s Internet balloons. Google is also working with robots outside of Google [X]. Former Android chief Andy Rubin moved over to a Google-run robotics lab last year, and the company has acquired a number of robot companies, including the well-known Boston Dynamics.
Google says it’s currently looking for partners who can help bring Project Wing’s technology to the world.
Image via YouTube