Customers: Walmart Contractors: DroneUp Project date: 2021/11
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In mid-November 2021, Walmart expands drone delivery capabilities in another small way: customers living in Farmington, Arkansas, from November 16, 2021 can order such small goods as tuna cans, children's supplies and paper plates. Quadrocopters DroneUp deliver only within a radius of 1.6 km from the store, but they lower their parcels on cables, and not drop them from the sky.
This was made possible through a partnership with DroneUp, which will also provide unmanned delivery stations in Rogers and Bentonville. Walmart has a good choice of essentials for such a type of delivery as packing diapers for 26 pieces, a box of pancake blends on the buttermilk, paper plates, shallows, garbage bags, vitamins, scotch and basic food and baby goods, including baby food. Each product has its own weight and the company's website will allow users to make a purchase only with a total weight of 1.8 kg of goods or less, the buyer will also pay $10 for this type of delivery. At the same time, the online store does not have a system for sorting orders by weight and, probably, by size due to the fact that journalists of The Verge were able to issue a test order for 27 packages of instant noodles. Although the basket was quite consistent with the maximum permissible weight, it is extremely unlikely that the drone would have managed to deliver such a large volume.
The hardest item among the general delivery kit was a 1.75 kg Similac baby mixture box, and the most expensive, a bottle of Extra virgin olive oil for $29.88. If the buyer lives in a general region and the distance does not exceed 1.6 km from the store, then the online store system allows you to place an order with drones from the DroneUp. Additional delivery stations will open in the towns of Rogers and Bentonville in early 2022. Note that each warehouse is capable of multiple simultaneous launches.
In March 2021, Walmart and DroneUp already tested test unmanned deliveries within a radius of 1.5 km from stores in North Las Vegas and Chiktovag, New York.[1]