Amazon drone deliveries to take off later this year in California

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Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery service is preparing for takeoff, with the e-commerce behemoth in talks with the Federal Aviation Administration and local officials in Lockeford, California, to launch the service in the city later this year.

Lockeford residents will have the opportunity to sign up for free drone delivery on thousands of everyday items. After placing an order, customers will be given an estimated arrival time and a status tracker. The drone will fly to the designated delivery location, descend to the customer’s backyard and hover at a safe height. It will then safely release the package and rise back up to altitude.

Additionally, Amazon says it plans to invest in the community to create new jobs, build partnerships with local organizations and help reduce carbon emissions. Lockeford touts its historic link to the aviation industry as the former home of Weldon B. Cooke, who flew planes in the early 1900s.

"Lockeford residents will play an important role in defining the future," the company said in a blog post on Monday. "Their feedback about Prime Air, with drones delivering packages in their backyards, will help us create a service that will safely scale to meet the needs of customers everywhere."

The FAA declined to comment on pending certification projects or its discussions with companies.

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Amazon has been teasing drone delivery since 2013. At the time, Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos said that the company's drones would roll out in four to five years. 

In June 2019, Amazon said its self-piloting drones, which are fully electric and designed to deliver up to five pounds of goods in an hour or less, would start making deliveries within "months." However, the service has faced multiple setbacks since then, including several crashes during testing. 

In 2020, Amazon became the third company to receive a Part 135 air carrier certificate from the FAA to operate a commercial drone delivery service, following behind UPS' Flight Forward and Alphabet's Wing. 

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Amazon's MK27-2, the latest drone iteration, features a unique hexagonal design to provide six degrees of freedom for stability and propellors that minimize high-frequency sound waves.

Since Prime Air's inception, Amazon has designed, built and tested more than two dozen prototypes. The latest iteration of Amazon's drone will leverage a "sense-and-avoid-system" that will enable it to fly without visual observers.

"Using this system, our drone can identify a static object in its path, like a chimney. It can also detect moving objects on the horizon, like other aircraft, even when it’s hard for people to see them," Amazon explains. "If obstacles are identified, our drone will automatically change course to safely avoid them. As our drone descends to deliver the package into a customer’s backyard, the drone ensures that there’s a small area around the delivery location that’s clear of any people, animals, or other obstacles."

Prime Air drones fly up to 50 miles per hour and at an altitude of up to 400 feet.

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In addition to UPS and Alphabet, Walmart has been testing drone delivery in partnership with DroneUp since 2020 and plans to expand its delivery network to 34 sites by the end of this year, with the potential to reach 4 million U.S. households across Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia. 

Kroger also tested drone delivery for small groceries in Ohio in May 2021 and FedEx is planning to begin testing autonomous drone delivery in 2023 through a partnership with Elroy Air.