 has filed a patent for a flying warehouse, equipped with drones to make fast deliveries to area of high demand.){kind=link}
Online retail giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has filed a patent for a flying warehouse, equipped with drones to make fast deliveries to area of high demand.
The revolutionary retailer, who have driven the on-demand delivery sector with their Same-Day delivery initiatives and Amazon Dash button, are now aiming to utilize the sky as a stockroom.
The patent is for a warehouse carried by an airship, which can hover above events such as festivals and concerts to speed up delivery to customers. Officially called “airborne fulfilment centres”, they will come with drones that can “to deliver ordered items to user designated delivery locations.”
“As the UAVs descend, they can navigate horizontally toward a user specified delivery location using little to no power, other than to stabilize the UAV and/or guide the direction of descent,” the patent said.
It added that it could “In some implementations…navigate to a lower altitude and provide advertising for the temporal event or for other occasions (e.g., product announcements, product releases, sales).”
The patent was uncovered by Zoe Leavitt from CB Insights, but originally filed in 2014. Thus far it is unclear whether the filing for a project that will be out into production, or just a proof-of-concept.
Earlier this year Amazon launched their Dash buttons in the UK, enabling customers to reorder household products, such as toilet roll or washing up liquid, by pressing a physical button linked to their Amazon account.
Amazon was also one of the first online retailers to launch a One-Hour delivery service. Available on over 10,000 items, ‘Prime Now’ offers faster delivery even than the Same Day and Next Day services available with their Amazon Prime subscription.