Food delivery is a huge business in the United States, with a market of approximately $13 billion a year. With companies like Deliveroo and Uber Eats, the industry has improved a lot in recent years, however, innovation in these industries hasn’t really changed. It’s basically the same thing it’s always been but with an improved order and payment process. Delivery times are still on average 60 minutes or so in many areas. The fact that deliveries are hand delivered using vehicles means that with traffic, the delivery times really can’t be improved that much.

This is the problem that Flytrex, a drone delivery company out of North Carolina, is working to resolve. Along with the department of transportation in North Carolina, they are working to come up with new solutions for food delivery by drone. The results of this study could have a significant impact on restaurants and businesses nationwide.

The man in charge of drone technology for the department of transportation is Basil Yap, as well as James Pearce, the PR spokesman. They have stated that they have seen “proof of concept” demos but the implementation of this new technology is still way off.  The new study is expected to run for at least the next 3 years. With another high profile studies being conducted by a state authority, the FAA will be able to collect even more data to aid to their drone regulations. “The data that will be collected and sent to them will allow them to see that what we’re doing in NC will work elsewhere, perhaps even nationwide”. This is cutting edge for drone delivery research, according to Basil Yap.

Despite his enthusiasm and talk of “proof of concept” the program will not be successful if it cannot demonstrate that it’s safe. That means ensuring constant and verifiable secure communication between the drone and the drone operator at all times. There must be a number of fail safe solutions in place in which a drone pilot can verify a drones location is correct at all times.

With a drone delivery business model in place, a business would expect to be able to serve more customers and serve them much faster. This program, if properly  implemented, will be a gold mine for those first to adopt the system.

The process would run something like this:
1. A customer places an order from an app.
2. the order is taken to a manned drone station.
3.  the drone will then take off and fly to the customer’s current location for delivery.

Though it sounds simple, there is a lot of regulations that need to be solved before this can be accomplished. Even though the drones have already being used in several areas such as real estate aerial footage for marketing purposes, the use of drone technology to deliver food only opens the doors for it to move beyond food and deliver other items. As long as the item weights around 5 pounds or less, it will be able to be deliver them much faster than by cars. According to Yap, this will become a reality very soon.

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