Long before a global pandemic forced us to hunker down in our homes and rely on delivery services for our food, people around the world would often prefer to have food delivered to them before venturing out into the world. Services like UberEats, DoorDash, and GrubHub have changed the way people dine in. In a study done by the market research firm called NDP Group, they estimated that in 2019 the online delivery of prepared food market was over to $90 billion. The research went on to state, “Online ordering has started to become the norm, thanks to the convenience, accuracy, and ability to integrate payments. At scale, ubiquitous on-demand and subscription delivery of prepared food could potentially spell the end of cooking at home.” These deliveries are made by couriers in cars or, as often found in crowded cities, bikes. But one food courier company has begun testing a new way of delivering freshly prepared meals to the masses with a drone.

In 2011 Bastian Lehmann, Sean Plaice, and Sam Street founded Postmates out of San Fransisco, CA. Postmates states their mission as a means of, “transforming the way goods move around cities by enabling anyone to have anything delivered on-demand. Our revolutionary Urban Logistics platform connects customers with local couriers who can deliver anything from any store or restaurant in minutes. We empower communities to shop local with no waiting, and empower businesses through our API to offer delivery.” And while some companies only deliver food items, Postmates will deliver just about anything. They get the typical orders for food, alcohol, and medications along with some bizarre requests like colorful craft store birds, adult toys, and even a $3,400 dress to replace one that got dirty at a restaurant. By the year 2019 Postmates was making deliveries within 2,940 U.S. cities. To keep up with their ever growing demand, Postmates began testing a delivery drone in their home city of San Fransisco.

Drones come in all shapes and sizes. Most commonly, drones are unmanned aerial vehicles. But there are a wide variety of drones that can swim on and below the water surface, or crawl around on the ground. As logistical safety regulations have largely blocked airborne drone deliveries, Postmates decided to come up with a drone that rolls along a sidewalk. The self driving drone, designed and built entirely in house, is about the size of an extra large cooler on 4 large wheels. It rides low to the ground to prevent it from tipping over, can carry up to 50 pounds, and travel 30 miles before needing to recharge it’s battery. A representative from Postmates also said that “each rover has a ‘Help’ button, touchscreen and video chat display for customers or passers-by to use if necessary.” The drone, which kind of looks like a cute Minion, is simply called Serve.

The drone began it’s trials in August, 2019. The initial permit allowed for Serve to be run in a controlled region of San Fransisco around Potrero Hill and the Inner Mission. Postmates was allowed to test 3 of the drones simultaneously with a human monitor no less than 30 feet from the vehicle. Deliveries could be made between 8:00AM to 6:30PM on weekdays with the drone traveling at a speed of 3 mph. Using GPS and Lidair sensors, Serve safely travels along sidewalks while avoiding obstacles like humans, pets, fire hydrants, and trash bins. The drone is able to take in it’s environment and make real time decisions as to it’s movements. It is a fully electric, self automated delivery system that can help cut down emissions from small deliveries being made by fuel guzzling vehicles.

The Serve drone will not be sent out on it’s own, but rather be used as a tool to help existing Postmates fleets in cities to complete deliveries. Rather than Postmates couriers needing to continuously move and park their cars, they can park in one central location. The humans can make some deliveries, while Serve carries out some more, saving time, energy, and money. As Postmates released in a blog statement, “Technology can be used to enable us to do more. Too often we hear about the fear that robots will replace our workforce, but people are essential to solving problems on the go. And Serve does just that…Human problems require human solutions…We know our cities are changing. Modernizing our infrastructure can enable new forms of mobility and reduce congestion.”