Project Wing delivers real stuff in Australian real locations

Project Wing (X’s drone delivery project), are testing their drone delivery technology with households in south-eastern Australia. For the first time anywhere, they have made drone deliveries directly to the yards of testers (deliveries for their last pilot took place in an open field at Virginia Tech).

And starting this week, testers will be able to use the Project Wing app to purchase goods from our Australian test partners — Guzman y Gomez Mexican food, or Chemist Warehouse over-the-counter medicines and personal care items — and have these items delivered to their yard by drone in a few minutes.

The pilot program allows Google to gather valuable feedback from people who will one day benefit from drone delivery technology.  Testers, who live on semi-remote acreages on the border of the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales in Australia, have told Google that drones could be useful for delivering meals, groceries, medicines, farm supplies, or even spare parts in the event of a car breakdown.

Additionally, testing will help fine-tune how drones move goods from where they’re located to where they’re most needed. Google is learning how to select safe and convenient delivery locations in people’s yards that avoid obstacles like trees, powerlines, and lawnmowers.  Gathering feedback from delivery partners to ensure our systems are intuitive and easy-to-use for merchants who’ll one day want to deliver their goods using delivery drones.

James Ryan Burgess, the Co-Lead for Wing wrote more on Medium.