United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) is conducting drone delivery tests with the help of drone maker CyPhy Works.
UPS started testing out making deliveries with its drones on Thursday. The tests are designed to see how well a drone can perform when delivering items to areas that are normally difficult to reach. This included a mock test to see how quickly medicine from Beverly, Mass., could be delivered to Children’s Island, which is a three-mile journey.
The mock test to Children’s Island was to deliver an asthma inhaler to a child there. The test was completed without any problems. Children’s Island was selected as a test location due to it being inaccessible by automobile. The location has been used as a children’s day camp since 1955.
The CyPhy drone that was used by UPS in yesterday’s test was the Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications. The drone runs off batteries and handles navigation on its own. It is also equipped with night vision and can communicate with signals that can’t be interrupted or intercepted.
UPS notes that it has already been testing out drones inside its own warehouses. These drones have been used to check inventory on high storage racks. The outside test were performed after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced new rules for commercial use of drones last month.
“Our focus is on real-world applications that benefit our customers,” Mark Wallace, senior vice president of global engineering and sustainability at UPS, said in a statement. “We think drones offer a great solution to deliver to hard-to-reach locations in urgent situations where other modes of transportation are not readily available.”
