Google’s drone delivery project just shared some big news about its future
Project Wing takes part in drone flight tests across the US with NASA
Larry Page, co-founder of Google and CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, promised in his annual shareholder’s letter that there would be exciting things happening with Project Wing this year. Project Wing is the company’s drone delivery project.
On Wednesday, the project shared some news via a post on Medium.
The update reveals that Wing took part in a set of nationwide tests conducted by NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) alongside other drones from other manufacturers like Intel and DJI.
The Wing team was testing something that could wind up being just as important and potentially just as lucrative for Alphabet as the drones themselves: the software that will automatically manage all sorts of drones from many manufacturers as they whiz around the sky.
Project Wing, which is operated under Alphabet X, the R&D unit, has created software for managing robot drones, otherwise known as “unmanned aircraft systems” or UAS, explained Wing’s co-leader James Ryan Burgess.
“Within a few years, Wing and other companies are likely to have fleets with thousands of UAS in the air at any one time, so we’ll need systems that can dynamically route UAS not only around each other, but around manned aircraft, buildings, terrain, weather patterns and special events.
These tests featured three of Wing’s delivery drones, flown by one person; two Intel Aero Ready to Fly drones flown by another person and an automated DJI Inspire drone doing a search and rescue mission. Burgess explained: