UPS announced Friday that it had successfully used a drone to deliver an inhaler to an island near Boston, according to Laura Stevens and Georgia Wells in The Wall Street Journal.
They quote Chuck Holland, a vice president of industrial engineering, as saying, “UPS has a history of trying to take a look at new technologies as they evolve. We’re looking at this in steps.”
Add Stevens and Wells, “UPS’s delivery marks the first major commercial delivery conducted via drone in the U.S. since the Federal Aviation Administration implemented long-awaited rules in late August authorizing businesses to start using small drones.”
UPS staged the delivery in partnership with Massachusetts robotics company CyPhy Works. An AP report in The Boston Globe says the drone launched from Marblehead and delivered the package to Children’s Island, three miles offshore.
The AP report quotes CyPhy Works founder Helen Greiner, who previously co-founded robot-maker iRobot, as saying, “Drones aren’t going to take the place of all delivery, but there are places where you have inaccessible location, an emergency situation where the infrastructure is down, you want or need the package quickly—these are the areas where drones will be the best way to get a package to a location.’’
