Amazon Soon Will Launch a Home-Delivery Drone in This Tiny Town Near Stockton

Nov. 11—One of Amazon's first home-delivery drones could soon descend on the tiny town of Lockeford.

This spot 10 miles northeast of Stockton is one of two pioneers for the online retail giant's Prime Air service. The other is College Station, Texas.

Both sites have undergone planning since July and could start serving residents by the end of the year, spokeswoman Natalie Banke said Thursday.

She provided the update during a media tour of the Robotics Sort Center in Tracy. It uses another kind of high technology to move packages around.

Drones, also known as unmanned aerial devices, have become common around the world. They provide a wide view from above for farmers monitoring their crops, police officers tracking suspects, and other users.

Delivering packages to homes is trickier, because those destinations often sit amid power lines, street trees and other obstacles.

The Lockeford launch involves packages up to five pounds and no larger than a shoe box. The drone will be based there and deliver within a roughly one-square-mile zone, home to about 3,600 people.

The 85-pound device has a hexagon-shaped frame with six electric propellers. It is programmed to fly at an altitude of a few hundred to a spot designated in advance.

"It descends, hovers and safely places the packages," Banke said.

Drones are crash-tested

Amazon earlier tested the drones at the airport in Pendleton, Ore., in a manner similar to crash tests for cars, she said. They have a "sense-and-avoid" capacity that keeps them from hitting obstacles. The testing was done in concert with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Lockeford drone is a design suited to sparsely populated areas. College Station is different, with about 120,000 residents and the campus of Texas A&M University.

Amazon has not announced whether this site or Lockeford will be the first to begin drone service. Also unknown is when it will spread to other locales in California and beyond.

Thursday's tour also featured one of the electric vans that will replace fossil fuels for neighborhood deliveries in many places. They were made by Rivian, based in Irvine. They will be charged in Richmond from power sources that are moving toward 100% renewable, Banke said.

Tracy leads in robotics

The Tracy center is the second in that city, completed in 2020 and employing about 1,000 people. It makes greater use of robotics than centers in Turlock, Patterson and elsewhere, site leader Zac Lim said.

One robot looks something like a Roomba vacuum cleaner and can move up to 500 pounds of merchandise, he said. Another calls to mind a long-billed bird as it grasps packages with suction cups at the ends of its arm.

Use of the robots does not eliminate people's jobs but reduces the risk of repetitive stress and other injuries, Lim said.

Amazon has similar centers near its Seattle headquarters and in San Diego.

This story was originally published November 11, 2022 12:35 PM.

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