Select a region
Google and its parent company Alphabet is teaming up with US food chain Chipotle to test a new scheme that will see drones from the firm’s Project Wing programme delivering burritos to students at Virginia Tech, reports claim.
According to Bloomberg, the pilot scheme has been approved by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and will be coordinated from the university campus by a Chipotle food truck.
So far, most of Project Wing’s testing has taken place in Australia, while Amazon has recently launched a test programme for its Prime Air drone delivery system in the UK.
Now Google wants to get more involved in the rise of the drone industry, and according to reports saw the “unique challenges” of delivering burritos as a good place to start – among them, how to keep food hot during transit using special packaging.
Timothy Sands, president of Virginia Tech said: “It sounds simple, but it’s not. There are a lot of things to work out from a safety point of view and a policy point of view.”
Staff at the university will also be able to take advantage of the scheme – but demand will surely be higher among students suddenly given the chance to have food delivered to their rooms by a flying robot.
