Uber Eats drone delivery unveiled

Your Uber Eats order may soon be delivered faster and more efficiently using drones. The drone system includes a design for vertical landing and take-off, and was revealed by the ride-hailing company at the Forbes 30 under 30 summit.

The drone can carry meals for up to two people at once and has both loading and unloading capabilities. It has rotating wings and six rotors to ensure speed and efficiency; and can conduct a 12-mile round trip at one go. The design is similar to flying cars, but rarely used in drones. The reason behind this design is to ensure enough thrust and speed for the drone.

It will also be flying below 400 metres in the US to comply with the existing rules governing drones.

However, if you are expecting the drone to land on your doorstep with food and fly off after delivering it, you are mistaken. Uber's delivery drones will be a part of the process and not the whole process. It will pick up the food from an outlet and deliver it to pre-determined drop-off points, and from there Uber's delivery agents will deliver it to your doorstep.

The delivery drone tracking system owned by Uber – the Elevate Cloud system will track the location of the drone and offer real-time updates to its delivery agents.

The whole purpose of using a drone is to offer faster delivery and not eliminating the need for humans to deliver food.

The company had discussed the possibility of having such a system last year, but had given a timeline of achieving it by 2021. However, it seems to be ahead of this expected timeline and may be able to push the system into commercial work in San Diego by the summer of next year. It has already made a few such deliveries in partnership with McDonald's.