Tesco Drone Delivery Service: The Trial

By Amber Naylor
The question of needing drone assisted deliveries for the everyday supermarket shopper...

 

One of the largest supermarket giants, have released a statement notifying the public of their new AI induced delivery service. 

The announcement of a Tesco drone delivery service, makes it one of the organisations to join the list of companies aiming to provide automotive deliveries in the near future. The trial period will launch in October 2020, based from County Galway in Ireland. They will endeavor to deliver ‘small baskets’ of consumer goods to the local area, within the first 30 minutes of placing the order. The setup process mirrors that of Amazon’s Prime Air programme, currently underway and well into their journey of understanding and developing the data-engineered technology needed to make this fictional thought into a reality. Trails taking place will aid Tesco in the understanding of which processes are in need of improvement, and give an overall result of how successful and in demand the need for this service will be. 

Back in 2016, Amazon made their first drone delivery within the United Kingdom - from their fulfilment base in Cambridge, to a nearby local resident. The order was delivered within 13 minutes of the original order being placed. From 2016 to 2020, the leap has been made of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) delivering essential hospital supplies - mainland to the Isle of Wight. Although this is a significant step forward within the world of AI technology, there has inevitably been opposing opinions on the subject of drone deliveries. The matter of privacy has been voiced by some residence, not overjoyed at the thought of drones operating above gardens and within private property. They believe it to be intrusive. Although this is a ligitermate query, the largest force of opposition is propelled by the thought of noise pollution. Thought to be too noisy whilst operating, the aircrafts are facing backlash from, not only local residents, but nationwide. Within the previous year, an Institution of Mechanical Engineers report illustrated that only a quarter of UK adults, enthused their support for the idea of drone deliveries. The results showed the main causes for these issues - noise and safety. 

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