Google has been awarded a patent on self-driving delivery trucks that would bring packages to your door.
Google’s self-driving delivery trucks would contain lockers that could be unlocked via a PIN code sent to the customer or by using the customer’s credit card or an NFC reader. The lockers will each contain one package, or multiple packages if they can fit and are meant for the same recipient.
Once your package is received, Google’s self-driving delivery truck is either onto its next delivery or back to the warehouse to pick up more packages.
According to the patent, the self-driving delivery truck would use similar combo of sensors, video cameras and lasers to Google’s self-driving cars to see the the world around it.
Google has also been openly working on a drone delivery program, Project Wing, that it hopes to launch in 2017.
The autonomous delivery race is certainly heating up. Amazon Prime Air, of course, has been pitching drone delivery of small items in 30 minutes or less. Amazon said Prime Air will be ready whenever the Federal Aviation Administration figures out how to best integrate commercial drones into the airspace.
[VIA] Quartz[Source] USPO
