Delivery drone provider Wing has expanded its partnership with Walmart to two additional stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area.
Customers living in proximity to Walmart Supercenter on Loop 820 in North Richland Hills and on Tarrant Parkway will now be able to have their groceries delivered by drone in as little as 30 minutes.
Wing and Walmart initially launched the drone delivery service in Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) in 2022 and expanded it to Frisco in September 2023. The companies will continue to grow the service, with plans to offer drone delivery to up to 75% of the DFW population. So far, Wing has carried out over 350,000 drone deliveries to Walmart customers in the area.
How Wing drone delivery works:
- Order – During the initial phase of the partnership with Walmart, customers order through the Wing Drone Delivery app. Thousands of items are available via drone delivery, including groceries, snacks and over-the-counter medicines. During checkout, customers select a precise delivery location on their property.
- Flight planning – While team members at the store prepare the items, Wing’s software automatically calculates a route from the store to the delivery spot, and then back to store. The flight plan is then uploaded to the drone.
- Package pickup – Once the loader indicates the package is ready to go, the drone takes off automatically, proceeds to the pickup area, then hovers about 7m above the ground. The drone uses a winch to lower a tether that the package can be hooked on. The winch pulls the package up to the aircraft and secures it in place.
- Flight – The drone uses vertical propellers to climb to a cruising height of about 45m above the ground, and then transitions to horizontal flight using forward propellers and fixed wings. The drone navigates itself to the delivery spot at speeds of about 105km/h, conducting health checks along the way to make sure everything is operating correctly.
- Delivery – Once it reaches the delivery spot, the drone slows down, hovers, descends to a delivery height of 7m above the ground, and then gently lowers the package. The drone automatically releases the package when it touches the ground – there’s no need for the customer to unclip or assist with the delivery.
- Return – The drone then climbs back to cruise height and returns to the store, where it lands on a charging pad and gets ready for its next mission.
Read an exclusive feature on the applications for drone delivery in the December 2023 issue of Parcel and Postal Technology International.
