{"id":19675,"date":"2019-06-18T03:01:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T07:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/drone-food-delivery-tested-at-sdsu-prior-to-city-wide-launch\/"},"modified":"2019-06-18T03:01:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T07:01:37","slug":"drone-food-delivery-tested-at-sdsu-prior-to-city-wide-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/?p=19675","title":{"rendered":"Drone food delivery tested at SDSU prior to city-wide launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Uber Eats drone delivery program could launch in San Diego as early as this summer, a move that promises increased delivery speed and could potentially bring new restaurant options to the platform.<\/p>\n

The announcement was made at the Uber Elevate Summit and comes after Uber partnered with San Diego State and McDonald\u2019s to test the drone delivery system last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think drone delivery presents an opportunity to dramatically improve that customer experience,\u201d Uber Eats Senior Director of Business Development Liz Meyerdirk said at the conference.<\/p>\n

During Uber\u2019s test-run of their drones at SDSU in May, an order from McDonald\u2019s was placed in a specially designed Uber Eats package, attached to a drone and delivered to a specific drop zone near Viejas Arena. The test was the first step in bringing drone delivery to residents across San Diego.<\/p>\n

Meyerdirk said Uber Eats can currently deliver food to customers in about 30 minutes. But Uber believes by using drone technology, the company could more efficiently deliver food without altering how restaurants prepare food or how customers use the app.<\/p>\n

At the conference, Uber Elevate Head of Flight Operations Luke Fischer demonstrated a conceptual example of an Uber Eats customer in La Jolla who could receive a McDonald\u2019s order in just under eight minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough drone delivery, we are able to open up restaurants to additional customers without negatively impacting food quality,\u201d Fischer said.<\/p>\n

The demonstration showed operators securing a food package to a drone after an order is placed and prepared. Uber drivers are then dispatched to a safe zone near the customer\u2019s location and Uber\u2019s drones are designed to land on QR codes affixed to the roof of the driver\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

Fischer said drone delivery presents a challenge because dense urban environments lack backyards, mailboxes or drop zones to deliver goods to customers. Using Uber\u2019s existing platform, a combination of drone technology and a network of human couriers could solve the problem of urban delivery while increasing delivery speed.<\/p>\n

While McDonald\u2019s is currently unavailable in La Jolla on the Uber Eats platform, Fischer said drones at scale would \u201cexpand McDonald\u2019s potential customer base for delivery\u201d in neighborhoods like La Jolla across San Diego.<\/p>\n

Uber is also reaching out to more traditional restaurants that may not have previously considered delivery or take-out. The company has partnered with local restaurant Juniper and Ivy for drone delivery.<\/p>\n

San Diego was one of 10 state, local and tribal governments to partner with the FAA\u2019s Integration Pilot Program. The program, which launched in 2017, tests the integration of drones into the airspace to assist the FAA in creating regulations for drone operations.<\/p>\n

Clearing federal regulation presents the next step in Uber\u2019s quest to bring drone delivery to San Diego. Uber is currently working to acquire air carrier certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to legally and fully operate their drones for food delivery.<\/p>\n

\"Print<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Uber Eats drone delivery program could launch in San Diego as early as this summer, a move that promises increased delivery speed and could potentially bring new restaurant options to the platform.<\/p>\n

The announcement was made at the Uber Elevate Summit and comes after Uber partnered with San Diego State and McDonald\u2019s to test the drone delivery system last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think drone delivery presents an opportunity to dramatically improve that customer experience,\u201d Uber Eats Senior Director of Business Development Liz Meyerdirk said at the conference.<\/p>\n

During Uber\u2019s test-run of their drones at SDSU in May, an order from McDonald\u2019s was placed in a specially designed Uber Eats package, attached to a drone and delivered to a specific drop zone near Viejas Arena. The test was the first step in bringing drone delivery to residents across San Diego.<\/p>\n

Meyerdirk said Uber Eats can currently deliver food to customers in about 30 minutes. But Uber believes by using drone technology, the company c..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}