Unmanned aerial vehicle delivery system
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorsGur Kimchi, Daniel Buchmueller, Scott A. Green, Brian C. Beckman, Scott Isaacs, Amir Navot, Fabian Hensel, Avi Bar-Zeev, Severan Sylvain Jean-Michel Rault
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
This disclosure describes an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) configured to autonomously deliver items of inventory to various destinations. The UAV may receive inventory information and a destination location and autonomously retrieve the inventory from a location within a materials handling facility, compute a route from the materials handling facility to a destination and travel to the destination to deliver the inventory.
Claims24
A system for aerial delivery of items comprising:
- a plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, each of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles configured to aerially transport items;
- a management system, including:
- a processor;
- and
- a memory coupled to the processor and storing program instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processors to at least:
- receive from a device a request to order an item for aerial delivery, the item available for purchase through an e-commerce shopping site;
- determine a plurality of potential destination locations for delivery of the item, wherein at least one of the plurality of potential destination locations is determined based at least in part on a location of the device;
- receive a selection of a destination location from the plurality of potential destination locations;
- and
- send to an unmanned aerial vehicle of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, delivery parameters identifying a source location that includes the item and the destination location;
- wherein the unmanned aerial vehicle, in response to receiving the delivery parameters, is further configured to at least:
- navigate to the source location;
- engage the item located at the source location;
- navigate a navigation route to the destination location;
- and
- disengage the item at the destination location.
A computer-implemented method, comprising:
- under control of one or more computing systems configured with executable instructions,
- receiving from a device a request to order an item for aerial delivery, the item available for purchase through an e-commerce shopping site;
- determining, based at least in part on a location of the device, a destination location for delivery of the item;
- selecting an unmanned aerial vehicle;
- sending delivery parameters to the selected unmanned aerial vehicle;
- and
- causing a delivery of the item from a source location to the destination location with the selected unmanned aerial vehicle.
A system for aerial transport of items using unmanned aerial vehicles, comprising:
- a first system configured to at least:
- receive from a device a request to order an item for aerial delivery, the item available for purchase through an e-commerce shopping site;
- determine a plurality of potential destination locations for delivery of the item;
- receive a selection of a destination location from the plurality of potential destination locations;
- and
- determine a source location of the item;
- a plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles, each of the unmanned aerial vehicles configured to at least:
- wirelessly receive information from an unmanned aerial vehicle management system;
- selectively engage and disengage inventory items;
- and
- aerially navigate between a source location and the destination location along a navigation path;
- and
- an aerial vehicle management system configured to wirelessly communicate with each of the plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.