The company filed a patent for the idea on December 22 that was discovered by CB Insight’s analyst Zoe Leavitt on Wednesday. Its Prime Air initiative aims to deliver products to customer homes without the use of outside logistics companies.
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Earlier this month, Amazon tested its first drone delivery in the United Kingdom, dropping off an Amazon Fire Stick streaming device and popcorn in 13 minutes. Each airship would be stocked with an inventory of commonly-ordered goods, along with a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Amazon’s floating warehouses would be circling the city at a height of 45,000 feet and it is from here that it would be launching the drones that would carry out customer’s orders. Inside that warehouse is a selection of lightweight products the company sells through its e-marketplace. Once customers at the event place an order, the items could be delivered “within minutes”, CNBC reported.
Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, Washington state in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, has called its ground-based warehouses, which also works as regional distribution hubs, across the world “fulfillment centers”.
It should be noted that Amazon’s airborne fulfillment center is still at just the patent stage as of now.
Workers could also rely on these shuttles to ride to and from AFCs. If it was, it would be attached to a UAV multicopter drone (seen below), which would then be released from the AFC. Amazon also plans to develop shuttles that would transport goods, drones, and people from the AFC to the ground and vice versa.
This new AFC concept could serve as a boon for logistics handling, but when it might happen is still unclear. The filing for the AFC is just one of the many steps Amazon has taken to enable drone delivery.
“An AFC may navigate to an area based on various positioning factors”.
Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
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As Amazon inches closer to establishing a drone delivery system, the e-commerce giant may one day keep its inventory in the sky.
