In the application filed with the FAA, Wal-Mart said it also wants to test home delivery in small residential neighborhoods after it gains the permission needed from those living in the flight path. Wal-Mart will have to wait until it does further testing before it can determine if or when drones will become part of its daily operations, spokesman Brian Nick said. “There’s a Wal-Mart within 5 miles of 70 percent of people in the US, so that presents a few unique and interesting possibilities for serving customers with drones”. When Amazon did offer up its drone delivery ideas to the FAA, the FAA was pleased, for it believed Amazon’s plans were good. To date, drone tests “have been strictly limited to indoor tests”, the retailer said in the letter, which was submitted Monday.
Advertisement
Wal-Mart says data acquired from its drones could be useful for business analytics.
Wal-Mart Stores has asked the Federal Aviation Administration for an exemption to test the use of drones in its supply chain.
Finally, the company wants to test drones to conduct surveillance of its buildings and parking lots, and to inventory trailers and other items in its parking lots.
At present, commercial use of drones is prohibited in the USA, but the FAA has been granting a number of companies waivers that allow them to fly for commercial purposes. Google had been testing its single-wing “Project Wing” delivery drone over private land that it was leasing from NASA, while Amazon took its UAVs to in Canada.
If permitted, the test flights would show whether drones could be used for delivering packages to a pick-up points in Walmart’s parking lots, the retailer’s application said.
Wal-Mart’s moves to streamline its logistics and clean up its act in stores has the mega-retailer also disappointing its suppliers, reports the Wall Street Journal. The FAA is in the process of finalizing regulations that would see companies be able to use drones in this way, with FAA Deputy Administrator Michael Whitaker saying in June that it was working to have regulations finalized within 12 months.
Advertisement
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is next slated to report quarterly results on 2015-11-17 where the Street is anticipating earnings per share of $0.98.
