Wal-Mart testing drones for delivery

Walmart plans to use its drones for home deliveries, though Nick said the company’s “initial focus” will be moving products between distribution centers. Dan Toporek, a spokesperson for Wal- Mart, says the world’s largest retailer is waiting for the green light from the FAA and when it receives the go- ahead, it will put its plans into action.

“This is part of our continuous efforts to drive efficiencies in our supply chain and to serve customers faster and better”, a spokesman told AFP. The Company operates through three business segments: Walmart USA, Walmart worldwide and Sam’s Club. To date, drone tests “have been strictly limited to indoor tests”, the retailer said in the letter, which was submitted Monday.

The company also wants to use drones to assist with tracking merchandise, such as taking inventory of trailers outside its distribution centers, according to the filing.

Walmart wants to test whether it can use drones to deliver merchandize packages from a retail facility to an area of a Walmart parking lot where the packages could be accessed by a customer, the request said.

Amazon got federal approval to start testing drones earlier this year. For the previous quarter, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. posted an earnings surprise factor of -3.57% as the reported number came in $-0.04 away from what the Street had anticipated. Typically it takes the FAA 120 days to consider such petitions.

The news comes as other giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have reportedly been working to implement drones with their companies. In June, the agency said it expects to have its regulations in place within a year-well after it expects over a million more drones to be sold as Christmas presents this holiday season.

As the use of drones has increased over the past few quarters, FAA has issued new guidelines which require hobbyist drone users to register their drones with the Department of Transport. Although researchers at ETH Zurich developed a system that allows quadcopters to fly in the event of a rotor failing, most quadcopter drones will fail catastrophically in the event of loss of thrust from one of their four rotors.

The retailer is testing the drones for home delivery, grocery pickup and warehouse stock management.

The commercial use of drones in U.S. skies is now illegal, but companies can apply in order to receive the FAA’s permission.