Walmart on Thursday announced that later this month, customers in the fast-growing Dallas-Fort Worth area will be able to order drone delivery directly through the company’s app, with orders arriving in as little as 30 minutes.

Since introducing drone delivery in 2021, Walmart says it has completed more than 30,000 deliveries. As of January, the firm’s DFW service—operated in partnership with industry titans Zipline and Wing, the drone delivery arm of Google parent Alphabet—covers an estimated 1.8 million households.

Not all of these customers will be eligible for drone delivery through the Walmart app, at least not at first.

The retailer described the integration as a phased rollout that will add customers “as more drone delivery sites launch and drone providers receive additional regulatory approvals to fly more goods across greater distances.” Those eligible for delivery, based on the address linked to their account, will be notified through the app.

It’s unclear exactly which regulatory approvals to which Walmart is referring. But it’s worth noting that Zipline, Wing, and another Walmart partner, DroneUp, have all received beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) exemptions from the FAA.

The approval, awarded on a case-by-case basis, allows drone delivery firms to remove the visual observers (VOs) the agency normally requires to keep an eye on the aircraft. Typically, VOs are replaced by a combination of detect-and-avoid technology and remote pilots. The companies believe this reduced human capital will allow them to fly longer routes.

Walmart first enlisted Wing for its DFW service in August, and the partners now fly out of four Walmart stores located in the suburbs. The drone delivery firm has made a point of building technology that can integrate with its partners’ existing networks.

Physical infrastructure is limited to a fenced-in area that typically takes up a fraction of the store’s parking space. The company is also developing a device called the Autoloader, which enables what is essentially curbside pickup, but using drones. Rather than loading orders into the aircraft themselves, store associates would simply place them on the curb, and the Autoloader would do the rest.

Another recent innovation is a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow partners to add drone delivery directly to their e-commerce platforms—a tool Walmart will now leverage.

“Our goal is to make drone delivery completely seamless for our partners and their customers,” said Adam Woodworth, CEO of Wing. “When Wing drone delivery is available within the Walmart app later this month, customers will have a wider selection and a better shopping experience than ever before. This is a major step toward making drone delivery a part of everyday life.”

The company also has a drone delivery integration with DoorDash, which in 2022 became the first company to make a service available through a third-party app. The partnership began in Australia, Wing’s largest market. But the firm in March added fast-food delivery from Wendy’s in Christiansburg, Virginia, through the DoorDash app.

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The company on Tuesday introduced its drone Ecosystem, a suite of ground, air, and software products wrapped into a single platform to enable drone delivery for retailers, healthcare providers, restaurants, and other customers. According to DroneUp CEO Tom Walker, the firm will roll out the solution next quarter and continue adding locations over the next 18 to 24 months.

Walker says the DroneUp Ecosystem is the first fully automated end-to-end drone delivery system. It combines a suite of software operating systems, two next-generation drones, and automated ground infrastructure, which the company believes will make its services more scalable, accessible, and affordable.

In partnership with DroneUp, Walmart operates a network of 36 hubs based out of stores in Florida, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Utah, Arizona, and North Carolina. The world’s largest retailer is also working with drone delivery firms Zipline, Flytrex, and Alphabet’s Wing.

In addition, DroneUp has relationships with state agencies in Utah, Hawaii, Iowa, Florida, and Rhode Island.

“Our work with leading retailers and quick-service restaurants has provided us with valuable insights into the speed and convenience that end customers desire from drone delivery,” said Walker. “Our Ecosystem is designed to exceed those expectations, enabling us to perform millions of deliveries daily.”

The DroneUp Ecosystem comprises three components. On the ground is DBX, a secure outdoor locker with climate-controlled package management that can be stored in spaces smaller than a parking spot. DBX will enable autonomous package pickup and returns for customers. The locker can be reconfigured in a variety of ways, capable of being installed on the side of a building or rooftop. Depending on the configuration, it can hold as many as 100 packages.

The company’s two next-generation drones will be able to land automatically and precisely on top of DBX. The smaller model flies at 60 mph for up to 30 sm (26 nm), which DroneUp says gives the Ecosystem a 15-mile service coverage radius around integrated vendors. It can carry up to 10 pounds of cargo. A higher endurance model can fly for 100 miles round trip and accommodate heavier payloads. Both aircraft are designed to complete deliveries in less than 30 minutes.

The drones come equipped with internal package storage for rain, snow, and sun protection, and are capable of flying in winds as fast as 30 knots. DroneUp says the next-generation models will have industry-leading size and weight capacity to support a higher volume of orders than ever before. In addition, Walker notes they will make about as much noise as a refrigerator when flying at delivery altitude.

Onboard charging technology eliminates the need for ground personnel to swap out the drones’ battery packs, giving them more uptime. Onboard vertical clearance sensing, meanwhile, automatically determines the drone’s height over obstacles. At the delivery site, the drone can release a claw-like package grasper to perform aerial drops or winch up to 120 feet, enabling autonomous pickup and drop-off.

Crucially, the drones can fly from a DBX to a customer’s home or between the outdoor hubs. The automated lockers will be deployed as delivery sites in urban areas to serve apartments, college campuses, office buildings, and other hard-to-reach locations.

The process is simple. A retailer packs and places the order in the DBX, which autonomously secures and prepares it for pickup. The locker then opens its top for a drone’s winch to grab the package. Once the order arrives at another DBX, customers can scan a code or use a mobile app to complete an identification verification process and retrieve it.

Orchestrating the drones and ground infrastructure is an autonomous flight planning and control application. Walker points out that DroneUp operators will function like air traffic controllers, monitoring swaths of airspace rather than individual drones. This will allow a single operator to supervise multiple flights.

The autonomous flight planning system includes digitized maps and advanced flight coordination features, such as detect-and-avoid technology, which DroneUp maintains will enable flights beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS). The company in January obtained FAA approval to fly BVLOS without stationing human observers along routes, joining a handful of firms that also includes Zipline and Wing.

The software’s multidimensional pathfinding system allows drones to fly around, over, or under obstacles, adjusting routes accordingly. The cloud-based system can also accommodate surges in demand by allocating drones to areas with high activity.

The Ecosystem is not DroneUp’s first foray into automation. In 2023, it partnered with Iris Automation to build what is essentially an air traffic control system for uncrewed drones. The company will deploy Iris’ ground-based, detect-and-alert system across a network of “nodes” spread throughout its delivery areas. Much like cellphone towers, these will communicate airspace traffic data to improve BVLOS visibility.

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The drone delivery and logistics company announced Thursday that the regulator has approved it for flight beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the operator, making it one of a handful of companies with a BVLOS waiver for medical deliveries.

“Securing BVLOS approval is a testament to our dedication to safety and innovation,” said DroneUp CEO Tom Walker. “We have some significant technologies coming out of stealth this year, which when combined with BVLOS, will unlock commercial scalability that the industry and our customers have been eagerly awaiting.”

For safety reasons, the FAA requires drone flights to be visually monitored by the operator. However, the agency occasionally awards waivers that enable BVLOS flights with certain restrictions, such as visual observers (VOs) stationed along the route. 

A handful of firms—including another medical drone delivery company, Zipline—advanced past that stage in September, receiving FAA approval to remove VOs as well. DroneUp’s Part 107 waiver requires one or more VOs to monitor for other aircraft in the airspace within 2 sm of the drone. But they won’t need to maintain a visual on the drone itself.

“Our ability to fly BVLOS propels us into the next level of using drone technology, undoubtedly enhancing the efficiency of medical deliveries, ensuring that crucial supplies reach healthcare facilities and patients promptly,” said John Vernon, chief technology officer of DroneUp.

DroneUp said its waiver allows it to immediately begin flying BVLOS for Riverside Health System, a customer with facilities spread throughout Virginia. According to the company, the approval will also clear a path for BVLOS deployments across the country with new and existing customers.

Two other Walmart drone delivery partners—Zipline and Wing, the drone delivery arm of Google parent Alphabet—have similarly expanded their BVLOS permissions as the massive retailer scales its network.

Wing is one of the first drone delivery firms to leverage what the FAA calls a summary grant. Essentially, these are streamlined authorizations for “copycat” companies with similar infrastructure, aircraft, and technology to those who have already been approved. Wing, for example, piggybacked off of Zipline’s BVLOS waiver.

Zipline, UPS Flight Forward, Phoenix Air Unmanned, and uAvionix were the four firms in the FAA’s initial cohort of BVLOS recipients named last year. The agency carefully selected each company in order to open summary grants to a variety of industries. Zipline’s waiver, for example, provides a framework for BVLOS medical drone delivery, while UPS Flight Forward’s does the same for parcel drone delivery.

DroneUp—like Zipline, Wing, and other waiver recipients—says its approval could substantially reduce operational costs by cutting down on required human resources. The authorization could also expand the firm’s operations: Humans will no longer be required to visually observe its drones, creating the potential for longer routes.

Waivers such as DroneUp’s will help the FAA learn more about BVLOS operations as the regulator works to develop a final BVLOS rule. So far, the agency has convened a committee of industry stakeholders and studied its final recommendations. But there is still no firm timeline for an official set of industrywide BVLOS regulations.

In lieu of a final rule, expect the FAA to continue issuing BVLOS waivers and summary grants, which will give certain communities a glimpse of what drone delivery may look like at scale. DroneUp and Walmart currently fly out of 36 hubs in seven states, so perhaps yours will be next.

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About 210,000 now live in Frisco, to the northwest of the fast-growing Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. But that’s not the buzzing I’m referring to. Because accompanying that influx of residents are the first flights of a new technology: drones.

I spent last week in Dallas covering UP.Summit, an annual, invite-only gathering of some of the biggest movers and shakers in the transportation world. Among the attendees were senior U.S. defense officials, state and federal lawmakers, former presidents and prime ministers, and executives from some of the top firms in the industry.

Adam Woodworth, CEO of Wing, fell into the latter group. At UP.Summit, Woodworth detailed the next phase of the company, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet. A large part of that road map relies on Dallas, where Wing last month launched drone delivery out of a Walmart Supercenter in Frisco. It plans to add a second store in the coming months.

A Wing spokesperson gave me an inside look at the company’s newest operation, complete with a simulated delivery to show how its drones take off, navigate, deliver, and return to the Supercenter—all on their own. Read on to see exactly how Wing delivers, hear Woodworth’s vision for drone delivery, and get an outlook on the service as it starts to hit the U.S. market.

The Setup

After listening to Woodworth speak, I hopped in an Uber and headed to Frisco, where I met a Wing spokesperson in front of the Walmart Supercenter at 8555 Preston Road. I didn’t see the operation at first. But upon closer inspection, I came across a small, fenced in area in the parking lot. It took up just two rows of parking spaces and was about the size of a tennis court.

The spokesperson emphasized Wing’s ability to fit into Walmart’s framework seamlessly. After all, the largest retailer in the world needs the parking space for customers, and its associates don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to run a drone delivery operation. 

So, Wing keeps things compact and asset-light. Its store-to-door model, first launched in Australia’s Gold Coast region with grocer Coles, allows it to set up operations in the nooks and crannies of brick-and-mortar stores: in parking lots, on roofs, or in unused space nearby. Meanwhile, all Walmart workers need to do is bring orders to the fenced-in service area.

I arrived at the Frisco Supercenter just minutes before operations began at 10:30 a.m. CDT. A handful of employees were present. But they had little to do as 18 Wing drones charged on launch pads, performing routine maintenance checks on their own.

Even as orders started to come in, staffers—about five of whom were present at any given time—mostly just sat back and watched the drones do their thing. 

An automated flight planning and uncrewed traffic management (UTM) system charted the path of each suitcase-sized aircraft, accounting for factors such as weather, time of day, and the presence of other objects in the airspace. The system also flags issues as they arise and responds to them as needed (such as by grounding a drone assessed to be unfit for operations, for example.)

Ground support operators were on-site, as is the case at other Wing locations. Their job is simple: When a drone encounters an issue, it tells them exactly what the problem is and where it’s located, and the staffer makes what is usually an easy fix. For more complex repairs, drones are set aside to be shipped to a dedicated facility. But there were no hiccups when I was present.

While there was also a pilot at the Frisco site, he was only there for me. The flights I witnessed were actually overseen from a Remote Operations Center in another Dallas suburb, Coppell, about an hour’s drive away.

That facility and another near Wing’s Palo Alto, California, headquarters control the company’s operations nationwide, including its service in Christiansburg, Virginia. Pilots at these centers are akin to air traffic controllers, watching dots on a screen.

All of that automation and remote oversight left Walmart associates with a simple task: Bring orders out to the drones. From there, a Wing order loader attached the payload to the drone’s tether, using a tablet to match it to the right aircraft.

Soon, staffers will have even less to do. Wing recently introduced the AutoLoader, a new piece of tech that will allow workers to leave containers out for the drones to pick up themselves. The company demonstrated the concept at UP.Summit, likening it to curbside pickup.

How It’s Delivered

The Wing spokesperson simulated a delivery so that I—and now you—could see the whole process in action.

The order (a water bottle) was sent to the order loader, who waited for the drone to rise and release its tether before attaching a small, Walmart-branded container. Then, the aircraft ascended and zipped off to its destination, a nearby staging area.

Initially, the buzzing was pretty loud. But it quickly faded into the background as the drone reached cruising altitude, making it difficult to hear unless you were listening for it.

In the air, it cruised at 65 mph (56 knots) at roughly 200 feet, beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the ground crew. Because flights are preplanned, the drone accounted for how conditions such as wind would affect its battery. Still, onboard sensors kept an eye out for any unexpected changes, and the spokesperson said the drone could continue flying in moderate rain or even snow.

As we walked to the staging area, a countdown timer on the Wing app gave us an ETA. The spokesperson assured me this was exact, since the entire route was planned in advance. Sure enough, like clockwork, the drone emerged on the horizon on schedule, descending to about 25 feet before lowering the order to the ground with its tether. If pulled, the tether and payload would release and the aircraft would return to the parking lot.

A countdown on the Wing app estimated the delivery time down to the second. [Jack Daleo/FLYING]

Finally, water bottle in hand, I walked with the spokesperson back to the staging area, where the drone returned to the landing pad just six minutes after the order was initially placed. That’s far less time than a delivery driver would need to complete the trip. While the service is still relatively small, Wing envisions those same benefits for retailers nationwide.

Wing Is Not Winging It

Some drone delivery companies have struggled to garner customers due to overly ambitious plans, premature launches, or some combination of the two. Wing, with its deliberate approach, is not one of them.

In the 30 or so minutes I spent at the Frisco Supercenter, I saw at least 10 organic orders come in from customers. Residents within 6 miles of the store can pick from over 1,000 items (the most popular being rotisserie chicken), including fragile items like eggs, since the container locks into place in the air to prevent swaying. Frozen foods such as ice cream are also on the menu, even in Texas, because delivery times can be as fast as three minutes.

The store—combined with another, unnamed Supercenter that will begin service later this year—is expected to serve about 60,000 households. And customers have been clamoring for Wing to add even more coverage in the region, according to the spokesperson.

But Dallas is just the tip of the iceberg. Wing so far has completed more than 350,000 deliveries, with the vast majority happening outside the U.S.

The company got its start in Canberra, Australia, in 2019, expanding to the suburb of Logan and adding service in Helsinki later that year. To date, Logan is the company’s largest service—on some days, it handles over 1,000 deliveries, or one every 25 seconds. Partnerships with restaurants such as KFC have given its Australia business a boost.

Recently, Wing expanded operations in Queensland with property development group Mirvac and on-demand delivery provider DoorDash, which has an integration with the company’s service. Instead of using the Wing app, Queensland customers simply place their orders on DoorDash and select the drone delivery option.

In the U.S., operations are less substantial. Wing began serving Christiansburg, Virginia, in 2019, where one couple has received more than 1,200 deliveries. Outside Christiansburg and Dallas, it’s largely been limited to testing and demonstrations: A delivery of Coors beer and peanuts to Coors Field in Denver, the drop-off of a ceremonial tee-off golf ball for the Sports Illustrated Invitational, and some testing near its Palo Alto headquarters and Hillwood’s AllianceTexas.

Wing is also partnered with Walgreens to expand store-to-door service in the U.S. and is working with Hillwood to prepare a special delivery facility at Frisco Station, a mixed-use development not far from the Supercenter.

Speaking at UP.Summit, Woodworth was bullish on Wing’s domestic prospects. He emphasized a few tricks the company has up its sleeve, such as the Wing Delivery Network philosophy it revealed last year. The decentralized, automated system will share resources across each of the company’s service areas based on spikes and lulls in demand. That way, Wing can send capacity wherever it’s needed, allowing it to service larger, more populated areas.

Woodworth also highlighted Wing’s Aircraft Library team, which develops new drone configurations based on components the company already uses. The idea is to help meet the unique payload, range, or other requirements of its customers. Then there’s the AutoLoader, which figures to make matters significantly easier for store associates.

Combined with a small ground footprint, high levels of automation, and APIs (like the one for DoorDash) to integrate drone delivery directly into customers’ sales channels, Wing’s new tools should push it toward offering a service that’s fast, cheap, and good—not just two of the three—as Woodworth put it.

Walmart will certainly hope that’s the case. The retailer is looking to jumpstart its drone delivery business, which it said has completed just 10,000 deliveries over the past two years. That’s despite operating a total of 36 hubs across seven states in partnership with DroneUp, Flytrex, and Zipline, the industry leader in terms of sheer volume with 700,000 deliveries and counting.

According to McKinsey, Zipline and Wing are not the only key players in the space. It said more than 10 drone operators made at least 5,000 commercial deliveries in 2022, delivering nearly 875,000 packages (an 80 percent increase over 2021). And with 500,000 deliveries completed through the end of June, the company forecasts over 1 million by year’s end.

The majority of these are healthcare deliveries centered in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, largely owing to Zipline’s dominance. But per data from McKinsey, North American market share is on the rise this year, while the European market is fading.

The North American market would get a lift from more clarity on BVLOS operations. An FAA committee began developing regulations in 2021, but there is still no final rule in sight. That could change with the passage of the House FAA reauthorization bill, which calls on the agency to produce a BVLOS Notice of Proposed Rulemaking within four months of its effective date.

As things stand, Wing operates BVLOS under a Part 135 certificate, becoming the first drone delivery firm to obtain one in 2019. But the process is often expensive and lengthy, with Zipline, Amazon, UPS Flight Forward, and Flytrex partner Causey Aviation Unmanned holding the only other approvals. 

The cheaper, shorter alternative is a waiver to section 91.113(b), which the FAA awards intermittently. Recently, Zipline, UPS and a few other firms successfully took this route. 

But a final BVLOS rule would allow Wing and others to scale, expanding current service areas and adding new ones in places spread out, hard to reach, or obstructed by obstacles (such as tall buildings). It could also reduce costs by allowing drone firms to assign a single pilot to multiple aircraft, as Wing does, and offer customers a simpler path to sustainable operations as executives focus increasingly on ESG initiatives.

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The massive retailer on Thursday announced a partnership with Wing, the drone delivery arm of Google parent Alphabet, to deliver quick meals, groceries, household essentials, over-the-counter medicines, and more to residents through the air. Deliveries are expected to arrive in under 30 minutes straight to the customer’s yard, driveway, front door step, or other location of their choosing. 

The service will launch from two Walmart Supercenters in the coming weeks and reach around 60,000 homes.

“This is a major milestone for Wing as we continue down our path toward building capabilities to support some of the most significant delivery operations in the world,” wrote Shannon Nash, chief financial officer of Wing, in a blog post. “Our technology is designed to complement existing delivery offerings, making overall systems more efficient and able to meet real customer needs.”

The partners will begin with a Walmart store at 8555 Preston Road in the northern suburb of Frisco, adding large sections of the central and eastern parts of the town to its service area. Customers had been requesting an expansion since the service began delivering to Frisco in 2021.

Dallas-Fort Worth area residents can determine if they are eligible for drone deliveries by downloading the Wing app, creating an account, and entering their address. A “Coming Soon” message means you’ll be eligible for the new service on Day 1. The app may also say you are eligible, but do not live in the right area—Wing said it will add additional neighborhoods soon and to check back “in a few weeks.”

A second nearby store will join the delivery network before the end of this year, with more expected down the road. For now, the service will be available to homes within 6 miles of participating stores.

When the expanded Dallas service launches, Wing said it will expand hours of operation to 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. to provide more evening service. It will also extend availability to six days a week, delivering every day except Wednesday.

For Walmart, the partnership builds on more than two years operating drone delivery services in the U.S. The retailer has completed more than 10,000 deliveries out of 36 stores across seven states. It currently operates 11 drone hubs in the Dallas area and will now add two more. Most of these are overseen by longtime drone logistics partner DroneUp.

“Working with Wing directly aligns with our passion for finding innovative and eco-friendly last-mile delivery solutions to get customers the items they want, when they want them,” wrote Prathibha Rajashekhar, senior vice president of innovation and automation for Walmart U.S., in a blog post. “With drones that can fly beyond visual line of sight, we’re able to unlock on-demand delivery for customers living within an approximate 6-mile range of the stores that offer the service.”

Wing’s drones cruise at around 65 mph and use a tether to deliver cargo to precise locations in urban and suburban settings. Operators oversee the aircraft from remote command centers, flying beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) in many cases. The company relies on its Wing Delivery Network model, which uses stores as delivery hubs, allocates drones across the network, and enables convenient options like curbside pickup.

Wing first landed in the Dallas area in 2021, when it began trialing a new delivery model that staged delivery drones in tiny hangars at Walgreens retail locations: on roofs, in parking lots, and adjacent to the building.

Its commercial service in the area launched in full in April 2022, delivering from Walgreens, Blue Bell Creameries, Easyvet, and an array of local and national retailers. At many locations, store associates load the drones rather than Wing employees. Earlier this year, it began offering special deliveries to events in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, such as sunscreen for pool parties or orange slices for soccer games.

The company also flies in Christiansburg, Virginia, where it launched its first U.S. service in 2019. Its biggest services, though, are in Australia; it’s flown in Queensland since 2019, where the city of Logan (a suburb of Brisbane) sometimes sees 1,000 deliveries per day. Wing has also delivered in Helsinki since 2019.

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According to a CNBC report citing two unnamed people who lost their jobs, the Walmart partner began cutting jobs across the company and informing staffers they were let go Monday morning. DroneUp CEO Tom Walker did not specify the exact number of cuts but told FLYING they represented “a small percentage of the team.” He said the firm’s headcount now stands at 418.

According to Walker, the layoffs represent a strategic part of the company’s shift away from “enterprise” services—such as construction, real estate inspections, aerial data capture, and marketing—and toward drone delivery of items like paper towels, ice cream, and rotisserie chickens.

“After tremendous consumer adoption of our drone delivery services, we have made the decision to shift our business model to align our company structure around the continued growth and success of drone delivery and other drone services out of our hubs,” he said.

Walker also claimed that, over the next six months, DroneUp “will hire more people than were laid off,” owing to increased growth in the drone delivery business. The implication is that the company may establish new positions within the drone business, particularly at its hubs, the bases of operation for its services. DroneUp operates 36 hubs out of Walmart stores.

It’s unclear exactly which teams were affected by Monday’s layoffs, but LinkedIn offers some clues. According to posts made by former DroneUp employees this week, the company fired its head of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) flight training, a flight engineer, a development services engineer and a UAS flight instructor.

Two marketing managers, two business analysts, and the director of business development also appear to be included in the cuts, per LinkedIn posts.

Though layoffs are rarely a positive indicator, DroneUp’s appear to be relatively small. The Virginia Beach, Virginia-based company is also not the only drone firm to trim headcount in recent months.

In January, Amazon’s Prime Air drone division was hit with “significant” layoffs as part of a companywide headcount reduction. Around the same time, Wing, the drone delivery arm of Alphabet, was also impacted by job cuts affecting the broader business. Since then, Amazon’s drone network has stagnated while Wing appears to be on track.

It’s difficult to say what DroneUp’s outlook will be. The Walmart-DroneUp network is coming off a record year that saw it expand to seven states and complete more than 6,000 deliveries.  Recent partnerships with Iris Automation and Wonder Robotics should eventually enable beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) services—which will help it scale further.

Currently, Walmart and DroneUp operate within a 1.5-mile radius of their store-based hubs. Increasing that range could go a long way toward expanding the market for those services and increasing demand.

All of that depends on BVLOS-enabling technology being tested and approved by the FAA and other entities. But clearly, delivery—and expanding the capabilities of hubs—is where the company’s focus will be moving forward.

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The agreement could open up Walmart and DroneUp’s service, which is arguably the largest commercial drone delivery operation in the U.S., to flights beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the operator—something that has eluded the companies thus far. 

Unlike Zipline, American Robotics, and others, DroneUp and Walmart’s service does not rely on a Part 135 waiver from the FAA, which in certain cases allows for BVLOS flights. Rather, they’ve opted to fly their drones where operators can see them, limiting most deliveries to a 1.5-mile radius.

However, the Iris partnership hints at the companies’ larger ambitions. Under the agreement, DroneUp will deploy Iris’ ground-based detect-and-alert system, Casia G, across a network of “nodes” spread throughout its delivery areas. These nodes would function much like cell towers, communicating airspace traffic data to improve BVLOS visibility.

To do so, Casia G relies on artificial intelligence and computer vision technology that detects approaching aircraft in a 360-degree field, as far as 1.75 miles away. But that range becomes unlimited in a multi-node network, like the one DroneUp is proposing.

By stationing Iris’ tech at launch and recovery points and throughout delivery zones, DroneUp could create a rudimentary air traffic control system for drones, one that detects aircraft, classifies them, and issues alerts whenever they fly into the operating area. That would give operators a holistic view of the airspace—and make BVLOS flights inherently safer.

“Through the use of Casia G, DroneUp will be able to remove visual observers – creating a path to more economical scaling of their operations while simultaneously improving safety,” said Jon Damush, CEO of Iris Automation.

Because the FAA does not yet have regulatory standards for BVLOS flights, companies like Zipline have gotten away with them via individual waivers or approvals. Until that changes—which it soon could—that’s the likely path for DroneUp, too.

The FAA is very picky about awarding BVLOS permissions. But Zipline was able to secure its approval by flying millions of BVLOS miles in sub-Saharan Africa. DroneUp could do the same by demonstrating its airspace visibility system in a controlled or limited environment—or, it could try flying somewhere with looser BVLOS restrictions.

“The technology behind Casia G for BVLOS has the potential to be a game-changer in demonstrating that delivery in more populated areas can be as convenient and secure as it currently is in rural environments,” explained DroneUp CTO John Vernon. “Through this partnership DroneUp can dramatically scale operations, freed from restrictions.”

Currently, DroneUp and Walmart operate services out of 36 store-based hubs across seven states, upholding the promise Walmart made about a year ago. According to the world’s largest retailer, that translates to about four million eligible customers. 

Yet the network made only around 6,000 deliveries in 2022—very respectable by drone delivery standards, but far from the kind of market capitalization the firms are eyeing. The collaboration with Iris could capture more of those dormant shoppers. 

According to Walmart, it has about 4,700 stores within 10 miles of 90 percent of the U.S. population, meaning its current 1.5-mile delivery radius reaches just a fraction of them. Adding BVLOS capabilities would expand that range, and therefore the network’s reach, exponentially. Not only that, but it would allow more Walmart stores—particularly those in dense urban areas—to double as drone delivery hubs.

Before that happens, DroneUp will need to prove to the FAA that its airspace visibility system is legit. But if it does, the Walmart-DroneUp network could shatter 2022 figures.

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That appears to be the goal for Virginia Beach-based drone delivery firm DroneUp. The Walmart partner, which powers the retailer’s largest-in-the-nation commercial drone delivery network, recently announced its plans to test hydrogen fuel cell technology from Doosan Mobility Innovation (DMI), one of the first firms to commercialize hydrogen-powered drones.

According to DroneUp, its collaboration with the South Korean firm launched in October 2022, so the two have presumably spent months optimizing the tech for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). Meanwhile, its drone delivery rivals—like Amazon Prime Air, Alphabet’s Wing, Flytrex, Matternet, and Zipline—have yet to commit to testing hydrogen fuel cells.

“The technology industry evolves incredibly quickly and the drone industry evolves even faster,” said John Vernon, chief technical officer of DroneUp. “It is absolutely critical we explore new technology like this and continue testing and validating how it can help us move forward. This collaboration is really interesting because it addresses two major aspects of commercial drone services, increasing flight time and reducing carbon emissions.”

As Vernon alluded to, hydrogen fuel cells like DMI’s can extend flight times: sometimes exponentially. In this case, DroneUp and DMI said the latter’s technology will enable flights between two and five hours, whereas many battery-powered models max out at around 20 minutes. So far, that’s limited DroneUp and Walmart to short, close-range deliveries.

And DMI has already backed up that assertion in previous test flights. Take, for example, a November 2019 trip that traversed 43 miles over open ocean, carrying mock vials to simulate the delivery of vaccines or test samples. The flight lasted one hour and 43 minutes, and the aircraft landed with enough hydrogen in the tank for another 30-minute trip.

The reason for those gains is twofold. For one, hydrogen fuel cells have relatively high energy density compared to electric batteries, allowing them to store energy for longer periods. But they are also quick and easy to replace, minimizing the time that would normally be spent on charging. 

One caveat, though, is that hydrogen fuel cells also have low power density, which translates to a low thrust-to-weight ratio. In other words, the heavier the aircraft, the less thrust produced relative to weight, meaning larger drones may be better served by traditional fuel sources.

To Vernon’s other point, hydrogen is considered a zero-emission fuel with major environmental benefits. Although electric batteries are also a zero-emission source, they typically deteriorate much faster and require more frequent replacements. Both options are significantly less wasteful than a standard internal combustion engine.

Hydrogen fuel can be produced in a number of different ways, primarily through methods like steam reforming, electrolysis, solar power, and biological reactions. But it’s important to note that some of these processes require the use of fossil fuels, which can undo some of hydrogen’s green benefits.

The production of lithium, the main component in most electric batteries, also comes with environmental side effects like air pollution from mining operations.

So, will other drone firms follow DroneUp? Another drawback of hydrogen fuel cells is the operational costs they incur, which so far has contributed to relatively low adoption in settings like trucking. But a few other drone companies are eyeing the emerging tech.

Last month, Germany’s Wingcopter announced a partnership to bring green hydrogen to its fleet, making it one of the largest drone delivery firms in the world to set such a goal. Then there’s Israel’s Heven Drones, which in February introduced a hydrogen-powered drone capable of flying for over 90 minutes.

And while Amazon Prime Air has lots of work to do getting its drones off the ground, in 2022 it did sign a green hydrogen supply deal with Plug Power, which is building hydrogen fuel cells for small UAS models. The e-commerce giant has not said anything about bringing that technology to its drones, but the relationship could open the door to hydrogen-powered models.

With the exception of a few smaller firms, most drone companies are not yet looking at hydrogen fuel cells. It’s possible, though, that things play out the way many predict it will in trucking – a future where hydrogen and electric power coexist as zero-emission fuel sources.

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