"Data gathered will be shared with government partners to help regulators answer critical safety and human-factors questions for (drone) cargo delivery operations," the White House said in a news release.
Project Wing is part of Alphabet's "X," also known as the experimental "moonshot" unit charged with developing transformative technology. The X section falls under the company's "Other Bets" category of all units that aren't Google. Other Bets collectively lost $859 million last quarter.
However, Alphabet and Google are poised to step into the lucrative commercial delivery market and compete against Amazon, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service from a position of entrenched strength, suggested Gartner analyst Gerald Van Hoy.
"They have the ability to kind of take you from search to purchase to delivery, and that's what the power is behind Google and is why they're interested in doing this," Van Hoy said.
Project Wing's testing at one of six federally approved sites in the U.S. will include evaluation of two capacities critical for large-scale commercial drone delivery: carrying external cargo and delivering goods beyond the operator's line of sight. The important safety and human-element questions to answer revolve around avoiding other aircraft and keeping people on the ground safe, said Skylogic Research drone analyst Colin Snow.
The Federal Aviation Administration's guidelines for commercial drones prohibit flying beyond line of sight and over people not involved in the flight. Both those limitations will have to be removed for commercial deliveries to go ahead, Snow said.
Alphabet's testing site was not identified, but all six federal sites are outside California.
Companies considering drone delivery should welcome Alphabet's testing and the federal government's efforts to facilitate safe drone drop-offs, Van Hoy said.
"The last thing you want to see is some horrific scene on CNN playing in a loop, with your logo on it," Van Hoy said. Other issues to resolve include potential hacking of drones by "bad actors" and insurance requirements for companies doing drone delivery, Van Hoy said.
Alphabet, by participating in the regulatory process, will likely gain advantage by having rules developed in part from its drone operations, and the firm will be well positioned to provide input to regulators, Van Hoy said.
Demand among companies to become involved with drone delivery was highlighted after the FAA last month issued its new rules for commercial drones, he said.
"I immediately started seeing an uptick in interest from our clients with regard to drones," Van Hoy said.
Project Wing, according to the White House, will also be working on an airspace management system, which will be crucial for managing delivery drones, especially in urban areas, Van Hoy said. "You might want to deploy (drones) instead of bicycle messengers," he said.
Other experts see less demand for drone delivery.
"It's a solution in search of a problem," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.
Like Van Hoy, Pachter sees the cost and time necessary for delivering goods to rural areas as a potential opportunity for drone operators, along with drop-off of restaurant food, but he mostly stops there.
"If it's an efficiency solution then maybe it works but I don't think we need it," Pachter said. "I've never gone on Amazon and ordered something I needed that second."
Pachter doesn't believe flying laden drones over heavily populated areas will ever become politically palatable.
"The paranoia of U.S. politicians is such that they will never approve of flying them over large groups of people," Pachter said. "Can you imagine if a drone failed over the freeway and it landed on your windshield? No matter how it works there will be so many regulations that they'll never be as efficient as dreamed."
Snow believes safety devices such as parachutes could address some of the dangers of drone delivery, but Skylogic's research indicates public demand for the service is mostly limited to emergency items. In rural areas, drones could provide "a distinct competitive advantage over ground-based transportation," but otherwise, delivery from the sky "is more marketing than anything else," he said. "It's great headlines."
©2016 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
