Ever since toy drones become popular and Amazon suggested drone deliveries, everyone seems to have has decided that drone delivery services are inevitable, and will arrive in the near future.

There are however a number of hurdles. For example, for surburban deliveries, these need to be solved:

• air traffic control for drones
• what heights would they travel at?
• how will they avoid trees and powerlines?
• do they have the right to land on private property?
• where do they leave their deliveries?

In the CBDs of cities there are extra levels of difficulty:

• nowhere to land
• drones will need to enter buildings

Here’s a Solution

Downtown there is a type of real estate that is under-utilised and in abundance: rooftops.

1. Aerial drones fly from depots in inner suburbs, and land on a rooftop
2. Rooftops have recharging stations and wheeled drones
3. Deliveries are transferred from the aerial drones to wheeled drones
4. Wheeled drones take a small elevator attached to the outside of the building, down to the pavement below
5. Wheeled drones make their way around the city, and within buildings, and deliver
6. Wheeled drones return to the rooftop and recharge

Deliveries can be to and from the CBD, as well as inter-CBD. The key ingredient will be a unifying 3D mapping service.

How Soon?

Expect a hybrid solution to be many years away. But right now a wheeled drone product has emerged in London.

Starship is basically a self-driving shopping trolley that makes deliveries: