An autonomous delivery truck operated by Wing, a division of Alphabet (Google's parent company), crashed into power wires and caught fire from 11,000 volts of electricity in Brisbane, Australia.
Gizmodo said the event occurred after the drone "precautionary controlled "landed on the nearby electrical wires. Wing had to inform Energex right away. A significant power loss happened during the retrieval operation.
Drone Delivery Service in Australia Crashes to Power Lines
The 45-minute electrical outage impacted some 2,000 people in the suburb of Browns Plains, and 300 additional people in the neighborhood experienced power outage for three hours.
"[The delivery drone] landed on top of 11,000 volts; and while it didn't take out power, there was voltage tracking across the drone and the drone caught fire and fell to the ground," Energex spokesman Danny Donald said (via Australian newspaper The Age).
"So we didn't actually have to get the drone off, as such, it actually caught fire and incinerated itself," added Donald.
The network was not permanently harmed due to the fast action of the Energex team.
Donald called this occurrence a first. It doesn't happen often, which can be a good thing.
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Nevertheless, he declared that everyone, including businesses, must exercise caution to prevent objects from colliding with the electrical wires. These may be street and traffic lights, drones, or even kiddie kites. A "common sense" approach must be used, he said.
A Wing spokesman apologized to all the houses and people who were impacted and said that the company's staff is also investigating what happened.
About Drone Delivery Services
Newsweek reported that Wing and other drone delivery services worldwide are growing in popularity. Retail giant Walmart said in May that it will be extending its drone delivery network to 34 locations by the end of the year in collaboration with DroneUp, possibly reaching four million American households in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.
Walmart said that, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., shoppers will be able to purchase from a list of tens of thousands of items, including food and home goods weighing up to 10 pounds, for a delivery price of $3.99.
Since then, the company has increased its commercial delivery volume by 200,000 since announcing a collaboration with the major grocery chains in the nation. That amounted to nearly 1,000 orders each day, or roughly one delivery every 25 seconds. In addition to food and drink, Wing was able to give medical supplies and hygiene goods.
The characteristics of Wing's technology may be observed in the company's success.
Its airplane gadget can deliver the cargo without touching down. The parcels are suspended by a tether as the drone flies to its desired position, dips to a height of seven meters, and then lowers them. It is set up to automatically discharge the objects onto the ground.
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