Amazon wants drone deliveries to come from flying warehouses

Amazon recently made its first commercial delivery using Prime Air, which generated a lot of buzz online and among media outlets. However, the e-commerce company might not be satisfied with drone deliveries from warehouses it already has around the US and elsewhere. A patent that surfaced thanks to Zoe Leavitt of CB Insights shows Amazon has put a lot of thought into flying warehouses from which drones can deploy to deliver goods.

Amazon refers to the warehouse as an airborne fulfillment center, or AFC. While the concept might invoke images of the Helicarrier from Marvel's Avengers movies, drawings of the AFC in the patent resemble a blimp. Amazon envisions this airship flying at around 45,000 feet and deploying drones as soon as an order is placed.

The advantage of this kind of roving warehouse would allow Amazon to better target areas it believes will soon see a surge in demand. One example the company gives in the patent is a sporting event like a football game. With an AFC, Amazon could move nearby large amounts of goods it expects to be in high demand for the duration of the game like team merchandise or food products. People sitting in the stands could then order peanuts from their phones and have a package delivered to them via drone in a matter of minutes.

If all this seems a bit too far-fetched to be real that is because, for now, it is. Regulations have not even caught up with the commercial use of drones yet much less roving aerial warehouses that deploy such drones. Yet, it was not that long ago that drone deliveries and self-driving cars seemed like far-off impossibilities, too. Technology in these areas have improved rapidly. So perhaps the thing drone makers might want to work on besides improving payload weights is quickly getting those payloads to the ground from thousands of feet above it.