Drone
deliveries on golf courses are now a thing in Japan.
This as Japanese firm Rakuten is testing the idea of
delivering refreshments to golfers out on the green as reported in the article “‘Fore! Beers
please.’ Golfers in Japan will soon get drinks delivered by drone”,
published March 28, 2016 By Lulu Chang, Digitaltrends.
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No one is quite sure which golf courses in Japan
will be used to test out this form of drone delivery. However, good candidates
are the golf courses in the eastern part of eastern Tokyo near the University
of Chiba.
Whenever this testing it taking place, NOT in the US
of A, where Amazon is lobbying Washington like crazy just to get a slice of the
Drone Deliver game as noted in the article “Here's How Amazon Is Fighting
for U.S. Drone Deliveries”, published MARCH 21, 2016 by Hilary Brueck, Fortune.
Still, to their credit, they've released an updated
version of their deliver drones in November 2015 that look much uglier but are
a lot more efficient as noted in my blog article
entitled “Amazon
Prime Air new Hybrid Drone - How VTOL Drone Design is best for Commercial Drone
delivery services”, so they're not behind in term of technology
However, it'll be 2017 before the FAA (Federal
Aviation Authority) will allow commercial drones flights.
To hasten the decision of the FAA, Google, Amazon
and other silicon Valley Tech titans have teamed up to develop standards for a
ATC (Air Traffic Control System) as detailed in my blog article
entitled “@NASA
Air Traffic Control System – Why @Google, @Amazon and @Verizonwireless want an
ATC ahead of FAA's New Guidelines in 2016”.
So comparison with Amazon aside, how does Rakuten
drone delivery of munchies onto the golf course work?
Rakuten
and the Golf Drones - The Days of the Caddy are Numbered as Drones will replace
them
Japanese firm Rakuten, however, is not as overly
ambitious as Amazon. The idea is that golfer can place an order for anything
using their smartphones and a companion app.
The quadcopter drone, which are Mini Surveyor drone
developed by the Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory as reported in the
article “Delivery
drone flies drinks and balls to golfers in Japan”, published 28 March 2016
by Nick Summers, Engadget can carry
replacement golf balls and even refreshment.
Once confirmed, these are then whisked via a
quadcopter drone once the order has been confirmed, making the deliver in much
the same way a caddy would deliver these items.
Suddenly, I realized, pizza delivery boys aren't the
only persons whose jobs are in danger if the Domino's DRU (Dominoes Robotic
Unit) begins rolling out as noted in my blog article
entitled “How
Marathon Robotics Dominoes Robotic Unit will replace Pizza Delivery in New
Zealand”.
If this becomes a thing on golf courses, soon all
college students who caddy to make end meet will have to find other means of
making an extra buck, especially as fast food restaurants will be manned by
robots as prophesied in my blog article
entitled “Fast
Food Robot taking over by 2017 - How Drones like Amazon and PrimeAir and not
Humanoid Robots will be the first Robots by 2015”.
Well, it' nothing new really as I've seen this
before in China with cake deliveries as far back as 2013 as noted in my blog article
entitled “SF
Express Drones in China Deliver Cake and Zookal Drones deliver Rental Textbooks”.
Deutsche Post aka DHL has been making regular
deliveries to the island of Juist in Germany since September 2014 as reported
in my blog
article entitled “DHL
Parcelcopters make deliveries to Juist off Germany’s coast – Why Progress of
Drones in West slower than in the East for same-day delivery”.
Closer to Japan, Singapore’s Postal Service,
SingPost in collaboration with IDS (Infocomm Development Authority) of
Singapore had tested the delivery of Postal Mail via Drone since October 2015
as noted in my blog
article entitled “SingPost
Postal Package Delivery Drones - Why Postal Corporation of Jamaica Mini-Drone
Airports for Jamaica”.
If this becomes widespread in Japan, the world is
next. The Days of the caddy are at an end as we send in the Drones.
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