Mercedes just announced that they have reached an agreement with the technology company internet to create what they call vision van. As you can see in the image that is located just above these lines, we are talking about a kind of futuristic van designed to store delivery drones inside. These drones would all be equipped with a series of tasks that they must perform once the van moves close to their location.
With this peculiar van both Mercedes and Matternet literally want change the concept of delivering small packages in reduced distances. For this, the Vision Van has been equipped with a specially designed roof to launch delivery drones, a series of completely autonomous aircraft capable of delivering packages weighing up to two kilograms over distances of close to 20 kilometers in a single flight.
Mercedes and Matternet join forces to change the concept of parcel delivery
As both companies announce, the degree of autonomy of the drone is total since, once launched, it will deliver the package to a pre-established location using software and coordinates. When this action has been executed the drone will be able to return fully automatically to the ground vehicle in search of more packages like a robot can do when its batteries run out, automatically and without the need for human intervention it changes the used ones for new ones.
A detail that we must take into account and that clearly shows us the interest of Mercedes in this whole project is that the German car firm has invested a certain amount in Matternet but has not revealed how much. According to the official SEC documentation, the technology company could have received a investment of 9,5 million dollarswhen the goal of its funding round was $ 11,5 million in venture capital.