IBM has applied for and been granted a patent, U.S. Patent No. 9,561,852, for building a fleet of drones that would be able to pass delivery packages to one another in mid-air.
Ideally, IBM Research some day sees a scenario that would have a customer's personal drone be sent to meet that delivery drone in the air and exchange the parcel. The drones would be built with extendable poles that have electromagnets located on the ends, the package would be attached to the extendable pole on the courier drone.
When the drones fly to meet each other in the air, they would extend the poles which would then lock with one another via magnets. After they get locked then the drones would tilt and allow the package to pass from one drone to another by sliding along the pole.
Drones today are only able to travel so far and this poses a difficulty when it comes to making deliveries to many different areas. If this technology gets implemented, then the drones being able to pass the packages to one another mid-air would really play a big part in extending the range of delivery for drones.
For any packages that might get dropped, the company says that GPS would be able to easily track them. And they could quickly dispatch another drone to take its place and fix the mistake. Through innovation they are trying to improve delivery methods for valuable cargo all around the world.
The co-inventor of the patent, Sarbajit Rakshit, even suggested that this technology could possibly be used some day to help deliver medicine and postal packages in developing countries around the world.
IBM aren't the only ones who have proposed an idea when it comes to looking to solve some issues related to drone delivery. Amazon has also released their own controversial plans for a potential delivery system, they previously were granted a patent for a drone system that would have a flying warehouse deploy drones to send out parcels to their customers.
When it comes to a future with a sky filled with delivery drones, many are eager to see this sort of innovation and technology go toward improving our standard of living. While there are still many who aren't as enthusiastic that it might not be very long before they start to see hundreds of drones flying through their neighborhoods, delivering everything from pizza and groceries to medicine and mail packages.
It might still take quite a while before either of these approaches can successfully navigate through the regulatory hurdle required, in order to bring about this sort of delivery system to full realization.
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Sources:
http://mashable.com/2017/04/26/ibm-delivery-drone-patent/#DRTnWZ62.aq2
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4465436/IBM-plans-build-drones-transfer-packages-mid-air.html
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/29/amazon-flying-warehouse-deploy-delivery-drones-patent.html
https://www.wired.com/2015/08/really-want-amazons-drones-swarm-skies/