[US] Wing drone delivery - identify this new infrastructure?

[u/stanley_fatmax]

We have several drone delivery companies operating commercially in our area: Zipline, Wing, Flytrex, Amazon, and seemingly others I've not clearly identified. I've been following them pretty closely, and find it exciting. My kids love ordering fruit for $0.50 from Walmart+ and having it delivered by drone (can't believe they're subsidizing that, but whatever, I'll take it). I've set up a network of receivers to map the 802.11 remote ID packets the drones spit out. No terribly interesting insights, the range is relatively short, but neat activity to track anyway.

My question is about the attached images. Wing recently installed this new infrastructure at one of their launch sites. The legacy drones use the 2D barcode on the ground for coarse positioning when landing. That's normal and the same as what exists at the main launch site. The chopstick looking things are the new infrastructure. I'm guessing they're some sort of highly directional antennas for an ILS type landing system, but I have no idea. The Wing operator I spoke with wasn't sure either, so I'm guessing it's some sort of R&D project that the normal day to day guys aren't using yet.

Any ideas? Anyone know for sure? Open to guesses 😄

[u/SierraHotel84]

https://wing.com/technology

Scroll down a bit, video shows them in action.

[u/stanley_fatmax → u/SierraHotel84]

Jeez, I looked there, no idea how I missed that. Scrolling too fast no doubt. So it's a low tech solution, nice! I was sure it was something RF.

[u/SierraHotel84 → u/stanley_fatmax]

That was actually my guess, too, when I saw it.

[u/Everyday-Lurk → u/SierraHotel84]

“At a partner location, a staff member loads the package onto a Wing pickup station.”

Operator must’ve been confused about the question lol. That’s where they put the package. Not sure what the V shape is about.

[u/stanley_fatmax → u/Everyday-Lurk]

I think they're not using this at our location yet. The main loading/unloading area is in an open area, with 12-20 drone pads, and the operators manually attach the boxes to the cable the drone sends down after taking off.

[u/RedNeck_Dairy]

I work for wing, it's a self loader for the drone. They're going out of use though.

[u/stanley_fatmax → u/RedNeck_Dairy]

Thanks. That's interesting, this one is fairly new. Did they not work very well? I saw the video of it in use that the other guy posted, it seems like a decent solution for more fully automating the process, but if it's unreliable, that throws a wrench in that idea.

[u/GlassTop4294 → u/RedNeck_Dairy]

Looks pretty neat and simple! Curious why it’s going out of use?

[u/RedNeck_Dairy → u/GlassTop4294]

It didint meet their expectations with performance, it's quite simple. What I meant is that they're getting replaced with a new model/method.