Are Delivery Drones Commercially Viable? Iceland Is About to Find Out

An Icelandic startup called Aha is using a Chinese-made drone and an Israeli logistics system to deliver hot food, groceries, and electronics to households in Iceland's capital city of Reykjavik. These drones don't sense and avoid obstacles--in fact, they don't even have cameras, radar, or any other imaging systems. They fly according to GPS coordinates, along routes certified free of trees, buildings, and other impediments. And with some 500 deliveries completed in the past five months, no injuries have been reported. It works like this: You punch your order into an app on your smartphone ("Two hamburgers, hold the onions") and Aha's cook loads the food onto the drone. Then you track the delivery, go outside to welcome it, and if all's well at the drop-off point, you agree to accept it.