Amazon Lands Patents to Recharge Airborne Drones, Protect Their Freight

Amazon landed separate patents Tuesday for enhancing the performance of package-delivering drones, one for recharging them while airborne, the other for an airbag to protect packages dropped from them at a “predetermined height,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. Replacing a drone’s battery is one way to extend its service time in delivering packages, says the airborne-recharging patent (10,099,561) naming five inventors and based on a September 2015 application. A big drawback is the drone’s range is limited “to the extent that it must land so that the power supply can be replaced,” it says. The patent describes a "power” drone that can “generate current from electromagnetic fields emanating from one or more conductors of overhead power lines.” The other patent (10,099,786), based on a Jan. 10 application and naming two inventors, envisions an “airlift package protection” (APP) airbag fashioned after a “stunt airbag” that cushions a skydiver’s impact with the ground. The APP airbag would be formed of polyethylene “to create a volume having an inner non-pressurized cavity to contain a package,” it says. Like the stunt airbag, the APP airbag “may exhaust some air upon impact with the ground, thereby reducing the magnitude of deceleration shock to a package contained inside,” it says. Amazon didn’t comment Tuesday.