Just a few months after publishing an ambitious drone delivery patent that would combine delivery vans with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Ford Motor Co. may have upped its own ante.
As company watchdog Ford Authority noted on Monday, a patent filing the automaker (NYSE: F) made in June 2021 and quietly published earlier this month calls for “systems and methods for operating drone flights over public roadways.”
Some within the drone industry refer to the delivery method being laid out in Ford’s patent as a “drone highway,” an aerial corridor above a public road and other property that state governments can lease to drone delivery providers.
