‘Fore! Beers please.’ Golfers in Japan will soon get drinks delivered by drone

By Lulu Chang March 28, 2016

This is what progress looks like. In what may be the most productive use of drone technology yet, Japanese firm Rakuten is toying with the notion of delivering refreshments to golfers while they’re on the course. Because sometimes, getting into your golf cart and getting off the green just to get a snack is too much to handle.

With this new concept, golfers will be able to place an order for anything from a drink to replacement golf balls using their smartphones and a companion app, and once the order has been confirmed, a quadcopter will make its way over to the awaiting athlete (pro or amateur, it really doesn’t matter), and make its delivery.

Sure, drones have been floated as a major player in the future of golf before (everything from capturing unique shots of the game to a new game altogether known as drone golf), but this really takes things to a whole new level.

For the time being it’s unclear which golf course will be the lucky test case for this new drone project, though we do know that it will be one of the greens located in eastern Tokyo near the University of Chiba. The relationship to the university is key given that a venture company associated with the institution has developed the flying machines, and will undoubtedly be carefully testing the drones for other, more ambitious projects in the future.

If all goes well, Rakuten hopes to take the drone delivery service to other golf courses and perhaps even other industries. Heck, why not have a drone deliver a bottle of water in the middle of a regatta? According to the e-commerce company’s president and CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani, Rakuten could soon be using drones to deliver various items to people’s backyards or to their balconies (because who has the time to go downstairs?).

Welcome to the 21st century, friends — where convenience really does reign supreme.

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While you might think the drones would be used for long-distance travel, instead they’ll likely be used for more local deliveries, at least for the time being. The drones are expected to have a maximum travel time of eight minutes, including takeoff and landing, and will have a range of 18 miles. For round-trip deliveries, the drones will likely travel 12 miles.
In previous conversations about the project, Uber has suggested that it doesn’t plan to use the drones for an entire restaurant to door delivery and instead plans to use the drones for more of a "last mile” approach. For instance, a restaurant might load up several drones for a delivery area and then those drones will all be launched from a central location to their final stops.
In another scenario, the drones will be deployed from restaurants to parked Uber vehicles that will then be responsible for delivering the food that final mile to its destination.
In July, Uber was conducting tests of the delivery drone in San Diego. Those tests were done from a McDonald’s in the area and were done using an Air Robot AR200 octocopter with a custom-built box for holding the food.
In July, Uber talked about building its own drones for food delivery and said that they could eventually reach speeds of 70mph. It had hoped to have its commercial service set up by this summer, which clearly didn’t pan out.
Earlier this month Wing launched the first drone delivery in the United States. Wing, which is owned by Google, is delivering over-the-counter medication, snacks, and gifts to people in Christiansburg, Virginia. It is working in partnership with Walgreens, FedEx Express and Virginia-based retailer Sugar Magnolia on the project.
In the case of Wing, customers have to opt into receiving deliveries via drone should they want to try the technology out.