text: After first testing the idea of using drones to deliver packages to extra remote locations, UPS is making its move into more residential skies with octocopters that can be launched from roving trucks. 
   
   The company says it successfully tested the HorseFly drone yesterday in Lithia, FL, along with the company that built both the drone and the electric UPS vehicle that launches it, Workhorse Group. 
   
   The drone docks on the roof of the delivery truck, and a cage suspended beneath it extends through a hatch into the vehicle. A driver on the inside loads a package into the cage, presses a button on a touch screen, and sends the drone flying on a preset autonomous route to its destination. 
   
   The battery-powered HorseFly drones recharge during docking, and have a 30-minute flight time limit, carrying a package weighing up to 10 pounds. 
   
   For this test, UPS launched the vehicle from the roof of a truck about a quarter mile away to a blueberry farm. The octocopter delivered its payload at a home on the property and then flew back to the truck, which had moved down the road to allow its driver to make another delivery. 
   
   UPS says the system is different from its other drone work thus far, and could make the company’s network more efficient while reducing emissions. 
   
   “It has implications for future deliveries, especially in rural locations where our package cars often have to travel miles to make a single delivery,” said Mark Wallace, UPS senior vice president of global engineering and sustainability. “Imagine a triangular delivery route where the stops are miles apart by road. Sending a drone from a package car to make just one of those deliveries can reduce costly miles driven.” 
   
   As always with these tests, it’s worth noting are still obstacles to drone deliveries: Federal Aviation Administration regulations don’t allow commercial drones to fly over any humans not involved in operating them, and requires them to stay within line of sight of their pilots at all times — something drivers could ostensibly do from their trucks in this case, depending on how far away the destination is. 
   
   Elsewhere in the delivery-drone-filled skies, Amazon completed its first residential drone-delivery in England in December, and recently filed a patent for a drone that could drop off packages by way of parachutes, electromagnets, or spring coils. ||||| On a blueberry farm outside of Tampa, Florida, on Monday, UPS tested the use of drones for residential delivery for the first time. 
   
   The logistics juggernaut specifically launched an octocopter, or multi-rotor drone, from the top of a delivery van. The drone delivered a package directly to a home, then returned to the van which had now moved down the road to a new location. The van pulled the drone down with robotic arms, to dock on its roof. 
   
   The drone used in Monday’s test was made by Ohio-based Workhorse Group Inc., already a UPS technology supplier. Workhorse builds commercial, hybrid electric trucks, batteries and develops aerospace technologies as well. UPS has purchased 350 of its electric hybrid trucks, 125 of which are already on the road today. The company’s new HorseFly UAV Delivery system used in the UPS test was tailored to work with its vehicles. 
   
   The truck for the test was custom-built to be able to launch the HorseFly drone from its roof, then grab it upon its return with robotic arms. A cage suspended beneath the drone extends through a hatch in the truck, where the drone can be lowered down and loaded up with another package. While docked, the drone recharges through a physical connection between its arms and the truck’s electric battery. 
   
   The concept of delivery vans that launch drones is not new. Mercedes Benz and drone tech startup Matternet revealed plans to develop “Vision Vans,” which launch Matternet’s delivery drones from Mercedes-Benzs trucks, back in September of 2016. They unveiled a real world version of the delivery vans at CES, as well. 
   
   According to UPS Vice President of Engineering, John Dodero, the company’s goal is to have drones work off of any type of vehicle, whether gas-powered or electric, to make last-mile deliveries. “That nest that we have on top of the car would be able to be put on any car, but we have to make sure it has the capabilities and it’s set up to do the charging,” he explains. 
   
   As for the HorseFly itself, the 9.5-pound drone features a carbon fiber construction, is powered by a proprietary lithium 18650 battery pack, and capable of a 30-minute flight time at a top speed of 45 miles per hour, the company says. By contrast, most consumer drones will only fly for about 22 minutes. The HorseFly can carry a package up to 10 pounds, allowing UPS to handle a wide range of residential deliveries.
target: – Don't be too nervous if you were in Lithia, Fla., earlier in the week and spotted a UPS truck launching a device from its roof to a nearby blueberry farm. It was all part of a test of a new drone-delivery feature the company hopes to bring to residential areas, Consumerist reports. The Workhorse Group's HorseFly unit—which can buzz along for about a half-hour, carrying packages that don't exceed 10 pounds—traveled a quarter-mile or so from the truck to the farm, dropped off its package, then circled back to find the UPS truck, on its way to a new destination. TechCrunch reviewed the test runs and said the process "still needs work," noting that interference caused one launch to be aborted. Reuters reports the experiment followed on the tail of a UPS announcement that automation and new technology were high on the company's priority list. Mark Wallace, a UPS senior VP, explains to Consumerist that rural areas could be a particularly viable place for the truck-launched drones, as a truck could settle in the middle of a "triangular delivery route" and send the drone to different destinations. Another UPS exec, John Dodero, tells Reuters that there's no set timeline for getting the drones into wider circulation because federal regulations are in flux. FAA rules, for example, currently require commercial drones to stay in operators' view, and they can only buzz over their operators, not other people. (Inc. notes the risk to those below if the drone malfunctions and drops the package.) One thing Dodero can speak clearly to: "UPS is never looking to replace our UPS drivers," he tells Reuters. (Amazon has also been experimenting with drone delivery.)