The US Postal Service Needs These Toyota Gamaru Drones to Save the Day

Once you've gotten a hand for ordering stuff online, just sit back and do what it is you already do at home, pretty much nothing. Or you can take a look at the Toyota Gamaru by Eddie Mauro, a.k.a. Edgar Sarmiento García.

You're looking at a completely autonomous postal delivery system. It’s not just a drone that drops off packages while you sit and watch Netflix, though. This is an entirely new system for the way we send and receive non-electronic mail, or snail-mail as it’s also known.

The Gamaru system is rather more like an intermediary point between parcel warehouse and client. Here's how it functions.

Every city has warehouses that are set up to receive shipment after shipment of packages and store them until the distribution is possible. You may be aware of the fact that the whole health crisis seems to have currently crippled delivery systems in use. And even though this design is not a new idea, it seems very fitting for these days.

In that collection center I mentioned earlier, we usually find humans. With the Gamaru idea, humans still play a vital role but are assisted by drones and pods to increase efficiency. As packages are received by a center, they need to be distributed as quickly as possible to avoid overcrowding.

It’s here that one of the components of the concept unfurls. The large pods are housed in a central unit that moves them vertically to reach conveyor belts operated by their human companions. The loading and unloading into the unit happen here.

The pods are then set upon the four-wheeled platform, which, through the might and magic of modern technology, can just roam around town and bring packages to predetermined distribution points.

Oddly enough, the system doesn’t condone laziness as it never delivers your package to your door. Instead, it sets itself up as a mobile pick-up unit. More specifically, if the unit has five packages to deliver to clients in a certain area, it will pick a point of distribution located at equal distance from all clients.

Mind you, part three of the system may include a bit of door delivery. Let’s say a senior citizen has ordered his meds in the mail. Having had his big toes smashed in a rat trap when he was younger, he can't really walk well. For situations like these, the Gamaru deploys its final trick: an airborne drone to deliver smaller, less hearty packages.

Just to understand how far the designer went with the idea, there’s even an app for that. Well, not literally, but the entire system is designed with an app in mind. You can order a pod in your area, track current packages you have sent or are expecting to receive, and even find a distribution pod that is active now.

It may seem a bit of an odd design for something like this, as real life is a bit more rudimentary, but the idea is a simple one that can be applied today, with the proper financial backing, of course.