The U.S. military is developing a delivery drone

The U.S. Army is exploring the use of drones to deliver supplies to soldiers on the battlefield, a potentially game-changing use for an emerging technology that until now has been mostly identified with the future delivery of household items.

Currently, supplies are mostly transported in road convoys that are vulnerable to attack because they travel along known supply routes. Drones would take supply into the air, make it possible to modify supply routes and, perhaps most importantly, take soldiers out of high-risk situations.

"When we use autonomous air transport, we create a lot of dilemmas for adversaries, because we're not limited to a ground route," said Larry Perecko, branch chief for Science and Technology at the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) Sustainment Battle Lab in Fort Lee, Virginia.

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