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Amazon drops a MAJOR hint which suggests it’s planning to release a driverless car

The digital goliath has been granted a patent for a road network that stops robot motors smashing into each other

AMAZON may be working on driverless car technology, judging by a patent it was granted this week.

It has designed a new kind of smart motorway network which stops robotic automobiles from smashing into each other.

 Amazon’s self-driving patent proposes a centralised roadway management system that communicates with self-driving cars to help coordinate vehicle movement at a large scale
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Amazon’s self-driving patent proposes a centralised roadway management system that communicates with self-driving cars to help coordinate vehicle movement at a large scaleCredit: USPTO

The technology is designed to cope with changes to roads, such as the lanes being reversed.

Autonomous vehicles "may not have information about reversible lanes when approaching a portion of a roadway that has reversible lane" and could crash head on, the patent warned.

It follows confirmation of the self-driving Apple car and Google's embarrassing move away from the technology after several years of testing.

And it's just the latest in a long line of tech innovation from the US company.

 Amazon's testing facility in is in the left of this pic, whilst its drone delivery destination is on the top right
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Amazon's testing facility in is in the left of this pic, whilst its drone delivery destination is on the top rightCredit: GEOFF ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
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 This image from Amazon's patent filing shows a blimp hovering above a city, ready to unleash a squadron of drones to deliver packages to people's homes
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This image from Amazon's patent filing shows a blimp hovering above a city, ready to unleash a squadron of drones to deliver packages to people's homes

It successfully delivered the UK’s first ever parcel by drone – just 13 minutes after it was ordered.

Amazon said a new private trial will now deliver packages up to five pounds in weight (that's a 2l bottle of water) in 30 minutes or less using the drones, which it began testing in the UK earlier this year.

It also revealed plans for a massive mega-drone mothership that would deliver baby copters to certain areas to meet their fast delivery time.

Aside from its foray into deliveries, its streaming network Amazon Prime and it's online marketplace, it also provides the computing power for most of the websites in the world under its unit Amazon Web Services.


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