For those worried about the fragility of the items shipped through the air, there may be a solution. Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed a giant carbon-fiber cage that sits around a drone to protect it—and its cargo —by providing “an all-round protective structure that physically separates the propellers from the environment.”
It also, says the team, provides a human something safe to grab onto if there’s no suitable place for the drone to land—but, as IEEE Spectrum notes, you may want to ensure your fingers don’t go too far through the cage and hit those spinning rotors. It’s also worth noting that the cage itself weighs about two pounds, which means that the load-carrying capacity of the drone is cut by the same amount. But last-minute Amazon orders of crystal glassware are now somewhere in your future, if you want them.
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