According a patent published by the US Patent Office, Amazon's future drones used for aerial delivery of goods will be able to track the location of the person it is delivering to by pulling data from their smartphone, and will also communicate with each other sending weather and traffic conditions. The patent describes "an unmanned aerial vehicle ("UAV") configured to autonomously deliver items of inventory to various destinations. The UAV may receive inventory information and a destination location and autonomously retrieve the inventory from a location within a materials handling facility, compute a route from the materials handling facility to a destination and travel to the destination to deliver the inventory." It was filed by Amazon Technologies Inc. with the U.S. Patent Office in September 2014, but the details are only now being published by the US Patent and Trademark Office, after it approved the ideas.

According to the plans, Amazon's drones will be able to update their routes in real-time. A mock-up delivery screen suggests that people will be able to choose from a variety of delivery options - from "bring it to me" to nominating their home, place of work or even "my boat" as places for packages to be dropped. Flight sensors, radar, sonar, cameras and infrared sensors will be employed to ensure safe landing zones are found.

Amazon's plans for drone delivery puts pressure on the FAA to allow more US-based drone research and development. The FAA has granted Amazon permission to start testing in the US, although the drones can fly no higher than 400ft and must remain within the pilot's line of sight.