Walmart says it will use drones within 6 to 9 months

Bentonville-Walmart Stores said on Thursday that will begin to use drones to check inventories in its warehouses in six to nine months in the United States, giving one more step towards the use of technology to better compete with rivals.
In October 2015, the biggest retailer in the world asked permission to American regulators to test drones in delivering products to customers and checking inventories in warehouses.
U.s. Federal regulators are still reviewing the rules for commercial operation of drones that would be involved in delivering orders-seen as the next frontier for big retailers such as Walmart and Amazon.
One of the Vice-Presidents of the Walmart Shekar Natarajan demonstrated the use of drones for journalists in one of the company''s regional distribution centers.
"We''re still in the early stages of testing and understanding on how the drones may be used in the best way in different kinds of business functions," he said. The remote-controlled drone captured images at 30 frames per second of products in the hallways and warned the user when the product was sold out or stored incorrectly. Natarajan said the drones can reduce the laborious process of checking inventory in the warehouse for a day. Currently, it takes a month to complete manually.
The company reported that the technology and the camera installed in the drones were developed specifically for the retailer.