As a yellow delivery truck slides to the curb in a quiet suburban neighborhood, a hatch opens and a black drone pokes its rotors above the roof, ready to seek its next target.

The drone launches, carrying the type of cardboard box that gets deposited on the doorsteps of millions of homes daily. The truck resumes its route as the driver moves on to make deliveries to multiple homes.

Up 400 feet in the sky, the drone locates its target, descends and gently drops the box near the front porch. It then flies off to rendezvous with the mother ship, ready to take on its next mission.

This is how companies plan to disrupt the delivery industry: with tiny airborne robots clutching small packages.

“We think it’s going to be a Kitty Hawk moment when that first delivery reaches that first porch,” said Steve Burns, chief executive of Cincinnati-based Workhorse Group.

Much bigger players — including Amazon, Google, UPS and DHL — are all in a heated race for dominance in drone delivery, a sector so new that the FAA only released rules for small small commercial drone operations this week.

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