US Patent 9758301 System and method for overhead warehousing

An overhead warehousing system for use in a warehouse having a ceiling and storage racks supported by the floor of a warehouse includes drawers configured to contain parcels at designated locations of individual cells in the storage racks and adapted to be opened and closed, flight corridors defined along the storage racks adjacent to the individual cells, drones having gripper heads translatable relative to opened drawers to retrieve parcels therefrom, and a communication subsystem communicating with the drones to control their flying on the flight trajectories along the flight corridors and between a designated docking station, selected ones of designated parcel retrieval locations and selected ones of designated parcel drop locations and also communicating with the drones to control their gripper heads relative to opened drawers and communicating with individual cells for opening and closing drawers as drones approach and depart the selected individual cells.