Amazon says it will expand the range of its drone deliveries and the footprint of its drone network across the United States after the Federal Aviation Administration granted the tech giant permission to operate its delivery drones beyond the visual line of sight of drone operators.
It’s a key milestone in the company’s longstanding effort to deliver packages via drone, an initiative unveiled more than a decade ago by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a segment on “60 Minutes.”
Amazon says the approval was granted after it demonstrated its onboard detect-and-avoid technology, ensuring drones can safely navigate around obstacles, as validated through testing and real-world flights.
Even without eyes on the drone in the sky, a remote operator still uses instruments and technology “to monitor and control the drone at all times,” the company says.
“We then conducted flight demonstrations in the presence of FAA inspectors to show our system works in real-world scenarios—we flew in the presence of real planes, helicopters, and a hot air balloon to demonstrate how the drone safely navigated away from each of them,” the company said in a post Thursday morning. “We also provided extensive analysis and test data for our technology that further validated the safety of our system.”
With the new FAA approval, the company says it will start by immediately expanding its existing operations in College Station, Texas, to reach more densely populated areas.
Later this year, the company plans to start integrating drone deliveries into its delivery network by placing drone facilities next to its same-day delivery sites, which combine elements of fulfillment centers and delivery sites. Amazon in April announced the first of these co-located drone sites, planned for a same-day delivery site in Arizona.
Amazon’s stated goal is to deliver 500 million packages per year by the end of the decade.
https://ift.tt/HZn2xzM May 30, 2024 at 01:06PM GeekWire
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