This call is a step closer to fulfilling a drone delivery system for its customers, well over a year since Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos announced “Prime Air”, the company’s revolutionary proposal for a better means of sending packages to clients, Forbes reports.
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Amazon wants to cordon off a segment of the skies where it can safely fly its Air Prime delivery drones.
“But there are in fact all kinds of commercial uses for drones with parcel deliveries being just one of them”.
Amazon says that as commercial drone use becomes more common, airspace regulation for these unmanned aerial vehicles is necessary.
Amazon described its proposal at a conference held by NASA in California. Less advanced drones would only be able to fly in “rural areas” and other low-risk regions.
“In the United States, there are approximately 85,000 commercial, cargo, military and general aviation flights every day”, Amazon said during the presentation. This idea was first introduced two years ago by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos on CBS’ (CBS) 60 minutes.
Amazon suggests divvying up airspace access based on a drone’s mission and capabilities.
Sophisticated Global Positioning System tracking that allows them to pinpoint their location in real-time and in relation to all other drones around them. Drones would connect to an online network that manages their flights in real time to prevent any trouble.
Chinese internet giant Alibaba, Google and other parcel services have also carried out private trials of drones. They would be autonomous with next to no human interaction.
Before it is realised, however, pioneers like Amazon will have to assuage the doubts of privacy activists concerned about the impact on civil liberties and of government regulators anxious about how flying robots would interact with manned aircraft.
Due to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules, the plan of delivering products by drone of Amazon has not been smooth in the past.
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Bill English, an investigator with the National Traffic Safety Board, indicated it was only a matter of time before some major event forced a larger public discussion on drone usage. Drones aren’t permitted within 5 miles of airports. “Amazon believes the current model of airspace management will not meet future SUAS [Small Unmanned Aerial System] demands”, its proposal reads. Otherwise, they would have their activities confined to geographically demarcated airfields in relatively unpopulated areas that would be set aside specifically for the goal. In rare cases when aircraft would enter drone flyways, such as an emergency medical helicopter, drones would automatically give way, he said. In Tuesday’s remarks, Kimchi noted the importance of making sure that those using airspace all “need to speak the same language”. “We can only be safe and efficient if everybody else is safe and efficient”, Kimchi said.
