Amazon foresees drone zones for future delivery fleet
The first wave of long-range commercial drones should be allowed to operate in a narrow, low- altitude band and must agree to be tracked, says Amazon.com’s vision of the future.
While U.S. government regulations now just allow limited usage of unmanned flights, Amazon is creating a blueprint for an air-traffic system and the necessary technology is rapidly maturing, said Gur Kimchi, a vice-president who heads the company’s drone-delivery division.
“It’s completely doable,” Kimchi told Bloomberg News, describing for the first time how the company envisions an orderly system guiding small, unmanned delivery aircraft. He unveiled the company’s view at a July conference sponsored by NASA in Mountain View, Calif.
Having a traffic cop in the skies is essential before the world’s largest online retailer can revolutionize package delivery using drones. The stakes are enormous for Amazon, Google Inc. and scores of other companies that want to develop drone commerce, from power-line inspections to farm surveys.
A team at NASA’s facility adjacent to Silicon Valley is leading the government’s efforts to create a drone air-traffic system, dubbed Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management.
More than 100 companies have expressed interest in participating in NASA’s effort and at least 14 have signed agreements to work with the agency, including giants such as Google, Amazon, Verizon Communications Inc. and Harris Corp.
Amazon says the only way drones can dart across the skies without hitting each other or threatening traditional aircraft is to require that the equivalent of flight plans be filed and drones communicate their positions to a centralized computer system available to all operators.
Such requirements fly in the face of the sometimes lawless use of drones in recent years by recreational flyers that has led to rising close calls near airports and the odd bystander injury.
Kimchi said adding strict requirements for equipment and drone-operator behaviour is a “complex” problem, but noted the vast majority would follow the rules, just as they do on roadways.
Key to creating a safe system is keeping unmanned vehicles away from traditional aircraft, he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA) in February unveiled its first cautious step in drafting commercial drone rules. Once finalized, they would allow commercial flights only during the day and within sight of the drone’s operator on the ground, rudimentary standards that won’t allow deliveries, long-range inspections and other more complex operations. Drones aren’t permitted within five miles of airports.
To operate beyond the FAA’s line- of- sight requirements, Kimchi outlined the steps that would be needed. Drones should remain within 121 metres of the ground, away from traditional aircraft that mostly fly higher than 152 metres. In rare cases when aircraft would enter drone flyways, such as an emergency medical helicopter, drones would automatically give way, he said.
High- speed drones would stay between 60 metres and 121 metres, while local traffic and slower drones would fly below them, he said. A database of known flight hazards, such as towers, buildings and high ground, would be developed and shared with drone users, which would automatically steer vehicles away from danger.
Long-range drones must also give notice when and where they intend to fly, and they have to be reliably connected to the Internet so they can be tracked and operators can receive warnings if they are in danger, he said.
To avoid mid-air collisions, they must be capable of communicating with each other. Current vehicle-to-vehicle technologies being developed for autos should be adapted for drones, he said.
Finally, drones capable of flying long distances must also carry sensors to detect birds and other uncharted hazards, he said. That would replicate the current system of pilots keeping watch in the cockpit, he said.
Like Google, Amazon believes there doesn’t need to be a single air-traffic operator for drones. So long as the data showing where drones are flying is sent to the central computer system, any company should be allowed to participate, Kimchi said.
Dave Vos, who heads Google’s Project Wing division developing its own delivery system, said in an interview earlier this month that multiple companies could develop drone air-traffic systems.
Kimchi declined to set a timeline for when such a system would be ready. Much of the technology, such as drone communications via mobile phone networks, is already feasible, he said.
Amazon is advocating a tiered system that would let everybody from hobbyists to the most sophisticated operators fly.
Even the tens of thousands of drones sold in electronics and hobby shops are sophisticated enough to be allowed into busy urban areas, so long as they update their software to let their craft be tracked, stay connected to the Internet and agree to follow the rules, he said.
“We think it’s something feasible that everyone can rally around,” he said.
The best equipped drones, which Amazon intends to field for its deliveries, will be robotic vehicles capable of automatically steering clear of hazards, he said.