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  • Author Author: bluescreen
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Amazon moves one step closer to drone deliveries

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Amazon.com moved one step closer to realizing its dream of using drones to deliver orders to its customers across the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration issued Amazon with an experimental airworthiness certificate last week which allows it to experiment with new drone designs for research and development and crew training.

 

As EETimes' Junko Yoshida explains, this may be more of a symbolic victory for Amazon than a step which takes it appreciably further down the road of commercial drone delivery:

 

Amazon’s certificate allows experiments with new drone designs for R&D and crew training, but not for commercial purposes. An “airworthiness certificate” is fundamentally different from the “exemptions” some drone operators have gotten from the FAA, under what’s called Section 333. Those with exemptions under Section 333 can perform commercial operations in low-risk, controlled environments...

 

Obviously, it wasn’t the company’s first choice, either. Critics describe an experimental airworthiness certificate as “the same document required for a private, non-commercial plane owner to fly a Cessna.”

 

The main benefit of receiving the FAA nod is that Amazon may now test drones outside, rather than just in an enclosed space.

 

Whether the future of online shopping will include automated drone delivery remains to be seen. But if Amazon can convince the FAA that its UAVs are safe enough for commercial use, the future could look like this:

 

 

What do you think? Let us know by voting in our new poll.

  • in reply to mcb1

    Hehe. I like the theoretical question!

    I would liken it in a way to duress, where in theory one could claim duress if someone forced you to do something bad (e.g. sell drugs), but you can't claim duress if someone forces you to kill someone. The reasoning being that another person's life is just as valuable as your own, so no matter what someone threatens, you cannot use duress as a defence in that scenario.

    So based on similar-ish reasoning : ) the driverless car ought to sacrifice the owner/occupant ; ) and save the pedestrians, if we consider the car to be an extension of that owner/occupant.

    I have not thought it through much, so I'm sure there are probably valid arguments for the driverless car to resolve it by killing the pedestrians.

    Anyway, it's one way to try to answer this dilemma posed by JC ; )

  • in reply to DAB

    I was actually thinking of nondestructive ways to capture/hijack drones

    One of the advantages of a cruise missle, was it's lack of signature, and reliance on it's internal programming.

    I suspect with these it will be similar, perhaps apart from GPS.

     

    But I suspect that those that wish to steal/hijack have little regard for the cost, or who are the victims.

     

     

    There are many obstacles to overcome, and like driverless cars, the need v ability are not quite in line.

    There was a very good question posed by Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear (UK) about driverless cars, and the avoidance of an accident.

    Does the car decide to sacrific the occupant v running into pedestrians if a truck was coming at it.?

     

    Most of the large drones are just remotely piloted and are not really autonomous.

    In the case of something going wrong, the decisions are made by a 'pilot' which is no different than aircraft.

     

    Some of the smaller craft do have autonomy, but have very small payloads and flytime, so while not as big an issue, the numbers game makes the risk greater.

    These small autonomous ones present the greatest risk to people for one reason or another.

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    The potential hazards of drones in airspace, roadways, and pedestrians is very large.

    suspect those liabilities will eventually force very heavy insurance policies on Drone users.

     

    I was actually thinking of nondestructive ways to capture/hijack drones.  After all, an good drone is an expensive thing to waste! image

     

    DAB

  • in reply to DAB

    Think about how easy it will be to hijack a drone

    Even more so in America where guns are allowed/legal.

     

    There are so many hurdles to overcome, this seems to be more along the lines of a publicity stunt than any real commercial operation.

    I can just see the headline "... person injured by drone while delivering parcel ..."

     

    Airways in NZ is trying to sort out some regulations now regarding drones and Airspace because there have been some near misses already.

    Apparently engines ingesting birds is one thing, but metallic and carbon fibre tends to be another ball game.

     

    Mark

  • There was a news article last week about how in UAE government documents were/are being delivered between departments within minutes.

    I didn't understand why a secure VPN was not used, but maybe there are other reasons.

    Quite impressive that Amazon is continually working to optimize delivery. I thought next-day delivery was good, but it is good that Amazon expects faster delivery is possible, or dramatically reduced transport costs.

    Lots of things to consider such as safety etc., but hopefully they can be addressed (e.g. redundant computer, standby battery..).