Amazon gets FAA clearance to fly drones farther
Amazon shared that the FAA has given Prime Air additional permissions that allow it to operate its drones beyond visual line of sight, enabling the company to now serve more customers via drone and effectively expand and scale its drone delivery operations.
Noting that to obtain this permission, Amazon developed a BVLOS strategy, including an onboard detect-and-avoid technology, the company said, "We’ve spent years developing, testing and refining our onboard detect-and-avoid system to ensure our drones can detect and avoid obstacles in the air."
In a posting on the company's website, Amazon stated, "We submitted crucial engineering information to the FAA, including our onboard detect-and-avoid capabilities. This included how our system was designed, how it is operated, how it is maintained, and ultimately how we validated that the system performs to specified requirements. 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. We also provided extensive analysis and test data for our technology that further validated the safety of our system. After reviewing this information and observing the technology in action at our test site, the FAA provided Amazon Prime Air with BVLOS approval."
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Amazon continued, "This new authorization and new permissions allow us expand our delivery area in College Station, Texas. It means more Amazon customers than ever before will be eligible to choose from thousands of items for drone delivery, including household essentials and beauty and drugstore products. Later this year, drone deliveries will begin integrating into Amazon’s delivery network, meaning drones will deploy from facilities next to our Same-Day Delivery sites, which will provide Amazon customers with faster delivery of an even greater selection of items."
The company added, "Deploying this onboard technology allows us to expand the reach and capabilities of our delivery services while maintaining our same stringent commitment to safety. We received an Air Carrier Certificate from the FAA in 2020 that allowed Amazon to operate as an airline and deliver small packages via drone. With that certification and the newly granted permission to fly beyond the line of sight, we’re laying the foundation to scale drone delivery for customers. Now that we’ve been granted these permissions by the FAA, we’ll immediately scale our operations in College Station with our current MK-27 drone to reach customers in more densely populated areas."
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Lastly Amazon said, "Our vision has remained unchanged since we started working on Prime Air: to create a safe and scalable way to deliver packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using highly autonomous drones. To achieve our goal of delivering 500 million packages, per year, by drone, by the end of this decade, we knew we had to design a system capable of serving highly populated areas and that was safer than driving to the store. It’s taken years of inventing, testing, and improving to develop these breakthrough technologies, and now, on the heels of regulatory approval and cutting-edge technology, we’re excited to launch this next chapter for Prime Air."
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