UPDATE: Check out this recently released video from Amazon showing their new delivery drone design. Amazon drone delivery is apparently close than we all thought.
In December of 2013, Jeff Bezos made the bold claim that Amazon drone delivery would exist within five years. Uh, it’s 2019 and my prime membership still doesn’t include that option. That’s okay, bold predictions may not always be accurate, but they do tend to move the needle in their direction. And that’s really what’s happened here. So, let’s talk about where the prospect of amazon drone delivery stands today.
When will Amazon drone delivery really exist?
The main obstacle in allowing companies to offer drone delivery have been FAA regulations. Believe it or not though, Amazon is not the company that has already received approval for drone delivery services. Alphabet (the parent company of Google) has a subsidiary called Wing that recently received approval from the FAA for Commercial Package Delivery. This short press release makes it clear that Wing’s partnership with Virginia Tech as part of the Transportation Department’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program played a big part in this approval. Additionally though, Wing has been testing drone delivery services in Australia for a few years now. I’m assuming the idea is to partner with companies to provide delivery in much the same way third-party food delivery apps work now. I’m assuming the logistics of that will need to be worked out as well.
While Amazon has not yet been approved for the same Commercial Package Delivery as Wing, it is currently testing its drone delivery services in multiple countries, including the United States, Israel, United Kingdom and France. My guess is that approval for Amazon drone delivery in one of these countries will be coming soon because it is actually already being tested in England. Check out their video on this test.
Yeah, but is drone delivery safe?
While the FAA gets to decide on approval for commercial package delivery, the reality is that it is working to make sure that drones can be safely incorporated into the national airspace system. We’ve been dealing with commercial drones in the national airspace for a while now, but so far the vast majority of these drones are being used within visual line of sight (Part 107 requires line of sight for commercial drone flights). The idea that a drone will deliver packages necessarily means that it will be flying beyond line of sight of the drone pilot (if there is a real human piloting the drone at all, which is another regulatory obstacle). Even though delivery drones would stay below 400 feet above the ground, which is way below where most air traffic flies, this would present a real hazard to helicopter pilots and air traffic that is taking off or landing at an airport. So the FAA is being pretty cautious here.
The technology that companies like Amazon will be using is actually pretty amazing. Not only is it being forced to create drones that can fly beyond line of sight, it is also creating a drone management system to coordinate all of its potential traffic. The drones themselves would be connected to the internet using cellular or LTE connections, which allows drones flying in the same airspace to communicate with each other and will also need to include some kind of collision avoidance system.
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Will drone delivery clog up the skies?
At first, this may seem like an odd question because we are basically forcing our minds to think about an entirely new reality when it comes to most deliveries. But when you think about the fact that Amazon, Google and UPS are all working on making this drone delivery happen, you can’t help but wonder if our houses will constantly be buzzed by some kind of drone. Will drone deliveries ruin my time outside?
In short, we really don’t have any control over the airspace directly above our homes (aside from privacy laws, which haven’t changed). But most delivery drones probably won’t be flying low enough that the noise will be much of a concern, except to those near the actual delivery locations. And Wing has actually already started to deal with the noise issue by re-designing their delivery drones. It sounds like most companies working on drone delivery are planning to use flight paths, not too different from the routes that aircraft use every day. The difference then would just be the altitude of the drones. While it is likely that the companies developing this tech will work to stay in the god graces of the consumers they are serving, we can all attest to the fact that convenience often times trumps many other factors. This may be another downside to our desire for convenience.
Medical drone delivery is already a reality
Aside from consumer drone deliveries, another interesting business use for drones that has cropped up is medical drone delivery. Back in December of 2018, a drone delivered vaccines to a child on the island country of Vanuatu (I had never heard of it either). This is a somewhat obvious use in parts of the world where travel is near impossible and creating some sort of landing strip for manned aircraft would be a serious undertaking. So far, it is proving to be really useful.
In Maryland, a drone just flew a kidney to a transplant patient for the first time, although this has been happening in Rwanda for some time. A company called Zipline has a fixed-wing version of a delivery drone that does not require a pilot, and instead relies upon pre-programmed GPS. Because of the ability to affect massive change in this are, Zipline is currently focusing its efforts on medical drone delivery. In Rwanda, they’ve already reduced the waste of blood products by 95% and have reduced a five hour drive down to less than thirty minutes. Needless to say, the implications of this are pretty mind blowing. Here’s to hoping none of us never need this life-saving drone technology, but its good to know that it is here if we need it.
