The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted Amazon’s Prime Air additional permissions that will allow it to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), enabling it to expand and scale its drone delivery operations.
To obtain the permission, Amazon developed a BVLOS strategy, including an “onboard detect-and-avoid technology” that has been developed, tested and refined over several years to ensure the Prime Air drone can detect and avoid obstacles in the air.
Amazon then submitted crucial engineering information to the FAA, including the onboard detect-and-avoid capabilities, and conducted flight demonstrations in the presence of FAA inspectors to show the system works in real-world scenarios in the presence of planes, helicopters and a hot air balloon to demonstrate how the drone safely navigated away from each of them. The company also provided extensive analysis and test data for its technology that further validated the safety of the system to achieve BVLOS approval.
According to Amazon, the authorization will enable it to expand its delivery area in College Station, Texas, with its MK-27 drone. Drone deliveries will also begin integrating into Amazon’s delivery network later this year, meaning drones will deploy from facilities next to its same-day delivery sites for even faster delivery.
“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,” the company said on its news site.
“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.”