Last week, Amazon officially request permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to test its long-anticipated Prime Air drone delivery system.
Using Geofencing as a feature in their software to utilize GPS and radio frequency triangulation to define geographical boundaries, Amazon Prime drone operators will be able draw points that will create a virtual barrier within which a drone can be confined.
Amazon Prime air has banded together with UAVs and Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy says they are also “participating in several groups … that share Congress’ goal of getting small UAVs flying commercially in the United States safely and soon.” They aim to strengthen their push for non-commercial research and development operations that will take place on Amazon’s own property only. Assuming that FAA regulations will fall into place, we could bear witness to about 8,000 commercial drone units in use here by 2018. As of now, Amazon is performing the tests that they can in their own space and in other countries and their procedures and operations exceed the protocol in standing by the FAA. If the FAA does not see fit to allow Amazon to test their drones in US airspace, then Amazon plans to offer this service in other countries to send packages and help in matters that are pressing in their own regions, like monitoring the habits and illegal poaching of endangered species or providing the ability to wirelessly connect to the Internet.
We can only hope that the FAA allows Amazon to continue their innovations to give us all the best service that we can hope for while cutting emissions and the $4 billion in shipping expenses. Maybe soon we can receive our small Amazon purchases promptly and unscathed, Mesiner hopes that “one day, seeing Amazon Prime Air will be as normal as seeing mail trucks.”