Amazon Is Serious About Drones, Asks FAA For Permission To Start Test Flights

[Dietrichw]

Source

 

 

 

Today, the company formally requested an exemption from Federal Aviation Administration rules that largely prohibit the use of drones for commercial purposes.

 

 

The request was posted to Regulations.gov, the official government website for comments on regulatory matters.  Amazon’s letter should draw attention to FAA regulations which to date have received very little official commentary from an industry still struggling to find its voice.  The message is clear, Amazon wants to fly and thinks that businesses can be at least as safe as hobbyists

 

 

 The company claims to have made rapid developments in its Prime Air program by testing their drones inside their research and development lab in Seattle.  Over the last five months the Prime Air drones have undergone agility, flight duration, redundancy and sense-and-avoid tests.

 

 

The company claims their drones can “travel over 50 miles per hour, and will carry 5‐pound payloads, which cover 86% of products sold on Amazon.”   The company noted, what I have termed the backward nature of FAA regulations, which in the words of Amazon

 

 

Amazon wants the ability to safely innovate and “to do what thousands of hobbyists and manufacturers of model aircraft do every day.” The company is promising to self-impose much stronger safety measures than those currently required by the FAA for hobbyists.

 

[Builder]

What is it with you spamming news articles with orange bolded text? Trying to attract the attention of @LinusTech?

[EthanMcL]

Orange is pretty tho

[Dietrichw]

Orange is pretty tho

yea, red is too harsh and blue is a little difficult to read on the dark theme. So dark orange works and it matches the LTT color scheme

[Hidden Orange]

Orange is pretty tho

Aw... Yer such a darlin'.  :lol:

[Misanthrope]

If this pans out they could get a strong foothold in this market. Let's face it in 20 years fedex and UPS will be drone delivering crap in all major cities and just use trucks for rural areas.

[EthanMcL]

Aw... Yer such a darlin'.  :lol:

[Phillyphries]

You're going to see a lot of dead birds.

[Humbug]

If I know that thing's coming to my house to deliver something I would definitely set a trap and capture it. Would be a fun project.

[sof006]

If I know that thing's coming to my house to deliver something I would definitely set a trap and capture it. Would be a fun project.

I'm pretty sure Amazon would have you taken to court over that matter. Do tell me how you get along though.

[Humbug]

I'm pretty sure Amazon would have you taken to court over that matter. Do tell me how you get along though.

I will let it go after a few days once i'm bored with it.

It can fly home.

[theABCshop]

I thought this project was dead.

[SSL]

You're going to see a lot of dead birds.

 

Sense and avoid, my boy, sense and avoid.

 

Unmanned drones could prove the be the safest and most efficient way to move things around.

[Phillyphries]

SSL, on 11 Jul 2014 - 9:31 PM, said:

Sense and avoid, my boy, sense and avoid.

 

Unmanned drones could prove the be the safest and most efficient way to move things around.

 

Until it fails or gets shot down by some crazy people?

[Guerrero]

Until it fails or gets shot down by some crazy people?

Hopefully they have some type of insurance for that stuff if you know what I mean like fine the person or something

[rashdanml]

Until it fails or gets shot down by some crazy people?

Majority of flying can be done outside of gun-range. 

Back-up systems (all aircraft are designed with at least one in case of a failure) to counter drones falling out of the sky. 

[ToxicFire]

Didn't someone crash a quad copter into a building in the US recently, that alone even though not really related will probably put the kosh on it.

 

 

Majority of flying can be done outside of gun-range. 

Back-up systems (all aircraft are designed with at least one in case of a failure) to counter drones falling out of the sky. 

 

You can't counter a rotor getting shot off.

[Arkosh]

much safe shoot drone than bird

[rashdanml]

You can't counter a rotor getting shot off.

Very few sane people have the aim, training and timing to pull that off. An average redneck with a gun won't leave a scratch. 

[LePawel]

You're going to see a lot of dead birds.

If call of duty can have fish physics that swim away from you, drones can have BAOAOAS (Bird And Other Airborne Object Avoidance System) built in.

[GUESS?]

What happens when the terrorists did something bad with it?

[Socky]

Yasss boooooooooooo

[ToxicFire]

If call of duty can have fish physics that swim away from you, drones can have BAOAOAS (Bird And Other Airborne Object Avoidance System) built in.

Except COD has specific location references for both the player entity and the fish entity so easy to have fish swimming away from you, little bit harder to do that in real life you need identify the object, where its moving or stationary relative to you, the direction its moving it, the speed its moving at etc etc then extrapolate the best course of avoidance. Alternatively you could have it go ballistic though the outside my be a bit crispy from re-entry

[LePawel]

Except COD has specific location references for both the player entity and the fish entity so easy to have fish swimming away from you, little bit harder to do that in real life you need identify the object, where its moving or stationary relative to you, the direction its moving it, the speed its moving at etc etc then extrapolate the best course of avoidance. Alternatively you could have it go ballistic though the outside my be a bit crispy from re-entry

Simply detect movement, estimate its direction and speed, add wide margin, and correct path. Birds or even helicopters can't change directions instantly, and rarely appear in hundreds, giving you more processing power to keep track of them. Huge Flocks can be tracked as a ground and avoided with few hundred meter radius. Google cars build full 3D environments around them, and amazon is not much smaller as a company. You don't need to build NFS AI to shave off few milliseconds from each delivery time, you want them to be safe first, speed will come with time.