Say what you will about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, he does have an ability to think outside the proverbial box: his company is prepping to deliver packages to customers via airborne drone.
If the FAA approves Amazon’s airborne delivery (something the latter anticipates won’t take place until 2015 at the earliest), the company will use the drones to place items on residential doorsteps within 30 minutes. As detailed in a video posted on Amazon’s Website, workers at Amazon Fulfillment Centers (a corporate synonym for “warehouses”) will load each new item into a hard case, which the drone will lock to its undercarriage before flying off; once it lands at the target address, it will leave the case with the item inside. Amazon’s calling the service “Amazon Prime Air,” which suggests it’ll be a perk for Amazon Prime members willing to pay a premium.
“The FAA is actively working on rules and an approach for unmanned aerial vehicles that will prioritize public safety,” read an accompanying note on Amazon’s Website. “Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards.”
Despite those assurances, several questions remain. For starters, it’s extremely likely that the FAA will require a human pilot or supervisor for each drone flight. If that’s the case, Amazon will need to hire hundreds of new employees to guide the aircraft, in addition to building new systems capable of monitoring variables such as local weather and air traffic—for liability’s sake alone, it’s virtually certain the drones won’t fly unless conditions are ideal. (...)
Domestic drones also come with physical dangers, as well. In October, a small helicopter drone tumbled out of the sky over midtown Manhattan, crashing to the sidewalk near Grand Central Station; on the way down it almost hit a businessman, who plucked out the video card from the wreckage and handed it over toa local television-news station. In the video, the drone (a Phantom Quadcopter) buzzes some skyscapers before the pilot—clearly inexperienced—crashes it against the side of a building. Drone enthusiasts and engineers blamed the Quadcopter’s poor performance on the pilot’s possible reliance on GPS mode in an area with tall buildings, which block GPS signals, potentially leading vehicles disastrously off-target.
by Nick Kolakowski, Slashdot | Read more:
Image: Amazon
