Amazon says it will expand the range of its drone deliveries and the footprint of its drone network across the United States after the Federal Aviation Administration granted the tech giant permission to operate its delivery drones beyond the visual line of sight of drone operators.
It’s a key milestone in the company’s longstanding effort to deliver packages via drone, an initiative unveiled more than a decade ago by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a segment on “60 Minutes.”
Amazon says the approval was granted after it demonstrated its onboard detect-and-avoid technology, ensuring drones can safely navigate around obstacles, as validated through testing and real-world flights.
“We then conducted flight demonstrations in the presence of FAA inspectors to show our system works in real-world scenarios—we flew in the presence of real planes, helicopters, and a hot air balloon to demonstrate how the drone safely navigated away from each of them,” the company said in a post Thursday morning.
Recent Comments