Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) will begin to replace humans to complete mundane tasks. They will increase efficiency, reduce costs, and offer unprecedented convenience for humans. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, Dominos, & 7-11, all wish to use UAS to deliver products quickly to their customers (Byrne, 2016). Amazon’s company, Prime Air, plans on delivering packages to customers within 30 minutes of them ordering online and it is forecast that Prime Air will cut the cost of every single Amazon delivery by half, presenting a considerable threat to all of Amazon’s competitors (Weiß, 2016). Delivery UAS will inevitably have to operate beyond line of sight of an operator in order to deliver their payloads. Unfortunately for the list of ambitious companies and Amazon, which is at the vanguard of the pursuit to realize delivery UAS, the rules released in August by the FAA in Part 107 do not permit BLOS operation for small UAS in the United States (Ulanoff, 2016). Judging by the rules and regulations of other countries, and the lag the FAA has demonstrated in opening the doors for commercial UAS in the United States, this is likely to change in due time. Until then, Amazon has pushed forward with their concept abroad. After having remarked that within 5 years’ time, it would start deliveries somewhere in the world, on December 7th of 2016, Amazon made its first commercial delivery near Cambridge in England (King, 2016).
It is foreseeable that in the next 5 to 10 years, the skies may be increasingly congested with UAVs traveling several hundred feet above the ground to deliver items to consumer households. In order to organize this traffic, it is certain that sense and avoid technology will be required to prevent collisions with other UAVs and other objects, and even that special airspace, or highways in the sky be allotted at 200-400 feet elevation for the purpose of UAS activities. This would provide UAS with “an established configuration of routes that are mapped out around the world. The advantage of this would be that drones could count on an established configuration of routes that are mapped out around the world” (Miah, 2016).
References:
Byrne, Brendan. Amazon Makes Its First Drone Delivery In The UK. ValueWalk. N.p., 2016.
Web. 16 Dec. 2016.
King, Elizabeth. Amazon Has Officially Made Its First Drone Delivery. Complex. N.p., 2016.
Web. 16 Dec. 2016.
Miah, Andy. Amazon Delivery Drones Are Just The First Step To A Highway In The Sky. The
Conversation. N.p., 2016. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.
Ulanoff, Lance. The FAA's New Rules For Drones Are Bad News For Amazon. Mashable.
N.p., 2016. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.
Weiß, Marcel. Amazon Plans To Start Drone Deliveries "Within 5 Years Somewhere In The
World". Early Moves. N.p., 2016. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.