An Amazon delivery drone is on display at the BOS27 Robotics Innovation Hub in Westborough, Massachusetts, on November 10, 2022.
Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images
Amazon and six other organizations have been selected to take part in a trial looking at expanding the use of drones in the UK
The country’s Civil Aviation Authority or CAA, was announced On Thursday that the experiment will involve the integration of drones that fly beyond the line of sight of their operators into UK airspace. This means that operators will not have to monitor the drones.
These flights use advanced technologies to navigate, control and detect other aircraft, the CCA said.
Projects providing services for remote infrastructure such as offshore wind farms, inspections in the North Sea and delivery of emergency medical supplies are among those included in the trial.
“Our aim is to make drone operations beyond line of sight a safe and everyday reality, helping to modernize the UK’s airspace and integrate new technology into our skies,” said Sophie O’Sullivan, director of future flights to UK CCA.
The test will gather data on how the drones detect and avoid other aircraft, as well as the electronic signals that can be sent to be visible to other airspace users and air traffic control.
Flights “have the potential to transform the way we deliver goods and provide services, particularly in less well-connected areas,” said Simon Masters, UK Research and Innovation’s deputy director of the Future of Flight Challenge. He added that the program is key to CCA’s wider Airspace Modernization Strategy, which focuses on making the UK’s airspace fit for purpose in the future.
Amazon’s drone delivery service, Prime Air, was a pet project of founder Jeff Bezos, who laid out his plans for the service more than a decade ago.
The e-commerce giant he said last October that its customers in the UK and Italy would have the option of delivering their parcels by drone from the end of 2024. The company is currently not licensed to operate drones in the UK
“It’s important for operators like us to have clear regulatory requirements in order to bring and scale new technologies, such as drone delivery, to UK customers,” said David Carbon, vice president and general manager of Amazon Prime Air. “We appreciate the CAA’s effort to work with us to help clarify the regulations that support the delivery of commercial drones.”
Prime Air has already launched in the US for packages weighing up to five kilograms in College Station, Texas and Lockeford, California. But the expansion of the program has faced regulatory hurdles, delays and the departure of some executives.
A significant number of Prime Air workers were laid off in the US last year as part of the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history. The service also faces competition from Wing, a subsidiary of parent Google Alphabetand Walmart which partnered with Zipline for drone deliveries.
