The Federal Aviation Administration has given the green light for deliveries by drone. First up? Dallas.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on July 30 that it had granted authorization for the first commercial drone flights without visual observers. The green light comes in Dallas-area airspace and goes to Zipline International and Wing Aviation. (Wing Aviation LLC, which does business as Wing, is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company). The two companies may now deliver packages while keeping their unmanned aircraft separated using technology provided by Unmanned Aircraft System Management. (UTM). UTM is a safety protocol with a supporting framework that allows multiple drones to operate safely in the same airspace as other drones while maintaining separation from traffic and beyond visual line of sight. (BVLOS) All flights will be flown under 400′ altitude above the ground. Sensor technology allows the drones to avoid obstacles.
Advancements in autonomous flight technology have made this possible. Autonomous flight is when an aircraft can fly independently without a human pilot or remote control. The aircraft is equipped with onboard systems that can navigate, communicate, and fly on their own. These drones are programmed to perform specific tasks, including route flown, altitude, and speed.
Removing the BVLOS restriction allows the delivery drone to bypass the need for constant visual contact with an observer. All other drones, with the exception of those authorized under this UTM, must still adhere to the visual contact rule. Other safety measures include a parachute recovery system that deploys a parachute in the event of an equipment failure and provides a gentle descent to the ground.
With UTM, there will be a cooperative interaction between drone operators and the FAA to determine and communicate real-time airspace status. Operating beyond visual line of sight under rigorous FAA safety oversight is made possible by new advancements in air traffic technology, according to the agency announcement.
The FAA wrote: “Using UTM services, companies can share data and planned flight routes with other authorized airspace users. This allows the operators to safely organize and manage drone flights around each other in shared airspace. All flights occur away from any crewed aircraft. The FAA expects initial flights using UTM services will begin in August and issuing more authorizations in the Dallas area soon.”
Zipline International has been using delivery drones in Rwanda for almost a decade, delivering blood and other medical supplies to remote regions. Their drones have flown more than 1 million autonomous drone deliveries. Below are some of the companies that have signed on for product delivery via drone.
The video below provides a view of what drone delivery looks like. The entire video is about 20 minutes long, but if you just watch the first few minutes, you will gain a beyond-basic understanding of drone delivery.
How Wing Drone Delivery Works – Check out the 45-second video below.
Zipline has made 70% of its deliveries in the last two years alone as the company expanded to serve new use cases like retail deliveries with Walmart, agriculture, and animal health efforts across Africa, and food delivery in Japan. In the U.S., Zipline’s most frequently delivered items are fresh produce, while internationally, they are child nutrition and vaccines.
“Over the past decade, we’ve worked hard to build a system that scaled to 1 million paid customer deliveries. In the near future, I believe that 1 million deliveries will be unremarkable as we reach a million deliveries in a year, in a month, in a day,” said Ryan Oksenhorn, Co-Founder of Zipline and Head of Software. “10 years from now, I think clean, reliable, autonomous delivery of goods and services will be available to everyone.”
Wing Drone
Having a fully autonomous flight control system, and being able to safely fly beyond the visual line of sight eliminates the need for an observer. That represents a huge cost savings and gives drone delivery a definite advantage over conventional courier delivery by a human driving an automobile or van.
Zipline’s Drone weighs up to 55 pounds and can carry a six- to eight-pound cargo payload. It can fly at almost 65 MPH and operate within a 20-mile radius.
Fast Facts
Zipline was founded in 2014 and began drone delivery operations in Rwanda in 2016.
Zipline serves more than 4,000 health centers and more than 45 million people.
Zipline delivers 75% of Rwanda’s blood supply outside the country’s capital city.
Zipline has completed more than 1,000,000 commercial deliveries — more than most other companies in the sector combined.
More than 70% of Zipline’s deliveries have occurred in the last two years.
By 2025, Zipline expects to operate more flights annually than almost all major U.S. airlines.
Zips are all-electric, zero-emission aircraft. Every Zipline flight today reduces the carbon emissions of deliveries by an average of 97% compared to gas cars, according to company analysis.
Zipline hires entirely local leaders and teams in every market it serves.
Expect to see other companies enter the drone delivery market. Amazon is already stepping up its commitment to drone delivery BVLOS.
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