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Amazon is set to trial beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone flights, meaning human operators won’t need to maintain physical line of sight with drones.
The trials, part of a larger group of projects by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), will examine the signals sent by drones so they’re visible to air traffic control and other aircraft. It will also look at how drones identify and avoid other aircraft.
One of the projects will take place in the Orkney Islands at Kirkwall Airport, identifying ways drones and aircraft can safely share the skies.
The director of future flight at the CAA, Sophie O’Sullivan, said that the organization’s goal is to “make drone operations beyond visual line of sight a safe and everyday reality.”
UK Customers Could Receive Drone Deliveries By End of 2024
Amazon already offers drone deliveries to US customers in College Station, Texas and is rolling out to Arizona later this year. The retail giant hopes to start drone deliveries in the UK before the end of 2024, with drones able to fly around 12 km from their base at one of its fulfillment centers.
Customers in the UK have been waiting for this moment for quite a while. Amazon’s first commercial drone delivery took place in Cambridge in 2016. A few years later, in 2021, it scaled back Prime Air, the UK arm of its drone division following an extended period of employee churn and technical issues.
The vice president and general manager of Prime Air, David Carbon, said it was crucial for “clear regulatory requirements” to bring new technology such as drone deliveries to UK customers.
If the trials are a success, UK customers living near one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers could be receiving small packages within an hour of placing an order by the end of this year.
