Amazon drone delivery

By 06/13/2022 12:37 PM EDT • • • • Link Copied • • • • Amazon will begin using drones to deliver parcels — nearly a decade after Jeff Bezos first floated the concept — beginning in a small town in California later this year. On Monday, Amazon announced that customers in Lockeford, Calif., will be “among the first to receive Prime Air deliveries.” In an appearance on the TODAY Show, Amazon said it plans to deliver packages weighing less than five pounds within an hour, using drones ferrying items from a facility roughly 15 miles away. The FAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday’s announcement. It’s been a long road for Amazon and other companies who have for years wanted to use drones to deliver packages, food and more, mostly because of the FAA’s strict rules that govern the use of commercial drones. In order to operate a drone commercially, companies must obtain a special certification — a five-phase licensing process that in part allows small drones to carry the property of another “for compensation beyond visual line of sight,” meaning outside of their normal visual range, according to the agency. The same process applies to certify various aviation operations that fall below the level of airspace at which commercial airplanes operate. For operators that want to fly their drones beyond the point where a drone pilot can see the craft with their own eyes, the FAA requires the company to apply for a waiver. Bezos first envisioned that his venture ...

As Amazon prepares to debut its long-delayed Why it matters: Consumers want their stuff fast, and under Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' vision, they could get it delivered in as little as 30 minutes while helping the environment by taking CO2-emitting trucks off the street. • But a host of technical and regulatory hurdles stand in the way, which is why drone deliveries in the U.S. are progressing slowly. Driving the news: Amazon showed off its next-generation drone at a recent event near Boston to highlight the future of delivery. • The 80-pound hexagon-shaped aircraft, about 5½ feet in diameter, is nimble enough to make deliveries in highly populated areas such as Boston, Atlanta and Seattle. • It'll be more capable and less intrusive than the model Amazon is using in its Prime Air service, which will begin in two markets — Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas — in the coming weeks. • By the end of the decade, the company's goal is to deliver 500 million packages a year by drone in cities, Amazon Prime Air vice president David Carbon told reporters. Details: The new aircraft, dubbed MK30, has a longer range and can fly in more types of weather — including light rain — than the drone it'll use in the near term. • It also has new "sense-and-avoid" safety features that allow it to operate at greater distances while skirting other aircraft, people, pets and obstacles. • Custom-designed propellers reduce the perceived noise by 25%, Amazon said. • Thousands of items cou...

Nearly a decade after Why it matters: Drones bearing packages could soon be as ubiquitous as the Amazon van or UPS truck rumbling through your neighborhood, helping to reduce roadway congestion and lessen tailpipe emissions. • Yes, but: Widespread deployment won’t happen until the Federal Aviation Administration finalizes drone flight rules — a process that could take another year or two. Driving the news: Amazon said Monday it will launch its Prime Air drone delivery service later this year for about 3,000 customers in rural Lockeford, California, near Sacramento. • To support the service, the company is building a dedicated drone fulfillment facility in San Joaquin County. • The news comes about a month after rival How it works: Amazon will notify Lockeford customers that they have the option to receive free drone delivery on thousands of everyday items. • If they're interested, an Amazon representative will visit their home to scope out a mutually agreed-upon delivery location, and provide them with a delivery marker that will give the drone a target. • Customers can then place orders for Prime Air-eligible items as they normally would and track their orders in real time. • The drone will fly to the designated delivery location, descend to the customer’s yard, and hover safely about 6 feet off the ground. It will then release the package, rise back up to altitude and return to base. • Camera sensors will ensure that there are no pets, people or objects that would interf...

We never stop innovating for our customers. Our team has been hard at work figuring out how we get items to customers quickly, cost-effectively, and—most importantly—safely in less than an hour. The promise of drone delivery has often felt like science fiction, and we’ve been working for almost a decade to make it a reality. We’ve built fully electric drones that can deliver packages under 5 pounds to customers in less than an hour, from click to delivery. Earlier this year, we announced that customers who live in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, will be among the first to receive Prime Air deliveries later this year. Read more Continuous innovation for customers Just as we do with all our innovations—including Prime, Kindle, Alexa, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Prime Video, and so much more—we built something great with Prime Air drone delivery and then kept iterating on it. We’re now introducing our next generation delivery drone: the MK30. Due to come into service in 2024, this drone will be lighter and smaller than the MK27-2, the drone that will be making deliveries in Lockeford and College Station. The MK30’s increased range, expanded temperature tolerance, safety-critical features, and new capability to fly in light rain will enable customers to choose drone delivery more often. A 3D rendering of a MK30 drone. Download the high res gif. Reducing the noise signature of our drones is an important engineering challenge that our team is working on. Our dr...

We have been working on building a drone delivery service since 2013. Our goal? Building fully electric drones that deliver packages under 5 pounds to customers in less than an hour. Later this year, customers living in Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas will be among the first to receive Prime Air drone deliveries.