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Amazon.com looking for Kiwi tech?

A while back, Amazon.com shook the world by announcing its intention to start a "delivery by drone" service.

Drones, the company claimed, would be able to provide rapid delivery by air to major urban areas, allowing people to receive their purchases in as little as an hour.

Naturally, the media jumped all over this and the company's name was in the news for weeks -- especially once the FAA stepped in and announced that it would not even allow Amazon to test the concept, let alone roll out such a service.

Despite these hurdles, Amazon advertised for drone pilots and began conducting trials inside large warehouses, where they could fly without raising the ire of the airspace regulator.

Now, after significant pressure has been applied on the FAA by politicians in the US senate, a number of authorisations have been granted to allow commercial use of these craft in some cases and Amazon has received such a permit.

This permit doesn't allow the company to provide a drone-based delivery service but it does allow them to experiment with the technology and do some preliminary testing. And that's a very good thing.

Why?

Because right now, Amazon is dreaming if they think they have any chance of fulfilling their promised 16Km operating range.

As anyone who has worked seriously with this technology knows, the technology to allow a multirotor-type drone to travel a round-trip distance of 32Km (carrying a payload for half that distance) simply does not exist at any viable price-point right now.

Most multirotor drones are limited to around 20 or 30 minutes of flight-time and even that is with a relatively light payload (such as a small camera) and when flown very sedately. Try cranking up the speed to 60-80Km/H whilst adding a heavy or draggy payload and you'll slash that time by half. Now do the math and work out the range.

Fortunately, it's only a matter of time before battery technology improves to the point where Amazon's desired range capabilities are practical and that may well coincide with the completion of their testing and the development of their vehicles.

However, the other huge hurdle to Amazon's plans is highlighted in this BBC story.

" The flights would cover distances of 10 miles (16 km) or more and would require drones to travel autonomously while equipped with technology to avoid collisions with other aircraft" (emphasis mine).

Oh gosh... they'll need an effective sense and avoid (SAA) system that is small enough to fit to such a craft. Where would they get one of those?

It sure as hell won't be from me -- given that so many idiotic bureaucracies seem to be hell bent on preventing the continuation of my technology development.

But imagine if I *could* continue working on this tech...

With so many companies just dying to launch relatively autonomous drone-based services and products, the economic potential for whoever comes up with a viable, affordable system first is enormous.

Now perhaps Amazon.com will knock on my door (just as BAE Systems and General Atomics have already).

Maybe Amazon will even contact CAA and the SWDC to let them know that the work I'm doing has huge safety and economic potential and that they are very interested in supporting what I'm doing -- as BAE Systems already has.

Will it make any difference to "the powers that be"?

Obviously not.

Sigh.

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