Deliveries by drone: not coming soon to a city near youRelaxnews
4 hours ago
Forget the hype that Amazon and Google are generating with their experimental drone delivery services, NASA claims that it will be at least five years before the autonomous flying machines are safe enough to fly even in sparsely populated areas.
There may be a lot of buzz around drones at the moment, but, according to a group of NASA researchers, there are far too many technological and regulatory hurdles for them to overcome before they will be allowed to make deliveries in major cities. Meaning that, for the time being at least, they should be considered in the same vein as self-driving cars, something that is years away from becoming a reality.
Speaking to the New York Times, the US space agency explained how it is responsible for developing the automated air traffic control system that would permit drones to fly in US airspace.
The program which would monitor any aircraft flying at between 400-500 feet needs to monitor the weather and natural geographical hazards, like tall buildings, big trees and mountains, things that are an issue for tiny unmanned craft like drone, but not for traditional aircraft.
Likewise, the drones themselves -- which are autonomous and use algorithms, an internet connection and sensors to fly -- would have to be able to respond to warning commands and not be blown off course by something as simple a as sharp gust of wind.
As Parimal H. Kopardekar, a NASA principal investigator who is developing and managing that program told the publication: "One at a time you can make them work and keep them safe. But when you have a number of them in operation in the same airspace, there is no infrastructure to support it."
Kopardekar believes that the first commercial uses for drone could come as early as 2015 but that they would be very much restricted to things like monitoring oil pipelines or crops, what he describes as "asset monitoring".
However, he thinks it will be another five years before they could be used as parcel delivery devices in sparsely populated areas where collision risks are lower.
But as well as an air traffic control system, for drones to be allowed to take to the skies en masse in the US, the Federal Aviation Authority would need to ratify any proposed system for keeping them from crashing into each other and it would be difficult to put a time frame on that. And then of course, there's the public perception.
"There is the technology piece and then there is the public acceptance piece, and both have to evolve," Dr. Kopardekar said. "If they are taken over by some rogue elements, how do you manage them? How do you have them safely land and take off in the presence of a grandma doing landscaping and kids playing soccer?"
Google has been testing its drone in rural Australia due in part to its sparsely populated nature and partly because, unlike the US, Australia has so far been very relaxed about granting permission for drones to take to its skies.
Google hopes that within a year it will be able to send the drones to disaster areas for remote monitoring and for delivering supplies such as emergency medicine and emergency rations. However, it hasn't ruled out also using the craft for consumer goods deliveries in the future.
Although the US is much more strict about its airspace, individuals are still permitted to fly drones but, as the article points out, only if said drone doesn't endanger other aircraft, people or property.
http://news.yahoo.com/deliveries-drone-not-coming-soon-city-near-155921861.html
