Amazon says it will expand the range of its drone deliveries and the footprint of its drone network across the United States after the Federal Aviation Administration granted the tech giant permission to operate its delivery drones beyond the visual line of sight of drone operators.
It’s a key milestone in the company’s longstanding effort to deliver packages via drone, an initiative unveiled more than a decade ago by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a segment on “60 Minutes.”
Amazon says the approval was granted after it demonstrated its onboard detect-and-avoid technology, ensuring drones can safely navigate around obstacles, as validated through testing and real-world flights.
“We then conducted flight demonstrations in the presence of FAA inspectors to show our system works in real-world scenarios—we flew in the presence of real planes, helicopters, and a hot air balloon to demonstrate how the drone safely navigated away from each of them,” the company said in a post Thursday morning.
Even without eyes directly on the drone in the sky, a remote operator still uses technology “to monitor and control the drone at all times,” the company said.
With the new FAA approval, the company says it will start by expanding its existing operations in College Station, Texas, to reach more densely populated areas.
Later this year, Amazon plans to start integrating drone deliveries into its delivery network by placing drone facilities next to its same-day delivery sites, which combine elements of fulfillment centers and delivery sites. Amazon in April announced plans for the first of these co-located drone sites in Arizona.
Amazon’s stated goal is to deliver 500 million packages per year via drone by the end of the decade.
