Amazon Prime Air
The plan
Amazon is working in, among others, the US, the UK, Austria and Israel on different vehicle designs that can deliver a package within 30 minutes after ordering it. This function called Amazon Prime Air can deliver packages up to five pounds (around 2.3 kilograms). When an order is placed a worker in an Amazon warehouse picks the desired product an places it on a conveyor which brings it to a drone. The package is then loaded into the vehicle and the vehicle takes off to deliver the order. At the destination the drone will look for the special Amazon landing mat to drop its order. The look and characteristics of these drones will continue to evolve over time to discover how best to deliver packages in a variety of operating environments. The drones will operate at speeds up to almost 100 kph at an altitude of 100 meters. The current drones have a range of 15 miles (around 24 km).
A huge advantage of Prime Air is that there is no more unhelpful delivery window (between 6am and 11pm). You will be notified when your package takes off and a timer will count down ti delivery. In case something comes in between and you want to postpone the delivery, this can also be done.
For a visual representation of how the system works see videos 1, 2 and 3 below.
Safety
To ensure safety the drones will be built with multiple redundancies, as well as sophisticated “sense and avoid” technology. Amazon will also gather data to continue improving the safety and reliability of their systems and operation. However, because the Prime Air option is not available yet it is not yet known how it works exactly. Amazon says that it will deploy the function when and where they have regulatory support needed to safely realize their vision.
Integration into the airspace
The integration will be the safest when small drones are separated from most manned aircraft traffic, according to Amazon, like operating below 500 feet (around 150 meters). Furthermore they would like to use a combination of real-time planning and on-board vehicle automation. These functions would be online, with the network able to adapt to varying situations when necessary. More detailed information on this can be found in sources 2 and 3.
Weather conditions
Currently the focus is on operating during daylight hours when there are low winds and good visibility, but once enough data is gathered they will expand to include rain, snow and icy conditions.
Videos
Look below for a few videos on how Amazon Prime Air will work:
Sources
Source 1 Source 2 Source 3 Source 4
--Wouter Weekers 14:18, 7 February 2017