Amazon Prime Air preps drone deliveries in Lockeford, California
The 3,500 residents of Lockeford, a rural San Joaquin County town in California, will be among the first to have drones deliver their Amazon Prime packages.
“Lockeford residents will play an important role in defining the future,” Amazon said in an online post.
“Their feedback about Prime Air, with drones delivering packages in their backyards, will help us create a service that will safely scale to meet the needs of customers everywhere, while adding another innovation milestone to the town’s aviation history.”
Amazon added that it has been working for more than a decade on being able to “get items to customers quickly, cost-effectively, and - most importantly - safely, in less than an hour.”
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It is working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local officials in Lockeford to obtain permission to conduct drone deliveries and will continue with that collaboration into the future.
The online post stated: “The logistics industry is abuzz with all things drones. But not all drone systems are equal. For example, most drones do not have the capability to sense and avoid other aircraft and obstacles—and it’s easy to understand why that could pose problems.”
“Those systems will require visual observers along the route of every flight to help the drones avoid hazards. That type of drone can be deployed relatively quickly, but it limits delivery operations to a small radius.”
It added: “We’re building something different. We’ve created a sophisticated and industry leading sense-and-avoid system that will enable operations without visual observers and allow our drone to operate at greater distances while safely and reliably avoiding other aircraft, people, pets, and obstacles.”
Once onboarded later this year, customers in Lockeford will see Prime Air eligible items on Amazon.
They will place an order as they normally would and receive an estimated arrival time with a status tracker.
The drone will fly to the designated delivery location, descend to the customer’s backyard, and hover at a safe height. It will then release the package and rise back up to altitude.
