Google X project leader David Vos says goods will be winging their way to consumers sometime in 2017.
He said the FAA and other stakeholders are looking at the possibility of controlling Class G airspace through for-profit airspace service providers, which would use wireless communications to coordinate drone flights and liaise with the air traffic control system for manned aircraft.
Alphabet and Amazon.com Inc are among a growing number of companies that intend to make package delivery by drone a reality.
Google envisions its delivery drones being able to transport packages more quickly than regular methods, while cutting down on pollution.
One person in the drone industry said that Project Wing is considering drone deliveries for businesses, rather than directly to consumers, which Amazon is pursuing. Officials announced that Earl Lawrence, director of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office, will lead the government side of a drone registration task force.
Two years after preliminary analysis started, Project Wing was introduced in August 2014 with a YouTube video displaying a area check of its most viable prototype in Australia.
The drones can apparently travel five miles in five minutes. The timing on getting them out for commercial use is largely out of Googles hands, however.
Vos, speaking earlier this year, said he’s in favor of a computerized air traffic management system for drones that will approve flights and keep craft from crashing into each other.
The world’s largest retailer by sales volume, if not market cap, is asking the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to OK tests of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at a distribution facility and in residential neighborhoods.
The meeting includes 25 companies and organizations involved in the drone industry and the FAA and U.S. Department of Transport.
Source: The Weather Space