Breakthrough in Drone Delivery?
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Drones are already being commercially used in highly-controlled environments, e.g for delivering medical products, carrying out infrastructure inspections, surveillance and maintenance, decreasing the risk for human teams and reducing congestion, pollution, and accidents on the roads.
Both in the United Kingdom as well as in the United States drones have to be flown within visual-line-of-sight unless a special waiver has been acquired. Non-military drone users currently have to keep drones within their sight and operate just one at a time in order to avoid collisions, which has so far hampered the efforts to launch drone delivery services, among other use cases.
Regulators are moving slowly and cautiously as they come to terms with a surge in the popularity of drones. However, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has indicated that it would relax those restrictions if a communications system could be developed to remove the risk of crashes.
A new technology could allow drones to leave operators’ line of sight and continue flying safely over long distances if ground communications are lost. UK-based satellite communications firm Inmarsat Group, which provides global communications for armed forces, emergency services and shipping, will fit drones with a technology that could enable regulators to green-light commercial drone projects.
In partnership with drone air management startup Altitude Angel, Inmarsat will fit drones with a global “back-stop” satellite connection when the system can’t connect to land-based communications.
The two firms will develop a “pop-up” UTM (unmanned traffic management) platform that, leveraging Inmarsat’s global satellite network, can be deployed anywhere it’s required to manage drone flight beyond the visual line of sight, without the need for ground-based infrastructure.
At the first stage, the systems will be developed for first responders, but a commercial, industry-focused product will follow soon, according to techhq.com. The ultimate goal is remote, scalable, automated drone fleets which could airlift tonnes of goods between depots and allow farmers to monitor and optimize their crops more easily, according to bloomberg.com.
