[zx76]

I hadn't heard of this service before - all very interesting. I found another article on Wired [1] that gives a good overview.

It's unlikely to be an issue in the wide open spaces of these countries - but an autonomous equivalent of the ATC system for drones will be needed when Amazon et al. start doing these deliveries in first world cities. Do you know of any companies working on this problem?

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/05/zipline-drones-rwanda/

[notahacker]

Other news coverage (e.g http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37646474) suggests that Zipline has some sort of rudimentary reporting to Rwandan ATC already. Presumably a more complex system could be developed allowing coordination of flightplans, remote takeovers etc.

I think the real problem is regulatory; any such system is only likely to happen if it has the explicit blessing of a regional Air Traffic Management authority, in which case they're probably more likely to develop, fund and run it than a startup, though there will be a place for technology companies that don't mind working with their procurement cycles and living off grant money for a while. A quick Google suggests US authorities are working on it http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-drone-traffic-20170501...

Other drone delivery programs in developing countries have foundered because those countries have refused to give permissions for flights out of security concerns.

[tim333]

There seem to be some people working on ATC for drones. Google, NASA, "experts at Nanyang Technological University and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore" etc https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ATC+system+for+drones

It's quite interesting technically. Regular ATC works by keeping flights quite far apart and separated by 1000ft or more in barometric altitude which wouldn't work with delivery dones but maybe you could use phone style gps location. It's not considered reliable enough for airliners but might be acceptable for drones.

[abakker]

Yes, the work at Google, NASA, and the FAA comes to mind. They are very aware of the need for handling this for the delivery space. With drones, as you pointed out, the flight path "conflicts" are much smaller. There are no wingtip vortices, and the drones take up much smaller physical space. The flights also start and stop much more rapidly. Right now, my impression is that the FAA is not equipped to process a major increase in flight path data with different flight conflict characteristics. Especially when the flight's round trips include a takeoff and landing. There are no "air corridors" in drone delivery, since below 400 feet, many more obstacles go into a flight path, and every house becomes its own airport.

As for drone GPS, there are VERY high accuracy options available using RTK. Especially RTK over satellite with systems from Trimble and Leica coming to mind. These are typically used in terrestrial survey and allow very high degrees of confidence in the physical location of the drones. I don't believe RTK works for planes, but it is in commercial use in drones all over. s

[anigbrowl]

I don't think you need centralized ATC for drones, you just make it a swarm/network function. Drones don't need 1000 feet of clearance; they're smaller, lighter, slower, fly lower, and have high maneuverability. Even when we get to the inevitable air scooter stage for peoples I think a 50 foot clearance will be sufficient.

[squarefoot]

Cities will create another problem: those drones are essentially small airplanes, so that it's pretty easy to build a strip for landing and taking off in rural areas, but smaller roofs in a populated city would make taking off harder and landing extremely hard. VTOL drones like quadcopters could solve that problem but they have much shorter range compared to similar winged aircrafts.

[baldfat]

I think flying drones for home delivery will be the new flying car. I think autonomous road vehicle is the future for cities with an attempt to deliver to the home and then to a central pick up.

Reason is money. UPS or the USPS can do it if Amazon and Walmart don't beat them first. Salaries and benefits are the biggest slice of the pie for expenses.