The FAA has authorised drone delivery firm Zipline to operate commercial deliveries using unmanned autonomous drones flown beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of operators for the first time.
Zipline will deliver packages around Salt Lake City and Bentonville, Arkansas, using its Sparrow drones that fly beyond the operator’s visual line of sight. The drones will release their payloads via parachute.
The company received its Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate from the FAA last June, which permits it to perform long range on-demand deliveries using commercial drones in the USA.
Zipline’s drones, which it calls Zips are equipped with an onboard detect and avoid system that continually monitors the airspace surrounding them as part of what it terms an “onboard perception system” that has been developed tested in partnership with the FAA.
This system uses ADS-B transponders that identify aircraft in the nearby airspace, as well as an acoustic avoidance system that uses small microphones to detect and avoid other aircraft flying up to two miles away in all directions, including during the dark of night and in challenging weather.
Ziplines testing has included tens of thousands of flight test encounters with aircraft and is already deployed in the USA as well as several other countries.
Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, CEO and co-founder of Zipline said, “Today we use 4,000 pound gas combustion vehicles driven by humans to do billions of deliveries across the country.
“It’s expensive, slow and bad for the environment. This decision means that we can start to transition delivery to solutions that are 10x as fast, less expensive, and zero emission.
“Zipline hubs across the country can now go from serving a few thousand homes to serving hundreds of thousands of homes each year and millions of people, which will save time, money and even lives.”
Zipline said it has flown more than 50 million commercial autonomous miles and completed more than 750,000 commercial deliveries around the world without a single major safety incident for many years.
“We applaud the FAA for taking a major step to integrate autonomous drone delivery into the airspace. This will enable more commerce, new economic opportunities and greater access for millions of Americans,” said Okeoma Moronu, Zipline’s head of global aviation regulatory affairs.
“The FAA has incredibly high safety standards and it’s a testament to the entire Zipline team that our delivery drones are entrusted to fly and deliver at scale, over populated areas, in the most complex airspace in the world.”
Zipline’s long-range system, Platform 1, operates on three continents and makes a delivery every 70 seconds. The company recently announced a number of new healthcare partners along with customers across the retail and food sectors
P2 Zips fly more than 300ft above the ground. When the Zip arrives at its destination, it hovers at that altitude, while an autonomous delivery droid maneuvers down a tether, moves to the correct location, and drops off its package.
The P2 in a hub-and-spoke arrangement that can deliver in a 10 mile service radius, or as a network in which Zips can travel up to 24 miles each way from dock to dock.
Zipline said it is conducting “high-volume” flight tests of P2 this year and will release its first P2 customer deployment next year.
The FAA’s approval letters to Zipline can be read here and here. Data collected from the operations will also be used to inform the FAA’s ongoing policy and rulemaking activities.
The agency’s Beyond Visual Line of Sight Aviation Rulemaking Committee has provided safety recommendations to the FAA and it is reviewing their final report.