Amazon invests in drone delivery

Amazon announced on Thursday the opening of a centre for the development of drone traffic management software, which the American giant plans to use for deliveries.

Based in Clichy on the outside of Paris city centre, the space will host a dozen software specialists tasked with working on a secure system for drone traffic management which will complement existing aerial traffic control, Amazon said in a press release.

The system will be dedicated to Prime Air, the 30-minute drone delivery programme that in currently being readied by the American tech giant.

Amazon explained that the system will allow for safe, low-altitude drone operations, providing access to airspace and geofencing (a GPS feature that works with predefined geographical boundaries, allowing the company to monitor the equipment to ensure that it does not go out of bounds).

The French team joins the Prime Air network which includes projects in the United States, United Kingdom, Israel and Austria.

Amazon, which executed its first drone delivery for an individual in December in Britain, has not given a date for the rollout of the programme, but has stated on its website that one day, seeing Prime Air drone will be as normal as seeing vans on the road.

Besides the technical challenge, drone delivery also depends on civil aviation authorities giving it the green light.