Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Amazon

The Corvallis Airport has been chosen by Amazon Prime Air as one of the two locations in Oregon to test and analyze their developing delivery drones.   

According to an unbranded sign posted at the airport, the drone operations have been going on since June 28, 2021. Local residents noticed the drones in operation last August, without knowing any details of the testing. 

This week, Av Zammit, Amazon Spokesperson confirmed that “Different aspects of the Prime Air program are under development in multiple locations around the world – Corvallis has played a key role in the development of this technology.” 

Although the City of Corvallis has not confirmed the city’s airspace as a testing ground, test locations do include Israel, the U.K., France, Austria, and other parts of Europe.  The other Oregon city testing is Pendleton, and unlike Corvallis, it has an entire business set up for testing called Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).   

Zammit said, “We received a Part 135 Air Carrier certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in August 2020 and remain focused on scaling a service that is safe and reliable.”   

This certification gives Amazon the ability to carry property on small drones “beyond the visual line of sight” of the operator. A drone’s current range for flight is between 7-15 miles.  The Corvallis Airport’s location – with miles of agriculture and farmland around it – gives Amazon an advantage to test flights without going over residents’ homes. 

The Drones 

Amazon Prime Air drones weigh around 88lbs, about the same as a lawn mower.  According to the sign at the airport, the drones being tested will go from the surface to 400 feet above ground level, cruising at approximately 200 feet.   

Amazon has filed several patents to address safety issues should anything go wrong in flight.  It is not publicly known which aspects are being tested here, but the thought of a lawn-mower sized drone dropping down unexpectedly sounds dangerous.  

According to TechCrunch, the drone can easily handle a rotor that stops working, which is pretty standard these days. In some circumstances, it can even handle two failed units. And unlike most other drones, it can glide if necessary, just like an airplane. But when it needs to find a place to land, its Artificial Intelligence (AI) kicks in, and the drone will try to find a safe place to land, away from people and objects. It has to do this without having any prior knowledge of its surroundings. 

Safety  

In response to a query about what Amazon is doing to keep Corvallis residents safe, Zammit said, “Safety is our top priority. Our vehicles will be built with multiple redundancies, as well as sophisticated ‘sense and avoid’ technology.  Additionally, through our extensive testing program, we will gather data to continue improving the safety and reliability of our systems and operations.” 

Noise 

With six rotors and its large size, the drones must be noisy.  It’s unclear how loud the drone will be. Amazon reports it’s well within established safety standards and that the profile of the noise also matters to them.  

They made the comparison between hearing a dentist’s drill and classical music. The drones fly hundreds of feet in the air, well above people and structures.  Further reducing the noise signature is one of the important challenges the Amazon Prime Air team is working on.   

TIme will tell if the sound levels will be enough to not notice deliveries coming to your yard, or to alert the local bird life of the drone’s presence. 

Talented Research Team 

“Yue Cao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering,” per a 2019 OSU EECS news announcement, “is collaborating with Amazon Prime Air to make UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) delivery a reality…Cao will help develop an advanced propulsion system that is more reliable and efficient. This all-electric flying vehicle will have to address multi-disciplinary challenges in the areas of power electronics, motor drives, energy storage, and cooling.”   

Cao has recently been honored with a National Science Foundation Award for an energy storage systems project. 

While Zammit admitted he didn’t know about Cao, he did emphasize, “We continue to hire and develop the brightest minds in the industry and are looking for even more talent to join our team.”   

Jobs on LinkedIn show Amazon Prime Air advertising for Drone Operators in Pendleton. 

Last Mile Delivery 

Corvallis has its share of “Autonomous Last Mile Delivery” experiments, such as Daxbot or OSU’s Starship couriers.  The race for cost-effective, environmentally sound and safe delivery systems to get customers’ purchases from warehouses to homes has become competitive with major companies – Amazon, Google/Alphabet, and Walmart – wanting to lead the current $51 billion market.    

Having a test site so close to home brings up many questions around safety, environmental impact, benefits to the community, and the big one – when will we be able to get our Amazon orders in 30 minutes or less? 

Stay tuned. 

By Stacey Newman Weldon 

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