The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has announced its selection of six projects to test drone delivery services in retail deliveries, infrastructure inspections and emergency services – so, what next? Using advanced navigation, control and detection technologies, the six selected projects will be permitted to fly drones at distances beyond the ‘line of sight’, a regulatory benchmark indicating the operator’s ability to see the drones. The gold standard of business intelligence. “Timings of trials is down to the individual operators, but these trials are a significant step forward,” a CAA spokesperson tells .
“The data and insights we gather from them will help us work on ensuring that drones flying beyond the visual line of sight can operate safely in the future.” In its announcement yesterday (15 August), the CAA named ’s Prime Air as the in the retail industry. Amazon has previously said customers in the UK, Italy and parts of the US will have the option of drone delivery “beginning in ”, some eight years on from its to a customer.
The CAA chose London-based NGO Project Lifeline to test drone delivery of medical supplies, while Glaswegian firm Airspection will carry out inspections of the UK’s extensive spread of offshore wind farms in the North Sea. The other three selected projects are the National Police Air Service, NATS (National Air Traffic Service), both under the UK aviation regulator’s jurisdiction, and Project Sustainable Aviation T.