Stanford CIS

Amazon's vision of a drone highway in the sky

By Ryan Calo on

"What will Amazon’s drone highway in the sky look like?

Probably not a drone highway. Amazon unveiled a proposal where low-level air space would be carved out for drones: 200 to 400 feet would be reserved for high-speed transit drones. Below, there would be space for low -speed local drone traffic, and above would be a no-fly buffer zone to keep drones out of manned-vehicle air space, aka flight paths.

“It’ll be far enough above that you won't have a constant stream of noise or a visual blight, but low enough that it would not worry pilots,” says Ryan Calo, professor of law at the University of Washington.

Amazon shipping drones would share the space with drones doing other tasks like taking air samples, scanning railroad tracks and taking aerial video of a birthday party.

Calo says we'll still be able to see the sky. "I think it’s going to be sporadic. I don’t think drones are suddenly going to darken the skies,” he says."

Published in: Multimedia , Drones , Amazon , Robotics