Technology News from Sri Lanka: UPS announced on Tuesday that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given authorization to the parcel shipping business to run a drone fleet to deliver OTA packages. The normal certification of Part 135 grants UPS clearance to use UAV (Unmanned Air Vehicles) for BLVOS operation (beyond line of sight) for any cargo exceeding 55 pounds, even at night.
The first delivery flight was made on September 27 to deliver medical cargo to WakeMed’s hospital campus in Raleigh, N.C. The deliver was also the first one that UPS earned revenue from, making a new era in the way we expect deliveries. The medial field is one of the few applications where time-sensitive situations can benefit from drone delivery runs.
The Part 135 Standard certifies that UPS does not have any boundaries on the extent of its activities. It can fly an infinite amount of drones and is not restricted to the amount of distant operators that it can use. UPS can thus really begin to scale its deliveries to medical clients and ultimately expand to residential deliveries.
Looking to the future, UPS must continue to create all the security and privacy elements of UAV delivery including DAA (detecting and avoiding) technologies to guarantee that drones do not collide with individuals, cars, trees or structures.
