Amazon insisted Wednesday on a significant change to proposed US drone regulations before it introduces 30-minute Prime Air parcel delivery by unmanned aerial vehicles to its American customers. The online retail giant - a major player in the development of UAVs for civilian missions - acknowledged safety concerns as the Federal Aviation Administration hammers out a final set of commercial drone-flying rules.
But it balked at the FAA's proposal, set out in a notice of proposed rulemaking in February, that small UAVs fly only in full view of their operators on the ground - not at a distance beyond the line of sight.
"If adopted as drafted, the rules would not establish a regulatory framework to permit Prime Air operations in the United States," Amazon's vice president for global public policy Paul Misener told lawmakers.
Amazon disagrees with the FAA's claim that flying drones beyond their operators' line of sight is a major safety concern, Misener told the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"Although these safety concerns present particular engineering challenges, to be sure, such challenges are not qualitatively different from other engineering challenges facing small UAS (unmanned aerial systems) designers, so they should be assessed starting now, ultimately resulting in performance-based operating permissions," he said.