Tuesday, federal officials approved a plan that might bring commercialization by allowing delivery drones to share the airspace over Dallas.
Similar to how the national air traffic control system regulates conventional aircraft, the FAA has announced that it will grant two businesses permission to utilize a newly created unmanned aircraft system traffic management system (UTM) to control the flights.
Initially a significant challenge for the sector to overcome was FAA allowing of the same two companies to fly autonomous aircrafts over somewhat great distances — outside the operator’s line of sight.
According to Costa Samaras, director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University, if these drones gain traction, they could offer an additional means of electrifying short-haul deliveries and contributing to the decrease of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.
This could be a gamechanger for Dallas residents. There will likely be weight restrictions to small and valuable items such as medicine.