Drones will deliver by end of 2018, according to Parazero boss

Commercial autonomous drones could be flying, at scale, by the end of the year, according to CEO of Parazero, an ASX listed drone safety company.

One of the impediments to large scale commercial drone use by companies like Amazon, UPS and FedEx, has been the issue of safety.

But Parazero, ASX:PRZ, says it has a unique solution that has caught the attention of the Trump White House.

CEO, Eden Attias said "Our technology solves the safety issue, with in-flight monitoring of a drone via 27 sensors, which, if necessary, takes over and deploys a parachute, siren and lights on if something critical goes wrong."

Parazero is the only company, based outside the US, to be invited to join, a high level task force, aimed at getting drones safely flying commercially, as soon as possible.

• Drones est. to add $82b economic benefit within 10 years

• Drones add up to 100,000 jobs in USA alone.

With numbers like that, you can understand why the US Government is keen to get things moving, and as fast as possible.

This week, I caught up with Parazero CEO, Eden Attias, from Israel, to discuss the significance of their involvement in the Unmanned Aircraft Systems National Airspace Integration Pilot Program.

Through the Department of Transport and Federal Aviation Administration, under the program, ten teams (see list below video) have been selected to gather drone data involving:

• night operations

• flights over people

• beyond the pilot’s line of sight

• package delivery

• detect-and-avoid technologies

• reliability and security of data links between pilot and aircraft

The teams were chosen out of 149 groups and businesses that applied, and is a potentially huge advantage for Parazero, because they produce a drone safety system, and as such, could be part of the safety model adopted by the US Government's Department of Transport.

The Parazero system has three key elements:

1. 27 sensors constantly checking for what is happening on the drone and in the near vicinity.

2. A proprietary real-time algorithm that scans the sensor data

3. Once the algorithm realizes hard-parameters have been breached, it rapid deploys a low altitude parachute system, as well as activating warning siren and lights.

PARTICIPATING TEAMS:

1. Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Durant, OK – Agricultural, public safety and infrastructure inspections, with planned Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations over people and nighttime operations.

2. City of San Diego, CA – Border protection and package delivery of food, with a secondary focus on international commerce, Smart City/autonomous vehicle interoperability and surveillance.

3. Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Authority, Herndon, VA – Facilitate package delivery in rural and urban settings.

4. Kansas Department of Transportation, Topeka, KS – Deploy UAS to support beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations in rural communities, leverage a statewide unmanned traffic management system to facilitate precision agriculture operations.

5. Lee County Mosquito Control District, Ft. Myers, FL – Low-altitude aerial applications to control/surveil the mosquito population using a 1500-lb. UAS.

6. Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, Memphis, TN – Inspection of FedEx aircraft and autonomous operations that support airport operations such as perimeter security surveillance and package delivery.

7. North Carolina Department of Transportation, Raleigh, NC – Test localized package delivery within a defined airspace by establishing drone delivery stations in local communities. This approach enables small businesses to utilize this delivery platform for commercial purposes.

8. North Dakota Department of Transportation, Bismarck, ND – Diverse operations that incorporate advanced technologies that seek to expand UAS operations at night and Beyond Visual Line of Sight.

9. The City of Reno, NV – Time-sensitive delivery of life-saving medical equipment, such as medical defibrillators in emergency situations in both urban and rural environments. See also, Reno, Flirtey among 10 chosen nationally for drone partnership.

10. University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK – Pipeline inspection and surveying in remote areas and harsh climatic conditions.

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