Amazon is planning to build a flight simulator to make sure its drones don’t crash while delivering products. A new patent shows that the flight simulator will make it possible for its Amazon drones to be able to more accurately drop off parcels at the homes of customers.
A recent patent filed to the European Patent Office indicates that Amazon is considering developing an in-house drone flight simulator to “reduce the time and expense required to assess new equipment by eliminating test flights and the costs associated therewith (e.g. fuel, weather, in-flight damage, wear and tear).”*
The primary reason Amazon plans to build its flight simulator is so it will be able to “perform hundreds of identical tests to isolate problems and eliminate anomalies that can occur during testing, as it pointed out in the patent.”*
Amazon believes that the flight simulator will make it possible for the drone to “think it’s flying,” which means it will be able to make realistic deliveries while avoiding “real” obstacles at the same time. The flight simulator will have the capability of testing the flight speed of the drone and pitching and rolling the drone, with the ability to adjust takeoff and landing locations.
Amazon Prime Air
During a 60 Minutes interview in 2013, Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, talked about the company’s plan to use drones to deliver products, which was using drones to replace standard delivery options available today, thereby reducing costs.
The drone delivery project has been a project for years as Amazon Prime Air has shown various prototypes and a video showing the technology to bring drone deliveries to the market. This prepares people for the Amazon.com rollout of their same-day delivery plan that was announced earlier this year.
Future
Amazon’s upcoming drone delivery project will make it possible to appreciate the latest mode of transportation — tricopters, quadcopters, octocopters and hexacopters — that makes it possible to receive products quickly, at virtually any place, at any time. These drones (mini helicopters) will be very accessible because they can be controlled by remote controls in the simulator.
