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Amazon exec worries about state laws on drones

Paul Misener
Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global innovation policy and communications, speaks at the CES show in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Monica Nickelsburg)

By Alan Boyle and Monica Nickelsburg

A patchwork of state laws governing drone operations would pose a “real problem” for aerial delivery systems like the one that Amazon is developing, one of the executives in charge of the company’s drone program says.

Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global innovation policy and communications, discussed the regulatory issues facing delivery drones today during a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Amazon began using drones to make deliveries to a handful of customers in England last month, and the Seattle-based company is expected to ramp up U.S. drone operations in the next couple of years.

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FAA tests systems to counter dastardly drones

Drones
Drones were visible in abundance at CES. (FAA Photo)

Drone sightings by commercial pilots are on the rise, and so is the Federal Aviation Administration’s research into systems that detect and defend against unmanned aerial vehicles.

In cooperation with other government agencies and industry partners, the FAA has been testing technologies designed to detect unauthorized drone operations near airports and other critical infrastructure, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told a packed audience today at the CES show in Las Vegas.

“We’ve evaluated some of these technologies in some pretty complicated places, airports like New York, and Denver, and smaller places like Atlantic City,” he said.

Huerta said further tests will be conducted later this year around Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

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Human-sized drone unveiled – but is it a drone?

Image: Ehang 184 drone
The Ehang 184 drone has been tested in China. (Credit: Ehang)

Look! Up in the air! It’s a drone, it’s a plane, it’s … Super-Quadcopter!

Droves of drones were unveiled this week at the International CES show in Las Vegas, but the one that made the biggest splash was arguably the Chinese-made Ehang 184, a remote-controlled quadcopter that’s so big it can accommodate a 220-pound passenger.

Guangzhou-based Ehang says the electric-powered, 440-pound craft can be charged up in two to four hours and fly for 23 minutes. It’s designed to fly at an altitude of about a quarter-mile at speeds of up to 62 mph, but if you push it, the vehicle can go as high as 11,000 feet.  It even has air conditioning and a reading light.

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