We’ll share photos and videos of our progress as we go, and we look forward to continuing to learn as we methodically expand this program to more customers in months and years to come. It will then safely release the package and rise back up to altitude. For these deliveries, the drone will fly to the designated delivery location, descend to the customer’s backyard, and hover at a safe height. They will place an order as they normally would and receive an estimated arrival time with a status tracker for their order. Once onboarded, customers in Lockeford will see Prime Air-eligible items on Amazon. It took years of inventing, testing, and improving to develop these breakthrough technologies, and we’re excited to use them to make customer deliveries. Prime Air is one of only three drone-delivery companies that has gone through the rigorous process to earn a FAA air carrier certificate, which will be required to operate drones using these advanced capabilities. We’ve worked closely with the FAA and other regulators throughout. Below are some of our designs, including our latest version, which we’re excited to now use to make customer deliveries in real-world environments. In fact, we’ve created more than two dozen prototypes. Since the inception of Prime Air, we have designed, built, and tested many drones. As our drone descends to deliver the package into a customer’s backyard, the drone ensures that there’s a small area around the delivery location that’s clear of any people, animals, or other obstacles. If obstacles are identified, our drone will automatically change course to safely avoid them. It can also detect moving objects on the horizon, like other aircraft, even when it’s hard for people to see them. Using this system, our drone can identify a static object in its path, like a chimney. Our algorithms use a diverse suite of technologies for object detection. When flying to the delivery location, the drones need to be able to identify static and moving obstacles.

We designed our sense-and-avoid system for two main scenarios: to be safe when in transit, and to be safe when approaching the ground. We’ve created a sophisticated and industry-leading sense-and-avoid system that will enable operations without visual observers and allow our drone to operate at greater distances while safely and reliably avoiding other aircraft, people, pets, and obstacles. That type of drone can be deployed relatively quickly, but it limits delivery operations to a small radius. Those systems will require visual observers along the route of every flight to help the drones avoid hazards. For example, most drones do not have the capability to sense and avoid other aircraft and obstacles-and it’s easy to understand why that could pose problems. The logistics industry is abuzz with all-things drones. We are working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local officials in Lockeford to obtain permission to conduct these deliveries and will continue with that collaboration into the future. 'It's exciting that Amazon will be listening to the feedback of the San Joaquin County community to inform the future development of this technology.' 'Lockeford residents will soon have access to one of the world's leading delivery innovations,” said California State Assemblyman Heath Flora, whose district includes Lockeford. As we launch the service in Lockeford, we’ll also be investing in the community, creating new jobs, building partnerships with local organizations, and helping reduce carbon emissions-all thanks to this futuristic technology that could one day become just as common as seeing an Amazon delivery van pull up outside your house.

Amazon prim