Amazon may have announced their intention to deliver goods using drones first, but the United Arab Emirates are beating them to the actually getting the service going. Two prototype quad-copters were revealed at a government summit on Monday, with the trials to begin soon in the capital.
Dr Noah Raford, special adviser to the Office of the Prime Minister, says “what these things are best suited for is delivery of small, light value things that are time sensitive, like medicines, identification documents, vital papers and things of that nature.”
These drones will have an operational range of 3km and are capable of carrying packages of up to 1.5kg. To prevent the delivery of documents to the wrong person, the drones are equipped with retina and fingerprint scanners. The limited range of the drones may call into question the effectiveness of such a service, unless Dubai is prepared to create multiple drone launching sites across the city.
While other countries struggle with the legal nature of drones, the UAE is going embracing the new technology. The Dubai police already use surveillance drones to monitor sporting events, and the Dubai Civil Defense are currently running trials with drones for monitoring fires and providing media pictures.
[source: The National]
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