DJI: We don't see Amazon drone deliveries happening in the next 10 years

DJI, the largest manufacturer of consumer multirotor drones in the world and a keen proponent of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) being used in industry, has said it does not believe Amazon's drone delivery dreams are feasible in the near future.

"What a lot of people are asking themselves is 'will I look up and see a sky full of drones?' It's impossible to predict the future but the way we see the market moving right now, something like that is really unlikely in the near future of five to 10 years," DJI's global PR manager Michael Perry told IBTimes UK.

"What we do see is drones... being used in agriculture, construction or film-making where you have a very localised field for using these platforms so that they're away from population centres."

Perry's comments were made at the London press conference launching the DJI Phantom 3 line of drones on 8 April.

The drone manufacturer introduced two new models with improved new sensors and an additional camera for sensing the drone's position at all times that enables operators to maintain a better control of their UAV even when GPS signals and line of sight are not available.

FAA relaxes its drone stance

There has been a great deal of interest in drones being used for commercial purposes in the past two years, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US finally relaxing its strict no-drones stance and proposing rules for commercial use, while in the UK, the House of Lords has focused on proposing regulations on how both civilians and businesses can use the technology.

However, both countries have remained firm on one point: pilots cannot operate drone flights that are out of their line of sight, meaning long-distance use, which Amazon most likely wants, is out of the question.

It is possible DJI's emphasis with the launch of a flight simulator app to train pilots, and a new section on its website called Fly Safe that includes a large database of all the no-fly zones in the world and a plethora of safety tips, could all be the manufacturer's way of trying to make drone flights safer and hopefully convince regulators to be less harsh on businesses that seek to use the UAVs.

"There's a variety of things that DJI is doing both in the software and also proactively working hand in hand with regulators to promote safe, smart, responsible drone usage," Perry said.

"I think ultimately regulators and manufacturers want the same thing, which is safe skies that are also open to innovation. We're engaged in the Nasa Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management (UTM) project and we've also been at the forefront of developing geofencing solutions for our platforms."

No-fly zones and height caps

Perry adds that in 2014, DJI introduced no fly zones at 720 locations in the world, including all airports, and set a height cap in the areas near to airports as well.

"We saw a really enthusiastic reaction to this from not just regulators but also drone enthusiasts, who realise that as the technology becomes more commercially available and widely adopted, not everybody knows the rules of the road before they take off, and this is a technological solution that helps bridge that gap," he said.

According to Baroness O'Cathain, the chair of the House of Lords EU Committee, the most common feedback from the UK public was the fear of being spied on, together with being worried that drones would drop out of the sky and fall on their heads.

But Perry believes drones are not nearly as dangerous as other technologies can be. He said: "Every emerging technology has a period where people don't quite know what to think about it. Certainly there are risks, but there are also significant opportunities.

"Cars, helicopters and planes have a wide number of fatal accidents on a daily basis. I think it is really remarkable that these [UAV] systems have logged literally millions and millions of flight hours without a significant incident so far."