A follow-up post to the recent one about Google angling to outdo Amazon in the delivery-drone sector, this one about the regulatory issues involved. Even when navigational and battery challenges are worked through, the greater obstacle in the path may be governmental, at least in the near-term future. From Jack Nicas at the Wall Street Journal:

“Then there are the regulatory hurdles. There, the issue isn’t so much the Federal Aviation Administration’s current effective ban on commercial drones. The agency says it plans to propose rules for small drones in November, with the rules likely finalized one or two years later. That timeline jibes with Google’s and Amazon’s stated plans for delivery drones. Still, the FAA has missed several previous deadlines for the rules, and their importance means several big federal departments will have to weigh in, which could further delay things.

The devil is likely to be in the details of those rules. The FAA has said it will prohibit fully autonomous drone flights for the foreseeable future—even after the broader ban is lifted. Its five-year roadmap for drone integration, released last year,  says that a pilot will be required to fly each drone, or at least have ‘override authority to assume control at all times.’ Some have suggested one pilot could oversee many largely autonomous drones with the ability to jump into control if any device malfunctions, but the FAA roadmap explicitly states there must be one pilot per drone.

Depending on how this policy materializes in the final rule, it could create a big headache for Google’s and Amazon’s plans — and many other potential drone applications. Delivery drones would likely have to be autonomous to be cost efficient.”