Professor Sanjiv Singh, who works for delivery company NearEarth, said that flying drones is quite simple – you just give it some basic instructions: go to this height, do this short task, go back home. But even short flights from a mobile landing place could cause serious problems, he said. “They’re not planning to deliver in areas where nobody lives; they’re planning to deliver from a warehouse to the consumer, which will probably be in a town or city,” he said. “The drone will have to see hazards. Maybe there will be things that the map doesn’t know about. Maybe there will be construction equipment that wasn’t there but is there now. Maybe GPS signals will be blocked so it’s going to have an incorrect idea about where it is.” All this can be solved, he said – but it’s difficult.
What is Professor Singh worried will happen when the drone is unable to access GPS signals?
It will have unreliable knowledge of its current location It will deliver to an incorrect location It will be unable to follow simple instructions like “go to this height” It will stop responding to control commands from the operator