Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. News

U.K. has plans to create aerial drone zone superhighways to contain UAV traffic

By

The technology needed to drive delivery drones is already in existence, but laws have yet to catch up. To help take drone technology to the next step of mainstream adoption, the U.K. is currently in the process of establishing what could be the world’s first commercial drone corridor. This airspace will be available to any fully automated drones flying beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS), so long as it doesn’t require specialist hardware and conforms to basic technical regulations.

Recommended Videos

The unrestricted airspace — called the “Arrow Drone Zone” — will be located in the town of Reading, to the west of London, in the Thames Valley. The Drone Zone will be approximately 8 kilometers (5 miles) long and 500 meters (1,640 feet) wide. While it is referred to as a, well, zone for drones, it is technically unrestricted open airspace, meaning that drones and general aviation vehicles (read: airplanes and helicopters) will share the same space.

Drone Zone
Altitude Angel

Plans have been submitted to the U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority, and, from the sound of things, the project is being fast-tracked — with “necessary infrastructure deployment” beginning within weeks. The site will be managed by drone airspace company Altitude Angel.

“Project Arrow and Arrow Drone Zones open the door to the next level in the evolution of [unmanned traffic management] and automated drone operations,” Richard Parker, CEO and founder of Altitude Angel, said in a statement. “The size of this step cannot be underestimated: BVLOS automated flight in unrestricted airspace is a very significant barrier to overcome in order to realize the vision of mass-commercial drone usage.”

While this is certainly a boundary-pushing development when it comes to the use of drones, it’s one of many initiatives around the world that are helping to prepare drone technology for prime time (and the preparedness of the general public along with it). Around the world, tests are already being carried out by leaders in fields like drone delivery to prove the feasibility of the tech. Should all go according to plan with this Drone Zone, it hopefully won’t be long before similar airspaces start opening up elsewhere. The future of your airborne Amazon deliveries might just depend on it.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Luke Dormehl
Luke Dormehl
Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Your Google Photos app may soon get a big overhaul. Here’s what it looks like
The Google Photos app running on a Google Pixel 8 Pro.

Google Photos is set to get a long-overdue overhaul that will bring new and improved sharing and notification features to the app. With its automatic backups, easy sorting and search, and album sharing, Google Photos has always been one of the better photo apps, and now it's set to get a whole slew of AI features.

According to an APK teardown done by Android Authority and the leaker AssembleDebug, Google is now set to double down on improving sharing features. Google Photos will get a new social-focused sharing page in version 6.85.0.637477501 for Android devices.

Read more
The numbers are in. Is AMD abandoning gamers for AI?
AMD's RX 7700 XT in a test bench.

The data for the first quarter of 2024 is in, and it's bad news for the giants behind some of the best graphics cards. GPU shipments have decreased, and while every GPU vendor experienced this, AMD saw the biggest drop in shipments. Combined with the fact that AMD's gaming revenue is down significantly, it's hard not to wonder about the company's future in the gaming segment.

The report comes from the analyst firm Jon Peddie Research, and the news is not all bad. The PC-based GPU market hit 70 million units in the first quarter of 2024, and from year to year, total GPU shipments (which includes all types of graphics cards) increased by 28% (desktop GPU shipments dropped by -7%, and CPU shipments grew by 33.3%). Comparing the final quarter of 2023 to the beginning of this year looks much less optimistic, though.

Read more
Hackers claim they’re selling the user data of 560 million Ticketmaster customers
A crowd enjoying a music show that you are at because of Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster is giving people a lot to talk about. If the Justice Department is not suing it, it's reportedly suffering a data breach affecting the vital information of hundreds of millions of users. Hackread reports that a hacker group is claiming it breached Ticketmaster, putting the personal data of 560 million users at risk of suffering all types of attacks.

According to Hackread, the total amount of stolen data reaches 1.3TB and includes personal information such as names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, event details, ticket sales, order information, and partial payment card data. The list doesn't end there, though, as the compromised data also includes customer fraud details, expiration dates, and the last four digits of card numbers.

Read more