In December, two Amazon delivery drones crashed during a test flight after both aircraft shut off mid-air at an altitude of more than 200 feet.
Citing a report into the investigation by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Bloomberg reported that the drones incorrectly believed they had landed, triggering an automatic shutdown of their propellers while flying. NTSB blamed the cause on faulty lidar readings made worse by the rain and a software tweak that increased the sensors’ sensitivity.
Bloomberg’s report noted that Amazon had removed backup “squat switches” – metal prongs used in earlier models to physically confirm a landing – leaving the aircraft reliant solely on sensor input.
In a separate article, Amazon told the New York Post that Bloomberg’s reporting was “misleading”.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Post that the assumption that replacing one system with another would have prevented an accident in the past is irresponsible. Amazon’s Kate Kudrna told the Post that the company has incorporated “multiple sensor inputs” to prevent false readings from causing future crashes, adding that the MK30 drone is both safer and more reliable than its predecessor and complies with Federal Aviation Administration standards.
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