Amazon Prime Air’s Gur Kimchi laid out the company’s concept of how to ensure the increasingly busy international airspace can scale up for widespread drone use.



The company proposes a no-fly zone for drones between 400 and 500 feet. Below 200 feet, or the Low-Speed Localized Traffic area, will be reserved for non-transit operations such as surveying and inspection and operations for lesser-equipped vehicles like those without sense and avoid. A High-Speed Transit space, between 200 and 400 feet, will be designated for well equipped vehicles, like the  ones Amazon is developing.  Finally, this airspace model will also encompass Predefined Low-Risk Locations. Altitude and equipage restrictions in these locations will be established in advance by aviation authorities. 



“What’s important, though, is we have a model that’s heterogeneous that supports all of these applications,” he says. 

To accomplish this, there will need to be a “federated” air traffic control, where information for drones can be relayed across multiple drone controllers to pass on important deconfliction information.



“This is different than what we have today, but it’s more scalable and more robust,” he said, likening it more to how telephone companies built an infrastructure that didn’t need major reworking for new users.



Kimchi discussed the importance of working with regulatory bodies and advocacy groups.



“The only way this will work is by everybody speaking the same language. We need interoperable protocols, and they need to be global.”



John Chambers, executive chairman of Cisco Systems, talked about another need for scalability — buy in from national governments. 



He said he doesn’t currently see this excitement from the national level in the United States. But in countries elsewhere, particularly France — which as of February was the No. 1 startup country in Europe — he’s seen that transition.



“It’s because of commitment of government to change.”



Chambers predicts that with the massive wave of change coming from the Internet of Things that 40 percent of businesses today will be gone in a decade if they do not adapt. 



“This is a period of disrupt or be disrupted,” he said.



Twenty years ago, people could not imagine the degree to which the Internet would change their lives. With $19 trillion on the line over the next 10 years in IoT technology, and with companies like AirBnb and Uber forcing older business models to reinvent themselves, another major tech boom change is occurring now, he said. And this is true for the drone industry as well. 



“When this exponential point occurs, it’s so important that industry is ready,” Chambers said.

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