Amazon tests unmanned drones to deliver goods to its customers

Are you still flying because Amazon offers delivery on Sunday? I bet you’ll shoot into the outer space if I were to tell you your stuff will land at your front door within 30 minutes of your placing an order!  Amazon’s Chief Executive Jeff Bezos says that they are testing unmanned drones to deliver goods to customers. The basic idea is to deliver packages using small, unmanned aircrafts through a service the company is calling Prime Air. Amazon also posted a video on its website showing a drone picking up a package from one of its warehouses in yellow buckets and delivering it to the doorstep of a customer’s house after they hit the buy button online at Amazon.com.

“We can do half-hour delivery… and we can carry objects, we think, up to five pounds (2.3kg), which covers 86% of the items that we deliver”,  The company estimates. “One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today” they added.

Here’s the video, what Amazon plans to achieve:

Drones have chiefly been used by the U.S. military to shoot missiles at enemy combatants. Over the years, the cost of these unmanned aircraft has dropped, making them more affordable and employable to commercial users. However, the Federal Aviation Administration currently limits the use of drones in the U.S. to public entities such as police forces and hobbyists. Amazon has to abide by the new regulations that shall be petitioned by 2015. “Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards”, the company declares.

Every single news article about Amazon drones end up focused on the innate human desire to knock stuff out of the sky, most likely with a loud bang. It’s not about people shooting them down due to hatred of drones but for the desire of the packages. For this, the drones will need to fly at an altitude of at least 300 feet for as long as possible to avoid attracting pot shots from target shooters or thieves. Also, what would happen when the weather condition is not favourable? Will the drones enjoy the snow, rain and hail or will it succumb to it? There are lots of details that need to be worked out, but nothing is technologically overwhelming.

Even though the technology is at least 3-4 years away, Amazon has managed to stir the imagination of everyone everywhere.