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Amazon has released a glimpse of what its much-anticipated drone deliveries could look like, although it warns the service is still very much in a testing phase.

A video released over the weekend shows a drone being loaded with a small package on a warehouse conveyor line. It then floats through a suburban neighborhood to a house, hovers over a yard, slowly lowers itself onto a small landing pad and deposits the package, all in about 30 minutes.

"It looks like science fiction, but it's real. One day, seeing Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road," the company 

The drones will fly no higher than 400 feet from the ground — low enough to avoid other aircraft but high enough to bypass traffic-clogged streets. They will be able to carry packages of no more than 5 pounds and travel distances of 10 miles or more, Amazon says.

You may recall that in 2013, Amazon released this video of what it 

 notes that while the drone news might be a marketing ploy, the sooner the service launches, the better:


Amazon is hardly the only big company looking into drone delivery. In October, a 

 showing a drone developed by Google that can fly 5 miles in five minutes. The Australian drone manufacturer Flirtey recently partnered with NASA to 

 to a Virginia airport from its base in Nevada.

Still, regular drone deliveries are a long way from becoming reality, Amazon says:


One hurdle the company has to overcome involves regulation: It can't start drone deliveries until the Federal Aviation Administration finishes 

 to govern the commercial use of unmanned aircraft.


"We will deploy when and where we have the regulatory support needed to safely realize our vision," the company says.

Science

Business and Economic News

Jim Zarroli

Author

A new video shows a drone being loaded with a small package on a warehouse conveyor line. It then floats through a suburban neighborhood to a house.

Amazon offers glimpse of delivery-by-drone future

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