Amazon unveils ‘the future of home delivery’... package drones

Aamazon has unveiled a secret project to develop what it claims will be the future of home delivery — packages dropped off by drones.

The internet shopping giant’s boss Jeff Bezos says he wants to use octocopters to replace postmen and cut delivery times to only 30 minutes.

Customers would have their order dropped on to their front lawn by the machine, which would fly through the air from a nearby warehouse with the goods clasped in a metal grabber.

It is not clear if the drones are a PR stunt or a serious proposition.

But speaking to US TV network CBS, Mr Bezos said: “I know this looks like science fiction. It’s not.”

His claims raise the prospect of a future in which drones could also ferry post, including letters, around.

In the interview, Mr Bezos said that the drones would be able to carry goods up to five pounds in weight, which covers 86 per cent of the items that the company delivers.

He said that he wanted to launch the “Amazon Prime Air” service within four to five years, though that would almost certainly be in the US before anywhere else.

Explaining it was “an R&D project”, he said: “In urban areas, you could actually cover very significant portions of the population. And so, it won’t work for everything; you know, we’re not gonna deliver kayaks or table saws this way.”

He appeared to suggest the new technology could be an environmentally friendly alternative, adding: “These are electric motors, so this is all electric; it’s very green, it’s better than driving trucks around.”

Mr Bezos said the octocopters would not need a pilot to guide them. Instead they would use GPS tracking to find their way to and from the address.

Getting approval from the US Federal Aviation Authority was going to be the “hardest thing”, Mr Bezos said, but he insisted he thinks it “will happen”.