Amazon to test drones for faster delivery

Amazon.com, the world's largest e-commerce company, plans to test droneit looks to boost efficiency and speed up getting products to its online customers.

Chief executive officer Jeff Bezos launched the plan on CBS's ''60 Minutes'' news programme in the US, with interviewer Charlie Rose flying the airborne delivery vehicles.

According to Bezos, the gadgets, called octocopters, are capable of carrying five pound packets within a 10-mile radius of an Amazon fulfillment centre.

According to Bezos, the online retailer might start using the drones, which could make a delivery in up to 30 minutes, within five years pending Federal Aviation Administration approval.

He said it would work and it would be a lot of fun, in the ''60 Minutes'' interview broadcast yesterday.

The Seattle based company has been finding ways to get products to consumers faster to keep shoppers coming back to buy from its web store instead of going to brick-and-mortar retailers.

The company last month announced it was tying-up with the US Postal Service to start Sunday delivery to members of its $79-a-year Prime programme.

Australian company, Zookal is already using drones to deliver text books, according to Oliver Lamb, director of Sydney-based Pacific Aviation Consulting.

Bezos said the drones could deliver packages that weighed up to 2.3 kg amounting to nearly 86 per cent of packages that Amazon delivered, according to a Reuters report.

According to a blog in Bezos- owned The Washington Post, Bezos showed Rose a working prototype of an eight-rotor helicopter drone called an "octocopter."

Emblazoned with "Amazon Prime Air," the octocopter had a claw at the bottom to allow it to scoop up packages at Amazon fulfillment centres and carry them to customers' front lawns.

The blog pointed out that the biggest hurdle was the fact that the US, or any other country for that matter, had no regulations for drones occupying the air space.

The company would also need to make drones that could carry the said load and stay in the air long enough to deliver the package and return to base.