Amazon Delivery Drone

Amazon Delivery Drone, Amazon.com is working on a way to get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less – by drone.

Consider it the modern version of a pizza delivery boy, minus the boy.

Amazon.com said it’s working on the so-called Prime Air unmanned aircraft project in its research and development labs. But the company says it will take years to advance the technology and for the Federal Aviation Administration to create the necessary rules and regulations.

The project was first reported Sunday by CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a primetime interview that while the octocopters look like something out of science fiction, there’s no reason they can’t be used as delivery vehicles.

Bezos said the drones can carry packages that weigh up to five pounds, which covers about 86 percent of the items Amazon delivers. The current generation of drones the company is testing has a range of about 10 miles, which Bezos noted could cover a significant portion of the population in urban areas.

While it’s tough to say exactly how long it could take the project to get off the ground, Bezos told “60 Minutes” that he thinks it could happen in four or five years.

One of the biggest promises for civilian drone use has been in agriculture.

The unmanned aircraft can fly over large fields and search out bugs, rodents and other animals that might harm crops. Then, thanks to GPS, another drone could come back and spread pesticide on that small quadrant of the field.

Agriculture is also seen as the most-promising use because of the industry’s largely unpopulated, wide open spaces. Delivering Amazon packages in midtown Manhattan will be much trickier.

Besides regulatory approval, Amazon’s biggest challenge will be to develop a collision avoidance system, said Darryl Jenkins, a consultant who has given up on the commercial airline industry and now focuses on drones.