Amazon Completed Its First Ever Drone Delivery: Goals, Capacity, And Future

Recently, Amazon made its first customer delivery by drones, carrying a parcel holding a popcorn packet and a Fire TV video-streaming device to a two-story farmhouse near Cambridge, the United Kingdom in 13 minutes. 

The delivery marks the start of operation of Amazon's drone program after three years of scepticism and regulatory hurdles. Prime Air aims to deliver packages to customers within 30 minutes.

The goal is that all orders made using Amazon Prime Air will be delivered to the customers within 30 minutes. The trail will be expanded to the dozen of clients living close to the warehouse in coming months. 

There are Amazons Prime Air development centres in the United States, United Kingdom, Austria and Israel. The company is also testing its drones in multiple international locations.

As a part of testing for the Amazon Prime Air service, the delivery took place in seven December, although the news has revealed on 14 December 2016. 

The Cambridge fulfilment centre is home to the drones, which, once the ordered parcel is on board, flying along an automated track to the launch area. The drones then take off and operate entirely autonomously, guided by GPS to their destination. The drones are capable of carrying item weighing up to 2.7kg.

So far, the Federal Aviation Administrator has allowed such drones only on an experimental basis in specially designated areas; there is a strict restriction against flying over populated areas and the group of people. 

Amazon will make drone deliveries in the Cambridge test area seven days a week during daylight hours. Item must weight less than 5 pounds to qualify Amazon Prime service. Customers who lived in the test area can place an order on a Prime Air app.

On Wednesday company released a video that shows a track the drone used to launch, a platform from which employees monitored take off, and landing pad on the customer's lawn.