Amazon has unveiled a revolutionary new drone — part helicopter and part science-fiction aircraft — that the company expects to use for test deliveries of toothpaste and other household goods starting within months.
Amazon.com Inc. has unveiled a revolutionary new drone — part helicopter and part science-fiction aircraft — that the company expects to use for test deliveries of toothpaste and other household goods starting within months.
The Amazon announcement was full of drama as Jeff Wilke, chief of the company’s global consumer business, revealed the device at a technology conference in Las Vegas to booming music and theatrical smoke.Amazon declined to release some specifics on the device, citing trade secrets. And it also didn’t provide information about where it intends to conduct delivery tests, which have been in the U.K. in the past.
I don’t want to say they can’t do it. I have a lot of questions about all the conditions and have they thought of all of them and can they handle them.The technology Amazon is using for its drone is improving rapidly, but many complications remain before such devices are approved for routine operations, said John Hansman, an aeronautics professor at MIT who has studied robotic flight.
Amazon is competing against Wing, UPS and many smaller companies to create devices capable of delivering emergency supplies and consumer goods within minutes. It was one of the only drone companies that wasn’t chosen last year by the U.S. Department of Transportation for government-sponsored delivery testing, but it has been operating at an FAA-sponsored test site.
The Amazon device has only 10 moving parts, its six propellers and the four control surfaces that allow it to maneuver in flight, said Kimchi, who heads the engineering team that developed the aircraft.
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