Amazon completes first drone delivery order

After teasing its autonomous drone delivery technology in 2013, Amazon has finally made its first autonomous drone delivery through Prime Air. The order was placed by a man in Cambridgeshire, England and he received the package in 13 minutes. Amazon's goal with Prime Air is to allow people to get an order within 30 minutes. There are limitations to the technology, but in the end, this might help Amazon adhere to its standards more than hinder.

Prime Air drones can only lift packages that weigh less than 5 pounds. This means the program works best for people looking to get small items quickly. Amazon has long been searching for ways to facilitate more impulse buying. This was the impetus behind ordering with one click and building 3G into its Kindle e-book readers.

Although drone deliveries will be limited to certain items, given the volume of orders Amazon deals with, Prime Air could cut down a lot on required manpower. The increase in online ordering is straining FedEx and UPS in the US this year and Amazon always goes on seasonal hiring sprees for the holidays. The Prime Air drones, however, work completely autonomously.

Workers still have to box up the merchandise, but those boxes are then put on a conveyor belt and delivered to the drone. The drone latches onto the box through a grip on its underside and takes off. It flies at an attitude under 400ft and uses GPS to find the right address before dropping the package off on a designated Amazon landing pad.

Amazon's past media campaigns have made many people familiar with how drone delivery works, but this first Prime Air order puts Amazon in the lead as many technology companies work on their own autonomous drone and robot delivery efforts.

While Amazon is starting out this trial with two customers in the UK, it said it plans to expand the trial to dozens near the same distribution facility in the next few months. The company then wants to expand to hundreds more customers, although there are regulatory hurdles as it works to include additional homes. Current regulations in the US have kept the company from rolling out Prime Air there, but rules for the commercial use of drones have been relaxed significantly over the last few years.

This is part of the reason drone makers have been investing so heavily in commercial drones. DJI, for example, has recently come out with multiple products specifically for professional use. Some companies from Asia are already working on drones capable of lifting heavy objects, or even carrying people.