亚马逊试水无人机投递服务或遇阻

    亚马逊金牌会员的特权正在变得越来越神奇。亚马逊（Amazon）上个月宣布，他们将与美国邮政总局（U.S. Postal Service）合作，开展周日送货服务。上周日，他们又公布了一项公司两日送达服务的升级扩展版：利用遥控无人驾驶飞机的30分钟送达服务。

    亚马逊首席执行官杰夫•贝佐斯在哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）的节目《60分钟》（60 Minutes）里向记者查理•罗斯透露了亚马逊研发实验室的最新成果：两架拥有无人机系统（UAS）的小型八旋翼直升机。它们可以在用户下订单后的30分钟内，直接从亚马逊庞大的物流中心网络中提货，送到用户的家门口。贝佐斯表示，这项服务被称为“Amazon Prime Air”，最快在2015年就能推出，不过也许还要稍长一些的时间来解决技术难题。

    贝佐斯在访谈中对罗斯表示：“想要实现这项服务，最大的难题在于向美国联邦航空管理局（FAA）证明它的安全性。我不希望有谁觉得它已经指日可待了。从现在开始，我们还需要几年的加倍努力。”

    然而，现实不会这么简单。目前来看，即便是亚马逊已经研发的这种无人机也无法在操作员的视线之外运行，而美国联邦航空管理局也尚未说明需要作出哪些改变才能放宽限制。此外，即便是这些小型无人机——它们只有5到10磅重——也只有半个小时的电池续航时间，最高端的无人机可以支持45分钟到1个小时。而当它们的负载量增加时，电池续航时间还会进一步缩短。这是个巨大的技术难题，一直限制着小型无人机的应用。

    然后，美国联邦航空管理局将会对它的安全性和可靠性提出大量质疑，而小型无人机制造商需要对此进行证明，包括选择在自己的研发实验室中开发无人机的亚马逊。一名公司代表在给《财富》（Fortune）邮件中表示，除去在《60分钟》中展示的模型之外，实验室中还有其他几种技术模型。所以比起贝佐斯上周末给全球展示的样品，最终的产品也许看起来会有一些不同。

    贝佐斯表示，乐观估计时间会更长一些，比如四年或者五年，如此一来，联邦航空管理局和亚马逊都有时间找出办法，确保这样的系统安全运转。在2012年联邦航空管理局的《现代化与改革法案》（Modernization and Reform Act）中，美国国会授权联邦航空管理局开放国家领空，允许包括民用和商用的小型无人机的使用。（现在只有经过特别授权的政府和学术机构可以在美国领空使用无人驾驶飞机，而商用无人机仍被禁止。）            

    The perks of an Amazon Prime membership just keep getting curiouser and curiouser. Amazon (AMZN) -- which announced just last month that it is teaming with the U.S. Postal Service to begin making Sunday deliveries -- late Sunday unveiled a further augmenting of the company's two-day delivery service: 30-minute delivery via unmanned, autonomous drone aircraft.

    During a segment airing on CBS's 60 Minutes, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed to correspondent Charlie Rose the latest development out of Amazon's R&D lab, two small "octocopter" unmanned aerial systems (UAS) designed to pick up and carry packages directly from Amazon's sprawling network of fulfillment centers directly to customers' doorsteps within 30 minutes of the user placing an order. The service -- called "Amazon Prime Air" -- could debut as soon as 2015, though it will likely take a bit longer to iron out the technical challenges, Bezos said.

    "The hardest challenge in making this happen is going to be demonstrating, to the standards of the FAA, that this is a safe thing to do," Bezos told Rose during the segment. "I don't want anybody to think this is just around the corner, this is years of additional work from this point."

    The reality is not so simple, however. Right now even small UAS like the ones being developed by Amazon cannot be operated outside of line of sight of the operator, and the FAA has yet to say what would have to change for that requirement to be lifted. Further even these small UAS -- which can weigh as little as five to 10 pounds -- have a limited battery life in the half-hour range, with 45 minutes to an hour being at the very high end. That battery life is further reduced as the payload grows heavier, creating a difficult technical challenge that continues to hamstring small UAS applications.

    Then there's the larger questions of safety and reliability that will have to be addressed first by the FAA and then demonstrated by small UAS manufacturers, including Amazon, which is opting (at least for the time being) to develop its UAS fleet itself within Amazon's R&D labs. There are several prototypes in the lab beyond the one demonstrated on 60 minutes, a company rep told Fortune via email, so the future might end up looking quite a bit different than the one Bezos unveiled to the world last night.

    An optimistic estimate is more like four to five years, Bezos said, which should grant both the Federal Aviation Administration and Amazon time to figure out just exactly how such a system would safely work. Under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, Congress mandated that the FAA open up U.S. national airspace to small drone traffic, including for civilian and commercial operators. (Right now only specially authorized government and academic institutions can fly UAS in the national airspace, and commercial use of UAS is prohibited.)