谷歌也在试验无人机送货

    谷歌(Google)想让外界知道它也在试验用无人机送货上门。

    这家科技巨头上周四宣布，如同亚马逊公司(Amazon.com)一样，该公司希望使用小型无人机替代驾驶员递送消费者在网上购买的产品，以实现更快捷、更经济的快递。这个研究项目已进行了两年，目前已证明这一理念是切实可行的，但距离试水商业运营仍有很多工作要做。

    谷歌展示了一段测试视频，内容是一架无人机给澳大利亚一家农场递送物品。在这项测试中，无人机悬停在几百英尺上空，用钓鱼线给等在下方的人放下一个装有狗饼干的篮子。

    使用定位技术，无人机可以决定飞到什么地方递送，当有人拿到放下的包裹时，它也可以探测到。然后，无人机会收回包裹篮，升空离开。

    无人机悬停在高空，是为了防止有人被其快速旋转的螺旋桨弄伤。尚不清楚这种无人机能否在大风天或雨天顺利工作。

    这个无人机送货项目被称为“翅膀计划(Project Wing)”。该项目创建者尼古拉斯•罗伊表示：“还需要经历数年时间才能打造一款真正的无人机产品，但它已经有点像我们期待的首个原型机了。”

    这只不过是谷歌研发部门Google X推出的最新一项充满未来感的产品设计。该部门的其他计划还包括无人驾驶汽车和连接互联网的眼镜。谷歌希望未来的创新能让这些试验变得具有商业可行性，但谈及这些产品设计的最终目标时，谷歌高管基本上不愿置评，闪烁其词。

    谷歌无人机项目最早是由《大西洋月刊》网站(The Atlantic Online》和英国广播公司（BBC）率先报道的。

    BBC报道称，这种无人机装有4个电动螺旋桨，翼展长度约5英尺。最大有效载荷为22磅，这意味着它不能承载大件货物。

    去年，亚马逊CEO杰夫•贝佐斯曾发布公告称，该公司希望有一天能用无人机送货。消息一出，坊间哗然。很多怀疑论者认为这纯粹是幻想，但这至少为亚马逊建下了营销奇功，成功将该公司塑造为一片创新热土。

    撇开数百架无人机在美国城市的千家万户穿梭飞行这样的念头，单单无人机的使用也面临巨大的监管障碍。美国联邦航空管理局(The Federal Aviation Administration)已批准几处商业无人机的测试地点，但禁止在其他地方使用。比如，外界猜测亚马逊在美国国内遇到阻力后，正打算在印度进行无人机测试。

    谷歌没有对此类担忧做出回应，也没有提及它可能正在美国进行的测试。

    “历史上有一系列这样的创新，极大地推动了货物运输技术的发展。”Google X负责人阿斯特罗•泰勒表示，“翅膀计划渴望将全世界货物运输技术再向前推进一大步。”

    翅膀计划负责人之一戴维•沃斯表示，谷歌的下一步是利用公司内部对无人机研发鼓起的劲头，“向加快货品运送的梦想推进”。但在承认不可避免会引发公众担忧时，他补充说，相关努力将在保障安全的前提下进行。（财富中文网）

    译者：早稻米

    Google wants you to know that it too is experimenting with drones to ferry products to your doorstep.

    On Thursday, the technology giant revealed that it – like Amazon.com – hopes to use small unmanned aircraft as a quicker and cheaper alternative to having drivers deliver your online orders. The project, which has been underway for two years, has already succeeded as a proof of concept, but there remains much work ahead before it is ready for a commercial premiere.

    Google showed off the experiment in a video in which it showed a drone making a delivery to a ranch in Australia. In the test, the drone hovered a couple hundred feet overhead and used fishing line to lower a box containing dog biscuits to people waiting below.

    Using location technology, the drone can determine where to fly to make the delivery and sense when someone has retrieved the contents of any package lowered. It then knows to reel the delivery box back up and take off.

    The drone remains high overhead to avoid any possibility that someone may be injured by its fast-spinning propellers. It was unclear whether the system would work smoothly in high winds or rainy weather.

    “It’s years from a product, but it is sort of the first prototype that we want to stand behind,” said Nicholas Roy, founder of Project Wing, as the drone delivery program is called.

    It is just the latest futuristic initiative to come out of Google X, the company’s research and development arm that includes driverless cars and Internet-connected glasses. The company is banking on future innovation making the experiments commercially viable, although executives are generally cagey about their ultimate plans for them.

    News of the drone project was first reported by The Atlantic Online and the BBC.

    The BBC said that the drone operated with four electric propellers and had a wingspan of around five feet. The maximum payload is 22 pounds, meaning that big items would not be able to get airborne.

    Last year, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, made the stunning announcement that his company was hoped to one day make deliveries by drone. A number of skeptics dismissed the idea as fantasy, but it did at least score Amazon a marketing coup by casting the company as a hotbed of innovation.

    Use of drones, let alone the idea of hundreds buzzing from home to home in U.S. cities, faces huge regulatory hurdles. The Federal Aviation Administration has authorized a handful of test sites for commercial drones but has prohibited their use elsewhere. Amazon, for example, is suspected of eyeing India for testing its drones after meeting resistance domestically.

    Google did not address any of those concerns. Nor did it mention any testing it may be doing in the United States.

    “Throughout history, there’ve been a series of innovations that have each taken a huge chunk out of the friction of moving things around,”Astro Teller, who leads Google X. “Project Wing aspires to take another big chunk out of the remaining friction out of moving things around in the world.”

    David Vos, a lead with Project Wing, said that Google’s next step is to take the momentum it has built internally for drone delivery and “drive toward the dream of delivering stuff more quickly.” But in a nod to inevitable public concerns, he added that it will be done “with proper and due safety.”