Amazon’s first Prime Air drone delivery has taken place

It has been over two years since Amazon first announced Prime Air, its drone delivery service. Since then, the 30-minute delivery service has been tested in countries across the world and this week, the first official Prime Air drone delivery was made here in the UK. For the first customer delivery, Amazon used a completely autonomous drone with no human pilot, which managed to get the item to the customer in 13 minutes.

The Prime Air delivery took place in Cambridge, England where a limited service test is being run. Apparently only two customers are taking part in the trial right now due to the fact that they live close to Amazon's fulfilment centre. The trial will eventually be expanded to include more people but testing will be quite limited for a while.

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To mark the occasion, Amazon has released a promotional video showing the first Prime Air customer delivery from start to finish. As shown by the video, an order is placed, then a human Amazon worker will pack up the item. The box is placed on a conveyor belt and picked up by a drone, which then waits until it is outside to take off and fly to the customer's location using GPS.

There are still some limits on what the drones can carry, with item weight being capped at just over 2kg so there is a limit to what you can order but still, this is quite an impressive milestone.

KitGuru Says: I have been quite excited about the Prime Air concept for quite a while and judging by the first customer test, things are looking up. There is still a long way to go though, dropping a package off in a field in the middle of rural England is quite different to dropping a package off at someone's doorstep in a more densely populated area.

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