谷歌效仿亞馬遜 試驗無人機送貨

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

谷歌(Google)想讓外界知道它也在試驗用無人機送貨上門。

On Thursday, the technology giant revealed that it – like – 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.

這家科技巨頭上週四宣佈，如同亞馬遜公司()一樣，該公司希望使用小型無人機替代駕駛員遞送消費者在網上購買的產品，以實現更快捷、更經濟的快遞。這個研究項目已進行了兩年，目前已證明這一理念是切實可行的，但距離試水商業運營仍有很多工作要做。

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.

谷歌展示了一段測試視頻，內容是一架無人機給澳大利亞一家農場遞送物品。在這項測試中，無人機懸停在幾百英尺上空，用釣魚線給等在下方的人放下一個裝有狗餅乾的籃子。

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.

使用定位技術，無人機可以決定飛到什麼地方遞送，當有人拿到放下的包裹時，它也可以探測到。然後，無人機會收回包裹籃，升空離開。

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.

無人機懸停在高空，是爲了防止有人被其快速旋轉的螺旋槳弄傷。尚不清楚這種無人機能否在大風天或雨天順利工作。

“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.

這個無人機送貨項目被稱爲“翅膀計劃(Project Wing)”。該項目創建者尼古拉斯o羅伊表示：“還需要經歷數年時間才能打造一款真正的無人機產品，但它已經有點像我們期待的首個原型機了。”

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.

這只不過是谷歌研發部門Google X推出的最新一項充滿未來感的產品設計。該部門的其他計劃還包括無人駕駛汽車和連接互聯網的眼鏡。谷歌希望未來的創新能讓這些試驗變得具有商業可行性，但談及這些產品設計的最終目標時，谷歌高管基本上不願置評，閃爍其詞。

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

谷歌無人機項目最早是由《大西洋月刊》網站(The Atlantic Online》和英國廣播公司（BBC）率先報道的。

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.

BBC報道稱，這種無人機裝有4個電動螺旋槳，翼展長度約5英尺。最大有效載荷爲22磅，這意味着它不能承載大件貨物。

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.

去年，亞馬遜CEO傑夫o貝佐斯曾發佈公告稱，該公司希望有一天能用無人機送貨。消息一出，坊間譁然。很多懷疑論者認爲這純粹是幻想，但這至少爲亞馬遜建下了營銷奇功，成功將該公司塑造爲一片創新熱土。

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.

撇開數百架無人機在美國城市的千家萬戶穿梭飛行這樣的念頭，單單無人機的使用也面臨巨大的監管障礙。美國聯邦航空管理局(The Federal Aviation Administration)已批准幾處商業無人機的測試地點，但禁止在其他地方使用。比如，外界猜測亞馬遜在美國國內遇到阻力後，正打算在印度進行無人機測試。

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

谷歌沒有對此類擔憂做出迴應，也沒有提及它可能正在美國進行的測試。

“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.”

“歷史上有一系列這樣的創新，極大地推動了貨物運輸技術的發展。”Google X負責人阿斯特羅o泰勒表示，“翅膀計劃渴望將全世界貨物運輸技術再向前推進一大步。”

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.”

翅膀計劃負責人之一戴維o沃斯表示，谷歌的下一步是利用公司內部對無人機研發鼓起的勁頭，“向加快貨品運送的夢想推進”。但在承認不可避免會引發公衆擔憂時，他補充說，相關努力將在保障安全的前提下進行。