The US online retail giant's revolutionary project still needs extra safety testing and federal approval, but Bezos believes that Amazon "Prime Air" would be up and running within four to five years.
"These are effectively drones but there's no reason that they can't be used as delivery vehicles," Bezos told CBS television's "60 Minutes" program late yesterday.
"I know this looks like science fiction. It's not," he said.
"We can do half-hour delivery . . . And we can carry objects, we think, up to five pounds (2.3 kilograms), which covers 86 per cent of the items that we deliver."
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The claws under the belly of the "octopeter" then latch onto a standard sized plastic bucket that rolls down a conveyer belt at Amazon's distribution center. Inside the bucket is the order.
The drone lifts off and whizzes into the air like a giant mechanical insect to deliver the package just 30 minutes after clicking the "pay" button on Amazon.Com. Then it buzzes back into the air and returns to base.
The drones operate autonomously and follow the GPS coordinates they receive to drop the items off at target locations.
"It's very green, it's better than driving trucks around," said Bezos.
He also claims they are safe; the prototype has redundant motors that will keep it in the air and prevent it from crashing.
"The hard part here is putting in all the redundancy, all the reliability, all the systems you need to say, 'Look, this thing can't land on somebody's head while they're walking around their neighborhood,'" Bezos told CBS.
Amazon projected a more optimistic timeline than Bezos himself for the project to be activated, saying the FAA's rules could be in place as early as 2015, and that Amazon Prime Air would be ready at that time.
Bezos hinted that part of the motivation behind the mini-drones was to make sure Amazon remains on the cutting edge of the retail industry.
"I would love for it to be after I'm dead."
If the plan succeeds other retailers like Wal Mart, or even the local pizza store, could also start home deliveries via drone.
Comments on Twitter about the program ranged from amazed to humorous.
"If this weren't on the CBS website, I would think this Amazon drone thing was an Onion article," wrote Iris Blasi, referring to the popular satirical tabloid.
FAA chief Michael Huerta earlier said he expects some 7,500 small unmanned aircraft buzzing in the US skies in the next five years.