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Amazon is continuing to make technological advances on the drone delivery service it calls Prime Air. In a recent interview with Yahoo! Tech, Paul Misener, Amazon鈥檚 vice president for global public policy, about how the service might work, but not about how much it might cost or when it might be rolled out for customers.

鈥淚 can tell you, it is very real,鈥� he emphasized. 鈥淲e鈥檝e beefed up a team at Amazon Prime Air that includes aeronautical engineers, roboticists, a former NASA astronaut. These folks are completely focused on making this a reality 鈥� and demonstrating that it is safe before we begin operations.鈥�

The goal of Prime Air is to deliver products to consumers 30 minutes after they have placed an order on Amazon鈥檚 website - the high-tech equivalent of ordering a pizza. According to Amazon, the range of delivery has to be more than 10 miles, and the drones, which are expected to weigh about 55 pounds, can only deliver packages that weigh up to five pounds.

Amazon鈥檚 test drones have very different technical specifications than those sold to the general public for recreational purposes. Because Amazon鈥檚 customers live in a variety of different environments, Mr. Misener explained, they have been working to develop drones that can function in either hot, arid climes or damp, rainy ones.

鈥淥ur customers in the United States live in hot, dry, dusty areas like Phoenix, but they also live in hot, wet, rainy environments like Orlando, or up in the Colorado Rockies,鈥� he said. 鈥淟ikewise, obviously, our customers live in a wide variety of buildings鈥� We want to be able to serve all of those customers. And it may take a different kind of a drone to best work in each one.鈥�

Another key difference: Amazon鈥檚 drone fleet is highly automated, with sensors that enable them detect and avoid obstacles.

Amazon is well into the testing phase for these different drones, but there are some legislative hurdles that the company will need to overcome before it can implement the delivery service, namely, established by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).

The FAA is notoriously strict on what allowances it gives for commercial drone use, and to whom. Amazon did not receive the FAA鈥檚 blessing to begin widespread drone testing until April of 2015, although it had been quietly testing its fleet of drones without FAA approval prior to that. Regulatory changes at the FAA over the next year and a half may make the application process easier.

While Amazon is one of the most visible companies testing drone delivery opportunities, it is not the only one. In October, Wal-Mart filed a petition with the FAA to begin testing a fleet of drones for their delivery potential, and in November, Google鈥檚 holding company Alphabet said its 鈥溾�� drone delivery service would likely be able to deliver packages to customers by 2017.聽