Drone deliveries.

[ZenOps]

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/ID/2654753465/

http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...livery-service



Re-spamming the idea because of CBC documentary (in case you missed it on RegularTV)

Does it really make sense for a 2 pound pizza delivery to come by 4,000 pound heated car, that has to stop and start at every red light, fill up on a tenth of a barrel of oil at a gas station, increase traffic congestion, and require the full time employment of a driver?

Wouldn't it be better to use an autonomous ten pound quadcopter that sips the equivalent of a marble of coal converted into electrical power, that can be faster in delivery, does not contribute to traffic congestion, and lets the delivery guy be employed as a rockstar or hockey player instead?

[Darell_n]

Target practice is going to be fun. Everyone loves free pizza.

[ZenOps]

I dunno.

People don't shoot at regular planes and helicopters, and those have infrared and high res cameras that are 100x better than a cheapy drone. If its in constant record and capture mode offsite, they can probably capture where the muzzle flash came from, and the person who did it, before it crashed.

There is a big deterrent that there is a person inside a big helicopter, but take it away - and will people really hate drones so much.

I can't wait for drone delivered pizza and beer. Arugably, half the cost of a pizza is delivery charge. If they half the cost to the consumer, drone pizzas may become a huge hit.

PS: AT two million pounds rocketfuel to launch to the space station, food deliveries to the space station is in the range of $1000 per pound, of which of course - the US taxpayer pays for (Each US family is $732,000 in debt, and rising quickly)

[Darell_n]

I never said anything about firearms. I was thinking more along the lines of drone vs drone, capture nets, EMP, signal hacking / blocking, fun stuff like that.

[Darell_n]

Imagine the delivery company's surprise when their last video feed is a close up of a taser at 1000ft up.

[speedog]

Originally posted by Darell_n
Imagine the delivery company's surprise when their last video feed is a close up of a taser at 1000ft up.

Imagine the taser owner's surprise when the police come a knocking on their door.

[ExtraSlow]

will UPS drones get some kind of air-to-air system to shoot down the amazon drones?

Drone wars?

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by ZenOps

Does it really make sense for a 2 pound pizza delivery to come by 4,000 pound heated car, that has to stop and start at every red light, fill up on a tenth of a barrel of oil at a gas station, increase traffic congestion, and require the full time employment of a driver?

Makes more sense than a drone flying over my fucking house.

Also, since when can delivery drivers afford a 4000 lb. car, they're always in a 2800lb hatchback

[Unknown303]

Plus what it you get the wrong pizza?

[Darell_n]

Originally posted by speedog

Imagine the taser owner's surprise when the police come a knocking on their door.

I wouldn't own anything. Just create a sentient drone ass kicking machine and set it free to live it's own life.

[Unknown303]

Uhhh..

[Sugarphreak]

...

[jacky4566]

Wont happy. The risk to public safety is too great. Once one faults out and crashes on Deerfoot. No more drones.

Only way it would work is with dedicated right of ways.

[ZenOps]

I could see it being relatively safe for crossing highways.



Its not like its flying at 10 feet high, it is designed to go up 300 feet. Assuming that there is some level of basic intellegence to the drone, it has two choices, attempt to cross the road or not.

If its too low of an altitude, or too low battery power, or for whatever reason it determines that the likelyhood of making it across is low, it just wont' try - and will either return to the pizza delivery depot for transfer to a properly working drone, or by regular car delivery or worst case, leave a free pizza by the side of the highway.

If its at high enough altitude, it will attempt and even if it has a castastropic failure one second into trying to cross, it should still make it to the other side just on momentum. I'm not saying it would be going 100 km/h at 300 feet, but even a much slower speed should hurl it like a rock even if it lost all power.

The outrage will be high when the first car hits a drone, but it will fade - much like it tends to fade when people run into deer, moose, birds, etc. I do trust a computer brain more than I trust a deer when it comes to road safety.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[BigMass]

do you know how cold a pizza or any other hot food would be after flying it to someone's house? Unless your drone is so big it has some sort of effective heat/ insulation system. At least in a car it can stay somewhat warm hehe

[ZenOps]

It would probably stay hot if it was a hot pizza.

They can always modify drones so that the propellers are further apart and do not draft on the payload. Mylar insulation is also extremely light and should keep things hot. One can always just try for yourself, go a little farther out of city into an empty field and fly around a hot pizza for a while Better yet, attempt a delivery to a ranger outlook station (but if anyone asks, don't blame me)

I can imagine there are some billionaire penthouse and yacht owners right now getting food delivered to their helicopter pads - by drone.

[codetrap]

I don't see it making economic sense... a pizza guy can deliver 10 pizza's at once to 10 different locations on a loop, or a run. Or if the pizza shop get's a order for 2 pizza's or 4 pizza's.. How many drone copters would they need? It would require a fundamental shift in the pizza business I would think. Plus the airspace around the drone base would require some serious management, and you might run into issues with running out of power on a single drone making multiple runs..

None of these are technically impossible to overcome, but do they make economic sense vs paying a driver?

[ZenOps]

Economically, it will definitely be less than by car if not already.

Especially in hilly terrain. Driving a 2,800 pound car up does waste a ridiculous amount of carbon, it also wears down the brakes on the way down.

Exceptionally remote areas, like where ice roads river crossings, also prime for this tech. Anywhere that does not have a road, geologists and cable runners could get a hot meal in the field even when miles from a road.

As for congestion: There is none. While in air, Airspace is three dimensional, there really is no such thing as traffic congestion. You can set 100 drones to each fly at a different altitude between 100 and 300 feet, and they will always be at least three feet apart, even if exactly ontop of each other according to GPS, they should never touch unless there is some sort of sensor malfunction.

There might be some issues with landing at the depot, but if they are programmed to do a simple upsidedown U in delivery, straight up to the height they are programmed before moving an inch of latitute or longitude - it should never have the chance to crash into another drone from the same depot. If you intend to fly the drone like a plane, where altitude and GPS are moving at the same time - Yes, the chances of them crashing together increases exponentially.

Upside down U, at 300 feet also means you never have to avoid a tree or powerline, its not even a factor.

[Gman.45]

You aren't a pilot are you Zenops.

The only thing wrong with your plan is that the technology isn't there yet, plus these drones are not all weather capable either. Try using any of these current quad/hex/whatever electric multi rotors in even a bit of rain, much less heavy rain or snowstorms, and watch what happens.

Even heavy wind is a problem for them, not to mention the dozens of other random things that sensors alone can't predict and react autonomously too. Sure, they work in an environment with perfect conditions, but throw in a week of bad weather, and bye bye pizza or any other deliveries - what business could risk or survive that? They would be back to using cars/drivers during the weeks of blizzards or rainstorms we get in Canada, the conditions for grounding a drone capable of lifting even 50lbs are far, far less than they are for grounding a helo or full size aircraft.

A good friend of mine is a drone pilot with the USAF, he handles the hand offs and does the landings/take offs at a forward deployed base outside of the western world. The reason there even IS human pilots in the loop still? Weather. Bad weather is responsible for the majority of the drone crashes, and that's a lot of crashes, and these are full sized drones built to be all weather capable. So what happens when autonomous tiny little disposable drones hit the weeks of bad weather without any human control?