Slashdot Mirror
Quadcopter Drone Network Will Transport Supplies For Disaster Relief
kkleiner writes "A startup called Matternet is building a network of quadcopter drones to deliver vital goods to remote areas and emergency supplies to disaster-stricken areas. The installation of solar-powered fueling station and an operating system to allow for communications with local aviation authorities will allow the network to be available around the clock and in the farthest reaches of the world. 'Matternet’s drone network has three key components. First, the drones—custom-built autonomous electric quadcopters with GPS and sensors, capable of carrying a few kilos up to 10 kilometers (and more as the tech advances). Next, the firm will set up a network of solar-powered charging stations where drones autonomously drop off dead batteries and pick up charged ones. A drone battery that can travel 10 km need not limit the drone itself to 10 km — rather, these drones can theoretically travel the whole network by swapping out batteries. The final component will be an operating system to orchestrate the drone web, share information with aviation authorities, and fly missions 24/7/365.'"
Well now, the Thunderbirds are truly obsolete!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
In the sort of remote disaster prone areas that this would be useful, the batteries and any copper will be ratted by the locals, and everywhere else, the stations will be used as target practice.
We've reached the singularity now haven't we? I mean it's very singular how that company and that shill website happen to publish this sort of article at the same time when the kind of disaster they're talking about is in the news. It's times like these you're reminded that singularity hub isn't just faffing for the dimwitted, it's has a soul, too. A soul of darkness, granted, but a soul nonetheless.
So a startup is trying to cash in on recent disasters with stuff that sounds great in the news feeds but they have no chance of actually deploying? Ok.
Why aren't people licensing tilt rotor technology from Boeing? It's dead simple at small scales for robotics. Heaps greater load lifting capacity and longer range.
Supplies...including tacos?
Monstar L
Sounds good for eathquakes, but how well do they fly in a hurricane or severe thunderstorm
Much more likely to be used for city-wide surveillance than for world-wide disaster relief.
It fascinates me that they think they could make a profit with something like this.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Imagine the happiness of refugee children when they get rescued by supercat !
I think sending in a pack of Boston Dynamics BigDogs/Alpha Dogs would be much more effective. Well, at least from people watching on T.V's point of view. I'm imagining a pack of 10-12 all converging on the area from different directions.
I, for one, do not welcome our airborne overlords..
My impression was that copters are difficult to fly in high winds/storm conditions. Is this true? will this also be true of these copters? If so, the claim that they can fly 24/7/365 is perhaps not credible?
What is their average speed and reliability compared to a local with a donkey (classic and well proven difficult terrain portering option)?
sooo many butt hurt comments. sucks that people get to work on more interesting projects than you?
but more importantly, would be neat if these would deliver groceries to my house.
Then how do they figure there's going to be something to send relief to living in that area?
This REEKS of trying to find a "nice and acceptable" reason for drones so they can point to it and go "But are you wanting to kill the poor stranded kiddies?!?!?!".
I.e. like tacking on a "Help the starving children hit by the drought" rider on a bill for more DoD pork.
They tried this on India-China-Japan route. It didn't work. For a deposit system you need to carry in 4 times what you use. That is 1 unit in, 1 (or a bit less) unit out with 2 units are deposited to allow the next drone to hop to/from the next station. So for N hops, one will consume in 2^N units of fuel per drone simply for the last trip of 2*N (ie. return).
Now if they create deposits by sneaker-netting them to the depot, the problem will be solved.
What is needed for quadrcopters is a small quiet petrol/gas engine. An electric battery has got too little energy. Usually it is just 10 - 30 minutes.
It seems that there's already plenty of posters explaining why this won't/can't work for disaster relief.
Could anyone see any future for this sort of set up in cities for local parcel delivery?
I imagine law firms and other paper generating industries already send vast amounts of intracity mail and probably pay a reasonable amount to couriers for same day delivery. Would there be any future in installing the charging stations of the roofs of buildings and using the drones to deliver the mail?
I guess some of the issues raised by others are still valid but I'd rather see fewer Newmans in the world.
all these comments, and no mention of skynet?
It won't help rescue the drowning victim because the actual people who could rescue aren't going to be any closer to the victim than currently and a 20 minute response time will REMAIN a 20 minute response time for that reason.
This presumes
a) that the drone is taken out there (if it's on a charging station), but if they knew that then they could also send humans out there at that time instead, or
b) that the drone is flying patrol in that area, which is unlikely or the result of continuous blanket surveilance of the entire area, which is what they say they aren't going to be doing.
I, for one, welcome our new dronish overlords!
(Posting anonymously because I was offered a share in Matternet, once upon a time.)
Matternet's heart is in the right place, there's no denying that. But their approach is, well, for lack of a nicer way to put it, untenable.
1) The idea of using quadcopters smacks of following a fad to get views and sound trendy. The reality is that quadcopters are horribly inefficient and unreliable. Quads are lots of fun to build and fly, and in the lab they're great, because you can bounce them off of walls and all you'll break is a propeller blade. Their advantage is that they're easily fixable after a crash. This is not an important attribute for a professional service. We don't build our planes the way de do because they're easy to repair after a crash: we build them so they don't crash.
If they want to go far, they need to use helicopters or fixed-wing. There's really no way around that. Then they need to make sure their vehicles don't crash, or cost so little that a lost UAV elicits a shrug.
2) The cargo capacities they're talking about are unreasonable from a political point of view. No country is going to want an NGO controlling a more potent air force than their own. After all, if you can deliver 1000kg of flour, you can also deliver 1000kg of high explosives. Or cocaine.
3) There's a reason these areas lack infrastructure after all these years, and building new, high-tech infrastructure isn't going to solve the problems that led to the older infrastructure decaying or being pilfered.
4) At the time, Matternet had no technical expertise. It was founded by people who called themselves "creators" or "serial entrepreneurs". Long on ideas, short on knowledge.
That being said, a reliable way of delivery on a small, 10-20km scale is more valuable than most /. readers recognize. There are many places where this small distance takes a day to travel, and it's when it's what stands between you and your medicine it might as well be 1000km away.
So I wish Matternet the best of luck. Their eyes are too big for their stomachs but maybe that will change with time as they mature and get some technical expertise on board.
Maybe before we rush to adopt quadcopters drones we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.
Mount the guidance package (probably an arduino with a GPS receiver and AHRS sensor) on a small rocket and strap your payload in. 10kg is going to get there a lot faster and cheaper than the quadcopter, and microprocessors are cheap enough that they are practically disposable anyway (though you could always collect them afterwards). The money spend on single-use cardboard tubes and rocket fuel is saved by not having to put charging stations everywhere in a 10km cell grid.
I work from home, and going outside is a huge hassle. I'd pay good money for one of these to go get me a Trenta iced coffee every morning.
First world problem!
"For disaster relief".
Everybody remember that phrase, because such a network will usually be used by police or homeland security to watch and control the citizens, under the claim that it's "for your safety". But they will cross many lines in the process, invading your privacy, and violating your rights.
Electric drones will require very minimal maintenance. Electric motors and batteries don't really need servicing, they don't require all the same fluids, they can last longer, they are less complex, and they can refuel in remote locations for free.
A gas/diesel motor would need very frequent and regular servicing and a large maintenance team.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
orders of magnitude faster than a local and a donkey.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
And very useless. The only thing crappier than the payload of a quadcopter is its range while carrying a full payload.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Will this spur a revival of the Cargo Cult, with effigies of copter drones at remote villages? Warm coca cola anyone?
Sadly, this is yet another example of a cool concept that isn't going to get very far (no pun intended) due to the lack of the über power supply. At best, multirotor helicopters with any sort of payload have an endurance of about 15 minutes. Until that number gets well above the 60 minute threshold, this is all drawing-board stuff. And I'm talking about 60 minutes of on-mission performance which doesn't include getting to and from base camp. You're really going to need some sort of ultra-capacitor or fuel cell.
A network of stations where fresh mounts/batteries can be picked up for a courier going over rugged and perhaps dangerous terrain.
So... this would be the Droney Express?
as an actual disaster responder-
I can see a lot of utility in such a scheme. Couple the technology with GIS and you can deliver supplies really quickly and dynamically. Consider Katrina- take 100 or so drones with approx 2 kg payloads thats 2 16oz bottles of water per drone, 10 minute turn around time at 30 mph with a 6 mile working radius per drone, thats 600 sorties at maximum operating range per hour for one station I can now deliver 300 liters of water per hour. In a disaster people sheltering in place need approximately 4 L/day/person... So I can supply complete daily need for water at the rate of 75 people per hour over impassable terrain with a single drone detachment of about 100 (think Katrina, flooding etc). Screw solar. Use a generator. There are enough disasters happening on any given day that these could be moved site to site as needed. Most disasters dont actually make the news. I remember people on their roofs and on overpasses slowly dying of thirst during Katrina desperate for water, with not enough helicopters to deliver.
Now- add FLIR modules, micro cellular repeaters, small UHF and VHF repeaters, cameras, etc. I can do a lot with a 2 kg payload, and you can use them for assessment, communications, USAR, beacon delivery (like an EPIRB)....
Anyway- Cut the range in half? Still a very useful concept. Ask someone with field experience and they will want this.
Odd you should say that the largest lighter-than-air craft could carry only 10 tons.
A simple google search reveals that the Hindenburg apparently had a lift capacity of 10,000kg, which is indeed 10 (metric) tons, or approximately 10 "long tons". Something closer to 11 "short tons", though.
I was thinking the CycloCrane would have a larger lift, but apparently that was limited to 2 tons (theory; 1 ton in practice, it turned out).
They have been several advances in the single wing solar powered drone area that allows it to stay up in the air pretty much forever. (given proper weather conditions etc. These drones should also be flying at an altitude that stays out of your commercial air zone. Now just use the same concept they have and have an air to air refuel. (or battery swap in this case. At the size of these quadcopters it shouldn't be to hard to land it on a larger slow flying object.
Here's a peanut, time to recharge Here's a slice of apple, time to recharge.
I seem to remember using one of these during a GTA mission.
-- Jimtown Kelly
Last time I checked there are not 365 weeks in a year.
One thing I've been thinking about.. Everyone here assumes that the charging stations need to be placed out before the network of quads can start doing it's thing.
But, if you had some special mapping drones, lighter and longer reach, with terrain mapping fly out first, then make the charging stations modular..
The network could create a map of the area and build itself until it reached the target. And increasing network capacity would consist of adding more chargers and quads at the entry point,and the network could scale itself up. And when done, it can pack itself back together.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."