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The Feds Accidentally Mailed Part of A $350K Drone To Some College Kid
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes "A Redditor got more than he bargained for in the mail today: He was accidentally mailed parts to a $350,000 environment and wildlife monitoring drone owned by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. 'We sent a set of about eight boxes for this one aircraft system, and one was misdelivered by UPS. We're working with UPS to find it,' the federal agency says."
$350,000 for a drone!?!?! I realize that this is durable and has good RF systems in it, but still that strikes me as a bit pricey for what it is. I mean for a few bucks more they could just buy Predators right?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The Feds Accidentally Mailed Part of A $350K Drone To Some College Kid
More like "UPS Unloads Extra Box containing Drone Parts at Some College Kid's House". The box was not addressed to him by the Feds. They do enough stupid things without ascribing UPS mistakes to them.
If he doesn't return it, odds are he'll get other drone parts for free!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
According to postal inspector rules, he gets to keep it:
If you open the package and like what you find, you may keep it for free. In this instance, "finders-keepers" applies unconditionally.
https://postalinspectors.uspis...
At least it's easy to return: just make it fly back on it's own.
Table-ized A.I.
So the republicans are going to go after him because UPS doesn't want to be run by a union traditionally run by the mafia?
You might want to check if your powered tinfoil hat is working...generally those don't include batteries, so if you didn't put them in then it isn't going to do anything.
I wasn't aware that Republicans were in charge of UPS.
Show me a model plane that has a 15 km radio range, autonomous GPS navigation, IR and visible light camera on a stabilized mount, designed to be reliable in hazardous environments while being handled by infantrymen, and can stay up for 3.5 hours. Then plan to build less than 30,000 of them. Complex systems and low quantities make these things very expensive. This is very different than a simple toy that takes a tens of thousands of dollars to design and hundreds of thousand are aircraft are made.
Sell them to the government at a 100,000% markup.
You even exaggerate or do you really think you can but an RC aircraft with remotely similar capabilities for $1. (The $350K is for the complete system which includes 3 aircraft plus spares).
This is a non-story: UPS mis-delivers a non-classified package from to government to some college student who decided to whore for 15 minutes of fame.
Done.
Next...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
A Redditor got more than he bargained for in the mail today.
Possibly a key that might start a new truck down to the local Ford House?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The last time UPS messed up a delivery for me, their automated phone system told me where it was. When I talked to a real person and explained that my package was not delivered, he had the address where it was delivered on the computer, and the address of where it was supposed to go as well. (It was a mile away on a completely different street...I'm assuming his next stop. I just went and got it myself, just asked about a package that wasn't theirs.)
The real question is, if they have the capability to know where it was really delivered, why would they not program the handhelds to make all sorts of noise when the delivery guy screws up?
You see they meant to do a drone strike but accidental instead.ly mailed it to him
How many kgs of cocaine will I need to smuggle with these to cover the cost?
What do you think the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does?
And some are Democrats as there are rich Democrats too.
so if you sent about eight boxes of stuff.. is that 7.8 boxes and maybe next time 8.2 boxes? and how do you know you are missing one if you get 7 which is quite close to about 8?
OK, now mixing up homophones...it sucks, but this is the Internet. But using a homophone correctly in the title and wrong in the text...that's a little more creative.
Somewhere between $350,000 and $1-2 billion (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/ - see the NRO bit) is the government's Give-a-fuck-threshold for assured delivery. SpaceX may have a point.
*insert pithy sig here*
The best post on the reddit thread:
[–]LoveExists 392 points 3 hours ago
NSA Agent: "Sir, we have reports that u/Seventy_Seven may be working with a terrorist cell, what should we do?"
NSA Officer: "Send a drone over there, let me know what happens." walks away...
NSA Agent: mutters to himself "its not like anyone ever sends them back.."
permalinkparent
No, it depends on your margin.
Seven of the ten wealthiest members of Congress are Democrats, although reporting on Congress members' net worth is inaccurate by design. There's quite a few of them with a net worth in the negative six figures too.
it hand delivered or why not get a army guy to drop it off. But then then can get a gomer pyle to mess up.
Show me a model plane that has a 15 km radio range
$100 UHF transceiver. Even the cheap ones can do telemetry as well as instructional commands, failsafe detection etc.
autonomous GPS navigation
any $100 flight controller
IR and visible light camera on a
This one is expensive. Budget $5000 for it.
stabilized mount,
$1000 gets you a well made 3D gimbal for a heavy camera.
designed to be reliable in hazardous environments
define this. Is it raining acid up there? Are you wanting it bullet proof? Given the amazing footage of a cheap DJI quad flying through an erupting volcano without issue, how hazardous are we talking?
while being handled by infantrymen,
The aforementioned flight controllers have some really idiot proof modes.
and can stay up for 3.5 hours.
That's a function of size, battery and engine capacity. For a big hardened one carrying heavy reconnaissance equipment I'd budget $10k
Then plan to build less than 30,000 of them.
Hows plug and play kits sound?
Yes the grandparent exaggerates. But you do to. There's no reason a system like this costs what they are charging for it. Many hobbyists meet a lot of that criteria on a sub $1000. Much of the criteria you mention isn't different to the several manufacturers of commercial vehicles on the market today which come in no where near that price tag. Then maybe double or even triple the cost for hardening and you're still waaaaay under the $100k per plane.
The markup is not as high as 100000%, but it's no where near as low as 0% either.
Years ago, before my time, Columbia House or BMG might mail you some records (equivalent to CDs). Later, they would send you a bill for the goods that arrived un-ordered and un-asked-for. Then, mail fraud law caught up, and those scams went away.
This is not that case, but really, I wonder if those laws are applicable to the delivery of packages to the "wrong" person by UPS in such a case. If so, the mis-delivered or un-asked-for delivery is his/hers to keep — no strings.
Or, alternatively, why was something so costly being sent by regular delivery? I mean, really, would you UPS a Lamborghini to your customer?
correction: "on its own".
Table-ized A.I.
Someone thought that the "drone target" or surveillance list ment he should get spare parts.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you receive something addressed to you that was sent by accident, you are under no obligation to return it and it legally belongs to you. I'm pretty sure this is US Postal Law.
IANAL so anyone more familiar with this, feel free to chime in. But AFAIK the parts now legally belong to the kid.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
How about you show some examples of the products you mention. As far as I can tell you are pulling numbers out of the air.
A gambol is not stabilization. Stabilization is much more difficult.
The $100 transceiver could not deal video in high enough rez to be useful. Cost estimate on camera is way low. This camera has to see people at over a mile away and be about the size of your fist. That kind of performance is very expensive. When I mention infantrymen I mean they will be the ones assembling and taking care of the equipment. They are no know for their light touch.
One of the main cost factors is to get this kind of performance into a man portable package. When you go small things get expensive fast.
Many hobbyists meet a lot of that criteria on a sub $1000.
Ever hear of the 80/20 rule? In general one spends 80% of the budget on the last 20% of the features. Not meeting all the requirements would make it useless in combat.
So you are 1/4 of the capability of the equipment we are talking about. Good for you. The 4-5 km range is much less than 15 and the flight time of an hour is much less that 3.5 hours. You be the one to tell the mother her some was killed because the drone ran out of power.Sure you can do some of the things an expensive drone can to but doing them all is very expensive. Your logic is like comparing a Honda Civic with a quarter mile time of 17 seconds to a Bugatti Veyron with a quarter mile time of 10 second and saying the Bugati should cost less than twice as much as the Bugatti.
Scaling it up is proportional, not exponential or something silly.
Actually it is closer to exponential than linear. Look at the priced of these cameras they go from $1k to $27K. I doubt that the $27K camera is 27times as effective as the $1K. Also notice that $27K time 2 cameras is half the cost of the aircraft. Add a spare and that is over $75K in cameras alone. Your logic is like comparing a Honda Civic with a quarter mile time of 17 seconds to a Bugatti Veyron with a quarter mile time of 10 second and saying the Bugati should cost less than twice as much as the Honda.
Horsecrap on the video. IR video feeds are NOT highdef. Reconnaissance video is not highdef. Images are and they can be delivered in due course. The important part about reconnaissance is that the camera is controllable and has a sufficient zoom ratio. Stabilization is a function of the camera and optics. Gimbals will stabilize the camera against movement from the equipment as well. Yes it is more difficult but not by much and helicopter mounted cameras capable of IR can be had for under $10k, $5k for a cheap one isn't out of the ballpark, and in any case I added a contingency at the bottom for hardening / quality required for government use.
You're right cameras need to see far away but I can see you haven't kept up with lenses, sensors, or similar equipment. We're not talking Canon 1DMkIII quality images here, have you even seen the kind of images that these drones spit out? A CCTV camera that can pick out a subject from a km away can be had for under $1k. Special purpose optics that provide *sufficient* quality images are not expensive, and they certainly aren't the size of a 600mm Canon lens either.
Pulling numbers out of the air for the rest of the kit?
Arducopter as a basic open source example provides a complete autonomous capability for flight of planes, and multirotor craft of many configurations including mission flying with waypoints and outputs which can be adjusted via telemetry mid flight, return to home, fail safe configurations. This is a cheap hobby piece of equipment which runs on controllers like the APM2.5 which can be bought for $70 + $20 for a GPS unit. I have flown a styrofoam plane over 30km from base using a UHF OrangeRx transceiver pair. I bought it for $60 and it does 9ch + telemetry at an admittedly quite slow data rate.
While this is all built and assembled by yours truly it doesn't cost much more to get a complete radio + controller package that is off the shelf, and idiot proof when it comes to assembly. DJI have done a lot of nice work putting sensitive electronics in the hands of what I can tell are utter idiots and their cheaper controllers are also in the sub $500 range, so I'm sure we can deal with assembly for the hamfisted.
So for your 80/20 rule are you saying that my drone should cost $5000 instead of $1000? phew just as well I have $95k to spare. I'm being facetious but the reality is still you could put together one BEAST of a drone to meet requirements you're talking about for about $50k, and much of it can be done with off-the-shelf components. $350k for a 3 drone flight system is excessive and I guarantee there's a nice profit margin typical of government contracts built into that.
100 UHF transceiver. Even the cheap ones can do telemetry as well as instructional commands, failsafe detection etc.
Does it do encryption/frequency hopping in order to be able to resist jamming and people attempting to take control?
define this. Is it raining acid up there?
Not the original poster, certainly, but I'm thinking a small amount of hail resistance, not to mention buckshot.
The aforementioned flight controllers have some really idiot proof modes.
You haven't worked with infantry, have you? They tend to redefine 'better idiot'. A lot are great, a number make you wonder...
That's a function of size, battery and engine capacity. For a big hardened one carrying heavy reconnaissance equipment I'd budget $10k
I think you're being optimistic and are forgetting labor for putting it all together. Hobbyists tend to forget/discount the hundreds or even thousands of hours they put into assembling and debugging these systems. Commercial company's can't forget.
Other expenses would be, and this isn't comprehensive:
Warranty if/when it breaks, perhaps even if it crashes due to user error*. Training for an initial set of operators. Programming support. When it breaks/they want something new, they'll be coming to you, not online. Generally the government wants at least 3 years of comprehensive on site support for stuff like this.
*Can you prove it was user error to the satisfaction of a government body that can blackball you rather easily?
I don't read AC A human right
The simple answer would be contractors. Contractors can ship however they like. They may be working 'for' the government, but they're not government employees
I don't read AC A human right
Protip: look how much an accurate GPS unit it costs, an accurate one is well over a $100. (Think closer to $1000).
What about radar?
This is a wildlife monitoring drone, it's going to need reasonable range and that means good battery life and low power equipment. Add $100+ to all purchases and a reasonable budget for a long life, lightweight battery. Autonomous navigation and other custom software features (which need to be extensively tested with your possibly unique hardware combination) ass at least $5000
null
And shipping.
You left out the shipping costs.
Then the costs of recovery.
It all adds up.
No brain, no pain.
I couldn't help but notice that you keep quoting hobbyist prices for components designed for LOS control and small payload. Try researching some FAA approved control systems and plane assemblies and quote those prices so we can fully appreciate the real costs involved.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
"We're working with UPS to find it"
From personal experience, good fucking luck.
By the way, misleading headline. THEY didn't mail it to him. UPS simple delivered it there on accident. They probably "mailed" it to its actual target, it just didn't get there.
No, you can do the first half of the requirements that way. The second half, not so much.
You may have noticed that FAA approval regulations depend on size and payload weight, both of which are easily achievable using the same equipment and as such has no additional regulatory requirements. You may also note that the FAA has so far not successfully enforced any regulation on any drone user even in cases of unapproved commercial use. Or you could look at commercial systems which already exist for things like event coverage which have the required payload capacity to handle large HD studio video cameras let alone the much smaller IR spy cameras we are talking about here.
Why do you think that the only option must be horrendously expensive? We're talking about something smaller than a bicycle here.
Accurate or repeatable? You've never used one of these systems have you? People instinctively think that something automated or something that flies in the air needs to be accurate to 1mm or some garbage like that. It doesn't. From a $20 GPS unit you can hold a perfectly steady location within 1m on a really windy day using a multirotor craft. Using my multirotor or my plane I can take off, fly for however long I want and then land autonomously within 1m of my starting location. Sure that 1m may be a few meters off its real location but the point is even cheap GPS units are quite repeatable. We're talking about taking photos, not launching ballistics.
As for low power equipment, don't make me laugh. Electrical equipment mounted to these vehicles are orders of magnitude lower power than the rotors to keep the thing in the air. All you need for long flight time is a reasonably light air frame and big batteries. My personal flying record was a 4 hour round trip, though I wasn't behind the wheel the entire time. On the home trip I set it to fly home by itself and had lunch. It was a $400 plane.
Yes my cheaparse receiver does frequency hopping. They typically have to in the hobby arena as many people are using the same frequencies in close proximity.
You seem to think drones are more difficult than they really are. Most systems are plug and play. They use simple analogue outputs / digital inputs to communicate with each other. If you can assemble a computer and figure out which USB port to plug a mouse into then you can assemble a drone. Some of the more expensive (read $400 instead of $100) flight controllers even use a common bus system so you don't even need to worry about where you plug your stuff into, just plug it anywhere. The only thousands of hours I've blown in this hobby was actually using my gear, not assembling or debugging it.
Warranty / Training wasn't taken into account. I was arguing about the cost of the plane which someone quoted as $100k It stands to reason that much of this $100k has nothing to do with the plane itself but is rather services attached to the acquisition. I fully agree with you there.
Accurate or repeatable? You've never used one of these systems have you?
And you've never used one of these systems where you need to collect accurate date (such as this one would). It also has to be more durable then your hobby plane, and possibly fly a lot longer whilst carrying heavier equipment to use for wildlife monitoring (HD cameras, backup radios, radar, etc (depending on what exactly it was doing).
null
Actually I have, and not all data needs to be accurate. Location of plane is fine with an accuracy of several meters. There is ZERO reason that the plane needs to know it's location more accurately unless it needs to weave between obstacles, and when that happens LIDAR is used for navigation instead.
But maybe that's how the cost got so high. Someone like you decided to gold plate every spec without actually thinking which are the important ones. As for hobby plane I know of no hobby plane that comes in the price I mentioned. You may have noticed that I mentioned several thousand dollars for airframe, where did I get that number from? A plane designed to carry a heavy studio camera, not one made of styrofoam. The airframe on a hobby plane rarely exceeds about $200.
But hey you seem to be the expert so I'll let you be, and I'll be more than happy to build and sell you something with a super duper GPS/GLONASS/Baidou/Galileo receiver accurate to 10mm if it makes you feel all warm an fuzzy inside. You can sit it next to your 24bit soundcard, and your Intel Xeon machine the receptionist uses to play solitaire.
Sorry, kid. This ain't the drone you're looking for!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
How the fuck am I supposed to have a proper knee jerk reaction to such a horrible summary?
You seem to be doing fine, relax!