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."

Comments

wait... what???

[Virtucon]

$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?

Re:wait... what???

[BitZtream]

automous navigation features cost you less than $500 for a fully working system controller including required accelerometers, gyros, GPS, compass and a short range telemetry system (only short range due to low output power). The flight controller doesn't have to be any different on a tiny little RC model all the way up to the the largest aircraft in service. The OSS software doesn't yet support orbiting but I suspect it will soon. The only hardware difference is the servos to drive the control surfaces and power output of the engines.

Oh, and its open source ... and it probably does more than anything the UAVs you mention do as far as flight control.

If you want the cheap asian knock off, its less than $200 from hobby king.

UAV controllers are an essentially solved problem, its just refinement at this stage, and the hardware to do the actual flight management is dirty cheap.

Communications are also a solved problem, the hardware is available already and is available to anyone, though it requires a operator license ... which doesn't come with the UAV, you have to get it yourself from the FCC.

Optics are a little tricker, but nothing to justify the cost of these systems unless you're ordering optics like used in the U-2 spy plane, which your drone isn't going to be capable of taking advantage of anyway. For anything other than what the NSA wants, a gimble to deal with pan/tilt/stabilization and vibration dampening isn't that expensive either, though gimble and camera are likely to be the most expensive bits if you want high quality but that may just be my misperception as thats the area I know least about. Low end stuff that works as well as anything you've actually seen footage from (i.e. not secret stuff) is less than 5k and it will shoot as good as most movie cameras ... from thousands of feet up where you can't hear it at all.

$100k is a ridiculous price. The communications/control system is a freaking PC with a high power transmitter, nothing special.

Re:wait... what???

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't just the cost of the base hardware that could theoretically function in that capacity, it's fitting it all together, custom designing and building components where necessary then going through the necessary testing (range, quality, flight control, durability, etc) and refinement processes. You could build Google Glass for $100 too if you don't care about having a horribly clunky, heavy, unreliable device with a cumbersome user experience.

Just because you can come up with a cheap parts list to theoretically cobble the functionality together doesn't mean it is going to result in a product that will be fit-for-purpose.

Stupid headline

[jklovanc]

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.

Re:Stupid headline

[Charliemopps]

I hope the feds paid for insurance. Otherwise all they're getting is $100. No exceptions, no matter what, I was told.

Re:Stupid headline

[SJHillman]

If theft is what you're worried about, I'd take USPS over UPS or FedEx any day. The Post Office consider mail theft to be Serious Business.

Re:Stupid headline

[digitalhermit]

Yes, that is true. Except for the insurance part. UPS doesn't really provide "insurance", per se.

Don't be fooled by the optional 'high value' stamp, which allows you to declare a higher value. Rightfully so, it's not "insurance" but just allows you to claim the proper value if it is lost or damaged.

If it's really important, ship it via a UPS customer counter or Mailboxes facility.

I used to work there a couple decades ago. One of my roles was to process computer claims. Considering that many items can fall from belts and "Fragile" means "Throw me hard, please!" in UPS-ese, I'd make sure to ship any critical items through their desk with a proper declared value.

Not that FedEx is much better. I think at one point they were but if you've seen what goes on behind the scenes it's a wonder that anything gets to its destination in one piece.

Might as well talk about the USPS too. (BTW, UPS is not USPS; some are not aware.) I shipped a display stand once. It was a fairly sturdy unit, cube shaped, of some expensive teak wood with brass corners. It could easily bear my weight (and I am not a slender dude). When the first piece arrived, my aunt asked what it was. "It's a stand," I said.

    "How do you put it together?" she said.

Eh?

Apparently they'd shipped a piece of my broken stand with a piece of someone else's broken furniture. The label from my box cut out and taped to this other box. I still don't know what happened to the rest of my display stand, but presumably someone is wondering what the heck happened to the rest of their chair.

Re:Stupid headline

[Trepidity]

Isn't "performing the service you accepted money to perform" a pretty basic level of liability? Can I accept a contract to write some C++ code for you, but if you don't buy insurance from me, sometimes I just deliver your code to some other guy instead, and fuck you if you want redress?

Other drone parts to follow!

[penguinoid]

If he doesn't return it, odds are he'll get other drone parts for free!

Re:I know, right?

[jklovanc]

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).

Good Grief

[Frosty Piss]

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...

Working with UPS to find it?

[freak0fnature]

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?