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Kiva Systems Co-Founder: Drone Delivery Could Be As Low As 20 Cents Per Package

Posted by samzenpus on from the air-delivery dept.

Hallie Siegel writes A year ago, Amazon announced its plans for Prime Air — a drone delivery service. Recently Amazon has been posting job ads, saying they are looking for drone pilots. Whatever the regulatory issues, is drone delivery financially feasible? ETH Zurich professor Raffaello D'Andrea thinks it is economically feasible to deliver small packages by drone. D'Andrea is responsible for the Flying Machine Arena ("a space where flying robots live and learn") and is co-founder of Kiva Systems, the company acquired by Amazon for $775 million in cash that innovated the robotic fulfillment system that Amazon is now implementing in many of its warehouse facilities.

10 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Can't imagine anything going wrong by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 2

    with millions of small delivery drones flying in the same urban/suburban airspace at the same time delivering packages

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    A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
    1. Re:Can't imagine anything going wrong by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      You could also have self-driving delivery cars with package dispensers. Just an idea...

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      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. Practical jokes by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 4, Funny

    A buddy and I were talking about how you could prank someone with this.

    Find a couple out on a date, wait for the guy to check his phone, then order drone-delivered condoms.

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    ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
  3. Still not legal, right? by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 2

    The FAA's still not allowing commercial use of drones. So what's this about?

    1. Re:Still not legal, right? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

      It's really only a matter of time. They'll be some delays (mostly with UPS/FedEx trying to prevent it until their ready with their own drone fleets). But it's coming.

      The bigger concern is what are we doing to do with all the people this puts out of work. This will basically make retail and delivery jobs obsolete. That's several million people suddenly without work and with no prospects for getting work. I guess there's always tent cities...

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      Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    2. Re:Still not legal, right? by AgNO3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      People often forget that the air space over your property to like 300 feet is the property owners and they can and have had people arrested for trespassing for their drones being in their airspace. This has already been to many a court case over air rights. The FAA doesn't even if made legal to fly have the right to say you can fly in a private properties airspace. It would be interesting to see how many nets people put up to their max air space if people start flying drones with valuable stuff over their property. The FAA has ZERO say over your air rights and it varies by state as to how high they go. So they would pretty much be limited to following the roads.

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      OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink :-(
    3. Re:Still not legal, right? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      These things only go the last part of the journey, and only with small, lightweight objects (about 5lbs or so). You're still going to need a massive delivery fleet to move everything to local warehouses from other states or countries, and for heavier or bulky items you'll still need traditional delivery vehicles. There are also going to be many areas or sites for which drone delivery simply isn't practical.

      Moreover, I think this is not going to be a rapid transition either. It's likely to be something that's phased in over a few decades, not a few years, so you won't see a sudden effect on the economy.

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      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    4. Re:Still not legal, right? by jklovanc · · Score: 2

      People often forget that the air space over your property to like 300 feet is the property owners ...

      I have looked into this extensively and have found no actual height that is considered the property of the land owner. If you have references I would love to see them. All I can find are references to the statement that "a landowner owns only so much of the airspace above their property as they may reasonably use in connection with their enjoyment of the underlying land".

      It would be interesting to see how many nets people put up to their max air space

      There actually has been a SCOTUS ruling in this issue.

      A landowner can't arbitrarily try to prevent aircraft from overflying their land by erecting "spite poles," for example.

  4. drones by phantomfive · · Score: 2

    Solve the problem of falling drones + shot-down drones, and then we'll see.

    In comparison, route-finding and range of the drones are already solved theoretically. It's just a matter of cost/benefit.

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    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. Re:20 Cents cost or 20 Cents charge? by postbigbang · · Score: 2

    I'm waiting for public easement and right of way excise taxes to be imposed on drones. A new revenue source for thirsty cities....

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    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.