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Amazon Tests Delivery Drones At Secret Canada Site After US Frustration
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Guardian:
Amazon is testing its drone delivery service at a secret site in Canada, following repeated warnings by the e-commerce giant that it would go outside the U.S. to bypass what it sees as the U.S. federal government's lethargic approach to the new technology. The largest internet retailer in the world is keeping the location of its new test site closely guarded. What can be revealed is that the company's formidable team of roboticists, software engineers, aeronautics experts and pioneers in remote sensing – including a former NASA astronaut and the designer of the wingtip of the Boeing 787 – are now operating in British Columbia. The end goal is to utilize what Amazon sees as a slice of virgin airspace – above 200ft, where most buildings end, and below 500ft, where general aviation begins. Into that aerial slice the company plans to pour highly autonomous drones of less than 55lbs, flying through corridors 10 miles or longer at 50mph and carrying payloads of up to 5lbs that account for 86% of all the company's packages.
Canada!
Amazon's getting smart with wheeled vehicles delivering to the big cities where flight is impossible, and flying devices to deliver to spread out communities like farm land...
The main problem (well, perhaps not the MAIN problem) I see is that no-one signed up to have drone flights right over their houses. You can buy and plan for where airports are going to be, but the "drone corridors" will just appear overhead one day. Drone sounds are (I think) especially obnoxious buzzing...
It'll be interesting to see if communities try to ban this.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There's only one way to punish Amazon for taking this activity outside of the US. We must find a way, since they have a business presence in the US, to add a larger regulatory and tax burden onto them until they submit, and return this activity, which we won't let them do anyway, to US soil. At which point of course we will not reduce that new tax or regulatory burden, but that'll show 'em anyway.
Way to go, Executive Branch.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The end goal is to utilize what Amazon sees as a slice of virgin airspace – above 200ft, where most buildings end, and below 500ft, where general aviation begins.
Too bad they are going to spend a significant time outside of that airspace during takeoff and landing. That airspace is also occupied by buildings higher than about ten stories.
It would be interesting to know the mean time between failure of the drones they intend to use.
Let's see if we can get DroneCare through Congress.
Table-ized A.I.
https://xkcd.com/1243/
Given the rogue unregulated nature of this airspace they want to exploit, I will claim the airspace over my property as my own and setup a few, ummm, butterfly nets...
Is this "slice of virgin airspace" within shotgun reach?
Try it! Library of Babel
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Also, I saw no mention by Amazon about their concern for the safety of the people who will be living under the threat of the Amazon drones falling out of the air. Maybe that is why Amazon is moving so quickly, their concern for safety is not as the level it should be.
I'm having a hard time figuring out why I want hundreds of 50lb drones flying over my head just so Bezos can make another quick billion. There's no rushing when it comes to doing things the right way. I can't think of a right way to do it when one of these things fails and falls onto a freeway through someone's windshield, or lands on my neighbor's 2 year old playing outside in his sandbox. Maybe they've found corridors that don't cross over houses or populated areas, but I'm thinking that's unlikely. I'm all ears really, but how? Other than the fact that it's new and whizbang cool to have drones in the skies, there's going to be failures, and the fail cases for a car engine are far less disastrous than the fail cases for a drone over a certain size. Who knows, it may turn out that decreasing the amount of vehicular traffic actually decreases the number of traffic fatalities enough that drone failures are more pragmatic. But at least I'm able to actively minimize my time I spend exposing myself to the threat posed in traffic. With drones we're left up to whatever corridor path Amazon chooses. Happen to live underneath one of these? Tough luck.
Blackjack and hookers!
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The article didn't distinguish much between testing stage regulations and production stage regulations. Did Amazon have problems finding a testing area? Why not just use the big backyard of some executive or some other private property to test?
But I imagine that regulations will be sticky in Canada also if and when they want to go to production deliveries. I've seen no evidence Canada has friendlier skies for real deliveries.
I suspect it's merely a PR stunt to embarrass the USA into creating friendlier sky laws.
Table-ized A.I.
If the drone confines its flight path to mostly over the road systems it will make a lot less noise than a passing car.
I thought about that too, but the problem is road nose is well contained to buildings on the side of the street, while drone noise is elevated and thus can reach out a lot more.
Perhaps drone noise at 200+ feet would not be as bad as I'm thinking of, but it seems like these would be pretty large drones at 55lbs, thus quite a bit noisier than many of the drones we are used to hearing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On rainy and windy days, over farmland, during the holidays and in cities.
A little autonomous drones will be badly affected by wind and weather. Sure on sunny calm days they will work fine. Some stormy night and you want that tin of cavier delivered, and the drone will be wet and blown off course. What happens when they are struck by lightning?
Over farmland, the airspace starts at 0ft. Ag Aircraft are allowed to stay 500ft away from buildings and people, meaning over a random corn field, the aircraft can fly until their wheels touch. Bumping into a 50lb drone at 100kts will leave a dent in the aircraft, and probably destroy your package.
The world is mostly got paths clear around most houses, except during the holidays. A string of christmas lights may not be detectable by a drone, so what should it do when encountering it.
The cities are very dynamic. Delivery trucks, cats, dogs all change the terrain around your house. what happens when a delivery drone is being chased and caught by a curious cat. How about a large bird attacking it. Say the UPS driver just delivered a pile of packages to the front porch, and now there is no place for the Amazon drone to put something.
Then what about security? Certainly all a nefarious person would need to do drive around following drones, and collecting packages before the residents collect them.
How about people who live within 5 miles of an airport. Drones are not allowed there. No deliveries for you.
Yea, lots of work, for little payback.
All I can say is: Skeet Shooting for Prizes!!!
Ok, I can understand Amazon doing their testing elsewhere, but I'm not quite sure what the resultant consequence to the US is.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
I don't get this. What happens when the drone arrives at my address? Does it ring the doorbell and wait? Does it go round the back and leave it on the back porch if I'm out? (I'm in a low-crime neighbourhood where this is possible.) Or will it leave it with my neighbour, as instructed?
Where are they planning to deliver to exactly?
They could be delivering to a closer distribution center or to the end customer?
If the delivery is to a distribution center then it is very inefficient given the small payload, if the delivery is tot he end customer then where would you leave the package? Drop it on the driveway where it would get run over by the owner? What about trees, power cables and other obstacles? Leave the package out in the rain? Would it land an leave the package on the ground or drop it an d potentially break the package.
Sounds like a good idea but I struggle to see how this would work
It is standard practice for machinery safety, where live is at risk, for the system to be designed to both detect, and continue on to a safe stop, when a fault occurs. It's all based on probability of failure, frequency of exposure, consequence of failure. Also people are jumping to a lot of conclusions. I work in postal industry and we are waiting for self driving cars that launch drones to do the 'final metres' to the front door. That appears to be the ultimate minimum price (road cheaper than air and drone cheaper than robot).The idea of drones flying long distance doesn't seem to make any economic sense - they can only take one light parcel with them. A system with auto car and drone could get delivery of parcels cheaper than cost of current stamp for letters, easily.
I see RC planes from time to in fields and parks. Are drones considered different? What's the Fed weight limit for an RC plane?
Table-ized A.I.
So I doubt I will be getting anything delivered by drone.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I honestly never thought this idea would... Take off!
(that's Area 51 in American)
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The end goal is to utilize what Amazon sees as a slice of virgin airspace â" above 200ft, where most buildings end, and below 500ft, where general aviation begins.
Yea, I hate to break it to Amazon, but that airspace isn't "virgin", it is currently the domain of helicopters.
Normally, helicopters will fly 500ft above the ground, give or take a bit, but they do not have a lower limit.
FAR 91.119 says "Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes..." and it turns out to be illegal to fly an airplane less than 1000' above the rooftops of a city (i.e., about 1200' above the ground) or 500' from any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure in the countryside (i.e., at least 500' above the ground). This is a much closer look than you would get in a commercial airliner, but it isn't all that close. FAR 91.119(d) says "Helicopters may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section if the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface."
As long as the helicopter could autorotate to a tennis court, road, or field in the event of an engine failure, the pilot can fly much lower than in an airplane.
Source - Me... I'm a Certified Flight Instructor in both helicopters and airplanes, with thousands of hours of dual given, 2 years spent as a Chief Flight Instructor in a FAA Part 141 school, as well as nearly 10 years of commercial flight experience in tours, offshore, and EMS.
Amazon is out of their mind if they think this is ever going to work. If nothing else, the police and EMS helicopters are not going to get out of their way and they have more of a need to be there.
These are not the drones you are looking for...
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You forgot about the ease of delivering that 5 pound block of C4 plus detonator to pretty much anybody that ordered it. It isn't even "just" the Amazon drones. Anybody can capture an Amazon drone (or build their own copy and paint it accordingly) and use it to make a "special delivery" to, well, pretty much anyone. "Special Delivery, Mr. President! It's those "books" you ordered from Amazon!"
You can pack a whole lot of evil into 2 kg of C4 (or whatever the latest/greatest compact explosive is) plus detonator. You can saturate any reasonable defensive system by having 100+ drones attempt a delivery at the same time. You can carpet bomb crowded marketplaces - the drone itself will conveniently supply the shrapnel, or you can fly the drones under cars or into glass-front buildings before detonating. And best of all, you can do it in complete anonymity and safety! The drones will be impossible to track back to a point of origin, flying literally under the radar and in numbers too great to track anyway. You can rent a barn or warehouse, ship in as many amazon-a-likes as you can, load them with Sarin, with Anthrax, with weaponized Ebola or with powdered radioactive waste, or -- what the heck -- with all of these at once, to saturate and overwhelm even emergency response systems with multiple distinct threat vectors, and after launching them with a program that directs them to converge on a given target from all directions after initially moving on "delivery" trajectories to a spread of locations, "
None of your comments apply to any regulations postulated by the FAA. You are confusing dangerous possibilities from people with criminal intent with beneficial uses by responsible parties. It is not in Amazon's interest to accrue liabilities from drone crashes. They will be sued for their back teeth and they know it. On the other hand, criminals will not follow FAA regulations whatever they are.
It is perfectly reasonable to allow Amazon the time and space to work out any glitches in a safe region of the US.
It's also perfectly reasonable to assert "That is never, ever, going to be legal, so why bother to permit then to develop something we aren't going to allow." Admitting that this isn't quite what has been said, it is probably at the heart of the denial.
As you suggest, there will probably be little we can do about preventing people from doing this with drones already and/or in the near future -- the barn door already done been opened and the horses are long gone -- but at least we can arrange a world where ANY drone, autonomous or not, is illegal and hence a candidate for defensive measures.
It is, sadly, yet another case of the tragedy of the commons. Drones could be everything from fun to enormously useful, but once they are in "the commons" and available to everyone, it only takes a few butt-holes to make them a liability that exceeds any possible benefit. At the same time, it is virtually impossible to put techno-genies back into the bottle. I can hardly wait for the day somebody figures out how to make a compact 20 kt+ nuclear device out of commonly available materials and using nothing but garage-shop tools. There have been a very few SF stories written about such things, and none of them have happy endings.
Maybe this is the answer to the "Where are they?" paradox. Any time a civilization rises above a certain technological threshold, it becomes possible for anybody to destroy it, and there is always somebody that does. Maybe it becomes possible to build a fusion device that doesn't require a fission trigger, for example, or maybe it becomes possible to bio-engineer a doomsday virus with a "perfect" epidemiological profile and nearly 100% mortality in your basement.
Fully anonymous drone-delivered murder and mayhem may not qualify as doomsday, but it will certainly create some serious challenges to the concept of personal freedom vs public safety and the abuse of the commons.
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
They can be made safe without government regulation. They can carry transponders. They can carry radar reflectors and show up on airport radars. Over time I'm sure regular flyways will be established, the same as footpaths and roadways were in the past. These can be mapped to 3D GPS. All of this is current technology.
The trick is NOT killing every possible new tech because of some imagined danger, but ironing out the bugs. That is exactly what Amazon wants to do.
By the the standards you claimed, we would not have air travel because of the possibility of 9-1-1.
So here I am, building my death drone fleet, thinking "Gee, I'll be sure to leave in the transponder and radar reflectors. After all, even though there are no government regulations requiring them, I want my victims to see them coming."
As for 911, a) the economic impact of air travel and freight is difficult to equate to the net productivity of a small-payload drone fleet at any level; b) the "solution" to the problem turned out to be literally locking the pilots into the front of the plane so passengers would have to cut through a solid bulkhead in order to reach the cockpit, which would at the very least require time and make the enterprise not worth the risk. There might be more measures we don't know about as well. This is possible because airplanes are an enormous capital investment in addition to being a core feature of our economy in ever so many ways. Adding security features to an airplane doesn't double its cost or halve its productivity.
With a drone, that is not the case. Security measures added to a drone do significantly increase its cost and lower its productivity (which is probably marginal anyway, given its small payload). And there is no way that I can imagine to add security features that somebody can't just turn off or remove or trivially suborn without massive government intervention.
It's sort of like the various assault rifles being sold that can have a single part or two removed or replaced and they are magically transformed from being "semi" to "full" automatic. Marvelously effective at preventing honest citizens from owning fully automatic assault rifles, not so good at preventing full automatic assault weapons from showing up all over the place in the hands of the less honest or fringe militias.
But hey, now the fringe militias will be able to add another weapon to their repertoire! Full automatic rifles, vans full of homemade TNT and an explosives-laden drone fleet. I can't wait!
And yes, we'll get this in spite of the government trying to slow it down. I'm betting we'll first see it in drones built and delivered by personality disordered borderline high school students who by some means manage to lay their hands on real explosives. That sounds like so much fun I'm tempted myself...
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.