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USPS Shortlists 'HorseFly' Octocopter Drone Delivery Service
An anonymous reader writes: The likes of GM and Nissan are keeping unusual company in the bidding war to build and deliver the next generation of delivery vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service. Workhorse Group Inc. have made it to the 16-company shortlist with their octocopter drone delivery system, developed by the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science. The self-guiding UAV 'HorseFly' has multiple hardware and software redundancy systems and launches from its special host van 'WorkHorse' to get the parcel the final hurdle to the door. The drone can recharge itself wirelessly in two minutes at base, and calculates its own routes from the van to the destination door.
the customers (snail mail spammers) pay for this?
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...
CAUTION: Please wait until noise has receded before checking your mail.
Silence is a state of mime.
But will it be able to deliver mail to the White house?
That thing is freaking huge. Each copter arm has to be at least 4' - 5' long. Factor in the roof overhang over my front door, and the landscaping, and the closest this thing could get a package to my doorstep would be about 8' away, but that puts it right into another landscaped area. So, my packages will either be somewhere in my front yard or on my driveway. All of this just so a postal worker doesn't have to get up out of a seat and walk the package all the way to my door?
PROGRESS!
This craze with delivery drones, or am I the only one who thinks it's overkill?
I think if you have one company in a city that had the delivery franchise, and sold delivery services to everyone who wanted delivery services via drone, you could probably make it work, especially if you had limited flight corridors, they were rather silent, and you automated the traffic control. I think you'd also want delivery lock boxes that standard box sizes got delivered into, and the ability to text an access code to the recipient for them to collect their package - and oly theirs - from the lock box.
In a suburban setting, you might be able to avoid the lock box, and it'd be an excellent replacement for "waiters on wheels" or similar concierge/courier food delivery (and likely cheaper).
How much time (=money) is wasted by the UPS guy parking and carrying a package up to your door? The truck could instead be outfitted with a dozen drones so the UPS guy just stops, loads all the small packages for a several block radius, and then starts plugging in the returning drones as he finishes with the last of the loading. You could easily double or even quadruple the number of deliveries per man-hour that way - and annual drone expenses are going to become far less than annual wages, if they aren't already. On down the line you automate the truck and the drone-loading as well and you can do the job without paying a delivery guy at all. Humans need only attend to the large, fragile, etc. packages. Probably need three, maybe four delivery guys to service the greater Manhattan area.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I'm the guy arguing that employing people for package delivery is more economical that employing robots.
If this were some private delivery company I'd agree with you, but we're talking about the U.S. Government here. USPS delivery people are federal employees. Federal employees have some of the best benefits in this country. They are not cheap to employ.