Slashdot Mirror
Drone Crashes, Missing Champion Skier By Inches (cnn.com)
HughPickens.com writes: NBC reports that defending World Cup champion Marcel Hirscher, who won silver in the slalom at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, had a lucky escape after he narrowly avoided being hit by a falling drone. Hirscher was on his second run in a World Cup slalom race at Madonna di Campiglio in Italy when a remote-controlled drone with a mounted camera slammed down on the piste inches behind him. "This is horrible," Hirscher said after the event. "This can never happen again. This can be a serious injury." The International Ski Federation (FIS) released a statement on its website apologizing for the "unfortunate accident." But some saw the lighter side announcing that the drone wars had shifted to the ski slopes. "Man, I'd watch a lot more winter sports if this was a standard part of the game," tweeted Marc Andreessen. The company responsible for the drone, sports marketing agency Infront, said its initial investigation "indicates a malfunction of the drone." "The most likely reason is a strong and unforeseen interference on the operating frequency, leading to limited operability," Infront said in a statement. "The pilot followed the official security procedure, purposely flying the drone as close as possible to the ground before releasing it. The aim was to destroy the drone, in order to prevent it from losing control."
I first read the headline like: Missing champion skier inches near crashed drone, as if it was a search and rescue drone that crashed while looking for him.
It probably crashed into a tree or pole.
> "The most likely reason is a strong and unforeseen interference on the operating frequency, leading to limited operability," Infront said in a statement."
If they have interference Drones just hover, if the interference lasts too long, they move back to the home point and land. They're automomous, they don't need signal from the ground to fly!
So that bit sounds like total drivel:
>"The pilot followed the official security procedure, purposely flying the drone as close as possible to the ground before releasing it. "
Bullshit, he'd click "go home", it would fly up, go to its home point and land smoothly without all the theatrics. But if he still had control he would simply fly it as normal! It sounds like a PR man is trying to mitigate a crashed drone by making up nonsense but has never actually flow a drone.
WTF Slashdot?
That champion skier was headed downhill anyways.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
..."Man, I'd watch a lot more winter sports if this was a standard part of the game," tweeted Marc Andreessen.
Netscape or not, he sounds like an idiot with that comment. He wants more possible accidents and injury in winter sports?
how friggin hard is it to rig cameras on tall stands and use blimps.. ya know.. like they USED TO? technology isn't always the answer... and in many cases it's a bad idea. they've been broadcasting downhill skiing for decades without them... i see no added value to a broadcast using drone-mounted cameras vs traditional fixed cameras at known venues that can be planned-for ahead of time.
at least the american broadcasters use cables over football stadiums, not drones.. imagine a quad--copter complete with hd cameras, microphones and transmission equipment crashing down in the crowd at soldier field during a bears game.... (ok bad example, it'd be empty anyway.....)
I don't care about drone near misses. I am much more interested in incidents where the drone crashes straight into the operator's own penis and scrotum. Has this sort of an event ever happened before?
"a strong and unforeseen interference on the operating frequency"
Then from what I understand it wasn't a drone but a simple remote controlled aircraft, and not a very good one at that. Even the DJ Phantom drones from what I've heard are rigged with safety fallback so that when the signal from the remote is lost they will us GPS to return to their liftoff point.
Don't these fancier drones carrying expensive cameras have autonomous failsafe modes which will hold them in a stable hover or return them to a home location in the event of a radio malfunction?
That thing fell like a rock and missed the skiier by what 0.25 seconds.
And people wonder why the FAA wants to register drones.
If a sports company operating (what is likely) a professional drone almost mames someone at the world cup, what do you Jim Bob will do at the county fair.
And man, those pro drones are really expensive.
Given the amount of risk most of us take getting up every morning and driving to work you'd think a drone would be the least of our problems. Every little incident and non-incident gets reported as if it were the wold ending. Wake me when someone actually dies as a result of an actual drone strike. I'm still going to write it off as it's a part of life and the risk is insignificant... but hey- at leas it'll be something interesting to read about or watch at least!
I'm amazed at the number of people are willing to give up there liberties for a little supposed temporary safety. What is ridicules is none of the registration that is being argued by people actually make us any safe. In fact most laws don't do jack shit to make us any safer. You can't stop the inevitable because the law breakers are going to ignore the law anyway They're not thinking about the consequences. If they were they'd probably not take those actions in the first place regardless of what the law didn't say.
I don't care about drone near misses. I am much more interested in incidents where the drone crashes straight into the operator's own penis and scrotum. Has this sort of an event ever happened before?
No but brain mincing has occurred before
Jeff Bezos is not able to understand the obvious problems with drones. He thinks Amazon can make deliveries using drones. He didn't think of these problems:
1) Dog runs from bushes and attacks drone, does damage. Who pays?
2) Child runs to drone, is hurt. Whose fault?
3) Drone fails in flight, crashes, kills people, destroys property. Amazon pays more than all profits from drone delivery.
4) Teenager is in a field trying a BB gun, shoots at drone. Drone crashes. What then?
5) Someone is testing a Tesla coil in his garage. The huge sparks emit electromagnetic interference, making communication with the drone impossible. Drone cannot be controlled, destroys property. Who pays?
6) Drone noise and danger reduces the value of houses in a neighborhood. An adjoining county has restrictions against drones; the value of the property there goes up.
7) RFI, Radio Frequency Interference: Someone is outside on the street welding something using an electric welder. Electric welding generates interference on ALL frequencies. The drone might receive nothing except noise.
8) Drone is stolen.
Given the circumstances of the apology, it seems obvious that this drone was put there by the FIS and went awry. While a drone that was officially put there by the ski federation is still a drone, the subtext is that the accident proves we must regulate the use of drones by private individuals. If the drone didn't come from a private individual, this subtext is false.
Knowing several drone owners, I doubt a drone could hit that small of a target.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The only way to stop a bad guy with skis and spandex pants is a good guy with a drone.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That was my point, they SAID that the pilot flew it close to the ground so it crashed well and this was the procedure when there is interference.
But if you had interference (unreliable signal), you'd press the 'home' key to send it home. Far less signal to send.
Or if that didn't work, turn off the controller so there is zero signal and the drone does its fly-up go-home land-smoothly fail-safe.
What happened here is that the pilot was getting the First-Person-View shot behind the skier and didn't allow enough height and hit the snow. The skier was never in any danger, and he didn't crash it into the snow as some sort of safety procedure.
All this drivel is because the FTC is whipping up scaremongering to regulate drones. Essentially it wants to regulate toys above 500gms, regardless of the terminal velocity or height limit. Even non-commercial ones.
I don't care about drone near misses. I am much more interested in incidents where the drone crashes straight into the operator's own penis and scrotum. Has this sort of an event ever happened before?
Tune-in Sundays at 7pm on ABC to find out!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Those guys likely wouldn't have thought anything of it, as it is the only event with a minimum THC level required to compete.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I don't care about drone near misses. I am much more interested in incidents where the drone crashes straight into the operator's own penis and scrotum. Has this sort of an event ever happened before?
No, it hasn't, and that's a damned specific and rather strange fetish to be afflicted with, and just because you brought it up, I'm invoking Rule 34 on you.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Why are the blades exposed? Shouldn't they be covered with a ring shroud at the edge perimeter of the blades, or a mesh of some sort? In two separate incidences, one toddler was insured while another lost an eye.
Life is not for the lazy.
I hope you all had a happy solstice! We're continuing the celebration by watching yet more science documentaries! Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy Gregorian new year!
First rename something innocent like a radio control plane to something fierce like a military vehicle. Next find people misusing the object across the world. Bring that to public attention, maybe get people afraid. Eventually you too can push through congress your anti toy legislation. If you can get a toy banned, what law can't you pass?
No, but they make most of the professional ones too (this is an s1000? No?)
http://www.dji.com/product/spreading-wings-s1000?www=v1
And even when they don't make them, they make the controllers.
http://www.dji.com/products/prosystem#flight-controllers
Sales of Crosman .22 air rifles increase as people get fed up of drones!
Stay logical. Jeff Bezos apparently does not have a technical background. If he did, he certainly would not want to be involved in the introduction of a new technology that has so much potential to kill people and destroy their property. Amazon is not, in some ways, managed well.
Mr. Bezos hired people to do the technology, many years ago. Amazon was originally just an online bookstore. He has a huge amount of stock. Quote from a 2013 Forbes magazine story: "Bezos is still by far the largest shareholder in Amazon, with just under 85 million shares, or approximately 18.5%"
"This isn't for city use..."
I agree. Drones are not safe for use in a city.
"Drop off area is controlled and can be elevated."
What does that mean? Most Amazon customers would not have an elevated drop off area.
"Drones are automatic and only travel short distances from the van. Even if they're controlled by a human most of the time, they will be able to handle the loss of their control signal."
Close to the ground, wind is very unpredictable. "loss of a signal" means no GPS, no human control. Onboard gyros and accelerometers can help a drone track its flight. However, there is a huge problem with measuring speed, relative to the ground, particularly when the measurements must be extremely precise. Radar doesn't work when there are lots of obstructions.
"No one sane and rational thinks Amazon will ever use drones to deliver anything to anyone."
Interesting. I've wondered about that.
I certainly would not want drones in our neighborhood. About 2 years ago I was in a park and saw a small drone get out of control and come close to killing someone. The operator was standing perhaps 70 feet away.
So was this a military type drone on a mission to do whatever military drone do? e.g. spying on whomever as it had a camera and not a missile.
Or was this a quadcopter that was used for the event and that was it and there is actually nothing really newsworthy?
This is why they do not want to make a difference between the two. So you think military when it is not.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
No more drones! Ordinary citizens do not need them! Ban them! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! EUROPE!!!
"Same as when a teenager drops a rock from an overpass onto someone's windshield, causing them to crash when they can no longer see. The one doing the malicious damage is to blame."
I find that, with this subject, I make the mistake of thinking that other people will see the same overall picture that is in my mind.
One problem with malicious damage to a drone will be proving that there is malicious damage. A BB gun shot may cause a crash, but will it be obvious that the crash didn't cause a particular small hole?
Also, an Amazon drone crash will put Amazon into news stories, worldwide. A competent CEO would not want that.
Maybe eventually there will be common uses for drones. But no competent CEO of a large company would want the company name to be ruined by the inevitable initial failures.
"... Amazon can and does hire geniuses..."
Amazon can and does do foolish things. Abusing Amazon employees is just one example. A few links:
Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long. Quote: "Amazon's work-life balance is awful."
Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan
Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture
Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon
Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee.
Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing.
Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second
The 3rd dimension: Altitude.
Did it happen it 1914 when inches were still in use?
I pilot multi-rotor and fixed-wing UAVs (RPAS) myself. The UAV, which has crashed, weighs at least 3 - 5 kg. In my opinion, to fly such a heavy aircraft above a gathering of people is reckless.
The problem is that UAV operators are to lift in the air the cameras which are not designed for a light aircraft. A camera on a drone in the air does not need a display, as there is nobody up there to look at it.
For example, the GoPro4Session camera weighs just 74 grams. It is better already. It could be lifted into the air by a drone which weighs just 500-600 grams. But still this camera is waterproof down to 10 meters water depth. No need for it in the air. So the camera could be still lighter. It has a WiFi. Again, it is not used in the air, as WiFi may jam control radio-signal. It has a built-in battery for filming for hours. But the flights last just 15 minutes. So light replaceable batteries of different capacity could be used. The mount is from a molded solid plastic, but could be much lighter from aluminum or a composite plastic.
If such camera producers as GoPro, Panasonic, Sony, etc. started to produce cameras designed specially for UAVs, it could make flying much safer. Each gram counts for a flight, and camera producers just do not think about it at all. It is so sad.
One more point, the camera should be frangible, if it comes to a collision with the speed more than 200 km/h (manned aircraft's speed or crash).
Instead of introducing buracratic obstacles and "windmills" databses, the agencies could concentrate of making flying safer. And a good starting point could be the design of airborn cameras.
They should put retrorockets for more fun
One problem with malicious damage to a drone will be proving that there is malicious damage. A BB gun shot may cause a crash, but will it be obvious that the crash didn't cause a particular small hole?
I would hope the drone will have multiple cameras pointing in all (downward at least) directions and be constantly transmitting back to the truck that dispatched it for all sorts of good reasons. It doesn't even require a failure of the drone itself, it could just fail to locate the house specified (say someone is using a dead drop to collect items ordered with stolen credit card info, and there isn't even a house on that lot any longer – but it's still a mail-deliverable address), or maybe there's a party going on in the yard and it can't get close enough because it senses the moving lifeforms. Rather than relying on error reports to explain why it came back with the package, it would be easier to look at the footage. If it doesn't come back at all and completely stops communicating, for any reason, that footage may be the only hope of locating it. Also, if there is a screw-up (either on the part of the drone, the operator, or the address on the package) and they need to figure out where they dropped something and shouldn't have, they'll want that footage.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
And you goddamn nerds wanted flying cars. Imagine those crashes.
Jeff Bezos is not able to understand the obvious problems with drones. He thinks Amazon can make deliveries using drones. He didn't think of these problems:
I think you're right about the feasibility of Amazon drones. I don't think that they are a viable option for delivery services. There are too many variables, not enough space and landing zones, and a host of other issues. I think that cost, payload capacity and package thieves will be the biggest problems. But I thought I'd answer your questions as a rebuttal because they are clearly framed from an uninformed position that is intended to malign drones.
1) Dog runs from bushes and attacks drone, does damage. Who pays?
The dog does. The blades are going to slice the dog to bits. If he survives the owner will pay for his vet bill. No, Amazon will not be liable for it, just like car owners aren't held liable for running over a dog that runs into the road. (Theorically, Amazon could bill the customer's credit card for the drone, but they'll never do that because of the PR repercussions.)
It's also conceivable that the drone's collision avoidance system could be programmed to "see" and evade the dog. Think behavior like Luke's lightsaber practice drone. This level of avoidance is not yet a production option, but is technically feasible and may not be far off.
2) Child runs to drone, is hurt. Whose fault?
Child's fault. Really unfortunate, like when a child runs into the road and is struck. When it's the child's fault, the driver is not charged.
3) Drone fails in flight, crashes, kills people, destroys property. Amazon pays more than all profits from drone delivery.
You should google insurance. It's kind of a thing for all commercial vehicles. Insurance protects people and corporations from from that sort of thing.
4) Teenager is in a field trying a BB gun, shoots at drone. Drone crashes. What then?
Drone and package is lost. If they are able to identify/prove the teenager did it, he'll likely face charges for shooting at an aircraft, destruction of property, and possibly theft. But, most likely it'll just be a write off for Amazon.
5) Someone is testing a Tesla coil in his garage. The huge sparks emit electromagnetic interference, making communication with the drone impossible. Drone cannot be controlled, destroys property. Who pays?
Amazon's plan would use fully autonomous drones. But, even if the drones were under control from an external controller, the loss of signal would trigger its fail-safe return to home feature, where it completely autonomously returns to base and lands safely. If this tesla coil was so large as to create an EMP effect that affect GPS signal or impedes the onboard computer, then the drone crashes. Amazon is liable for property damage and their insurance pays out.
6) Drone noise and danger reduces the value of houses in a neighborhood. An adjoining county has restrictions against drones; the value of the property there goes up.
This argument just won;t fly.(See what I did there?) Drones are far quieter than trucks. But, just like trucks are not allowed in certain areas, municipalities could similarly ban drones. In that unlikely case, Amazon can simply fly around the no-drone zone and delivery will not be available to those addresses.
7) RFI, Radio Frequency Interference: Someone is outside on the street welding something using an electric welder. Electric welding generates interference on ALL frequencies. The drone might receive nothing except noise.
Electric welders don;t produce that much interference, unless the receiver is within a few inches/feet of teh we
New York Times story and responses:
New York Times story: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions." Another quote: "The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another's bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others." (New York Times story posted Aug 15, 2015. There are 5,858 comments!)
Response from Amazon: What The New York Times Didn't Tell You by Jay Carney, "Senior Vice President for Global Corporate Affairs at Amazon. Previously, he served as White House Press Secretary and spent 20 years as a reporter for TIME." (Posted on medium.com, October 19, 2015.)
Response from the New York Times: Dean Baquet Responds To Jay Carney's Medium Post by Dean Baquet, Executive Editor, The New York Times. Quote: "As I said in the beginning, this story [the New York Times story linked above] was based on dozens of interviews. And any reading of the responses leaves no doubt that this was an accurate portrait." (Posted on medium.com, October 19, 2015.)
Business Insider stories:
Amazon employees on 'ludicrously comical' NYT story: 'Some people don't belong here, maybe' Quote: "She said she enjoys the culture that pushes her to work harder." (Aug. 15, 2015)
Employees confess the worst parts about working for Amazon (Aug. 21, 2015)
Amazon abuse is an old story. From 4 years ago:
Atlantic Magazine: "... 8-12 hours shifts with no overtime for $8.72 an hour." In the Wake of Protest: One Woman's Attempt to Unionize Amazon Quote: "As that first month dragged on, I tried to tell myself I was organizing, but what I was really doing was driving across town in a beater car working 8-12 hours shifts with no overtime for $8.72 an hour." Another quote: "Time magazine named Jeff Bezos 'Person of The Year.' Yet Amazon had failed so far to show a profit and stockholder pressure was on. In January, five days before fourth-quarter earnings were to be published, Bezos laid off around 150 workers, nearly 2 percent of its workforce, and posted its first-ever gains. I was hired the following week." Another quote: "He was the one who told me Bezos was going to close the Seattle warehouse. It was too expensive to run. Huge fulfillment centers were springing up around the country. In Nevada, they were getting $5.15 an hour and people had to work 12-hour shifts, five days a week."(Dec. 12, 2011, 4 years ago)
You repeated what I said, "accelerometers and gyros", however you think they would be enough and I don't.
Maybe the difficulty is due to the difference between rich and poor in their assumptions about life. The rich have large flat yards where the children can play. The poor have apartment houses, or small yards with lots of obstructions. How would a drone deliver to an apartment building? Or to a small yard with a swing set and trees?
Yes, accelerometers and gyros might be able to give accurate information about a drone movement caused by a sudden change in wind direction. However, I am skeptical that anything could be done to prevent a loss of control, in some cases. There is too much inertia. There would be a delay in response: If the drone must increase propeller rotation and aim the propellers sideways to avoid a crash, there might be an adequate response after 50 feet of movement, but not after 10 feet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping
Tracking near the ground is already a solved problem with the exception of moving ground(i.e., flowing water, which is a solvable problem with Kalman filtering and MISO feedback loops with accelerometers and Visual SLAM cameras). Downward-looking cameras can track horizontal velocity to mm-per-second resolution. See that big Amazon logo the lady puts down on the grass in the latest Amazon Air commercial? That's a giant, high-res visual, homing beacon, not an advertisement.
Even the Parrot AR . Drone, a $300 toy, has this capability. It's cheap and easy because of the development of the optical computer mouse.
PS: what you "think" is enough - when you don't know jack about a subject that has been extremely well-studied - doesn't matter.
Clearly this type of thing would never have happened if the drone had been registered.
"Skynet still rusty and narrowly missed its target with drone"
or
"In other news a Stormtrooper attempted to hit a skier with a drone today..."
I missed. :(
"strong and unforeseen interference on the operating frequency"
Really. Who could have foreseen that. Strong and unforeseen interference is the problem with gadgets that roll or fly around actual human beings; it WILL happen, and the drone (winged or wheeled on a highway) will go gaga. The real world will defeat every clever gadget that tries to outwit it. Chaos finds a way.
Redesign the drones to be a bouncy ball, at least a shell that emulates one. Duct and cover them rotors. Too many cuisinarts flying around.
You apparently didn't read this in the comment to which you replied:
There is too much inertia. There would be a delay in response: If the drone must increase propeller rotation and aim the propellers sideways to avoid a crash, there might be an adequate response after 50 feet of movement, but not after 10 feet.
I said this above: There is too much inertia. There would be a delay in response: If the drone must increase propeller rotation and aim the propellers sideways to avoid a crash, there might be an adequate response after 50 feet of movement, but not after 10 feet.
Failsafe mechanism: Our drone has a failsafe mechanism in that:
1. If there is a loss of lift, the system is guaranteed to automatically fall to the ground under the force of gravity. No special maintenance or procedures are required to ensure that this mechanism is activated.
2. If the drone should encounter an large obstacle while traveling horizontally, it will automatically come to a stop and come under the rule of #1.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
That's how it seems to me. Jeff Bezos has done that before. He said his company, B.O., Blue Origin, would take tourists into the edge of space, but not into orbit. He has apparently abandoned that idea. Now he is pretending to compete with Elon Musk and SpaceX.
... important to clear up the difference between 'space' and 'orbit'," Musk posted on Twitter. ... A rocket needs to be traveling about three times the speed of sound, or Mach 3, to reach space, but orbital missions require speeds about Mach 30, Musk said.
Quote from an NBC News story about B.O.:
SpaceX is working to reuse rockets that are returning from the higher altitudes and faster speeds of orbital missions. "It is
There is a misconception about the "meters of water resistance" unit. It's translated to make it more "friendly", and loses in the translation as it's always the case. 10m WR does not mean all it's good for is shooting 10m below surface (and in fact, it might not work well at that for reasons that will become apparent).
The real unit is [water] pressure (atm, bar, lbs/sqin etc). The pressure to which the seals are designed to withstand. 10m I think is 0.1atm. A "10m" device is barely waterproof and might indeed have trouble with a strong shower or rain at speed. You could only shoot at 10m if the camera/water is not moving, as movement will increase the pressure. It just means it's probably safe right below the surface.