Slashdot Mirror
Passenger-Carrying Drone Gets Symbolic Approval For Test Flights In Nevada (theverge.com)
The Verge reports: "Chinese company Ehang caught our eye at CES earlier year, with the firm unveiling an autonomous quadcopter prototype it said was capable of ferrying human passengers without a pilot. We were wary of these unproven claims, but Ehang is obviously forging ahead with the vehicle. The company recently reached an agreement with Nevada's governor's office to develop the Ehang 184 at the state's FAA-approved UAV test site. However, this news should be taken with a pinch of salt: the Ehang 184 still isn't approved for testing by the FAA itself, and the company has yet to show a fully working prototype." Submitter kheldan adds this commentary: This should put you drone advocates' and self-driving car advocates' faith in your ideals to the test: Would you step into one of these and let it fly you away somewhere? I wouldn't!
Ehang says it plans to begin testing at the FAA-approved site some time later this year. Some of the difficulties it will have to face include creating an autonomous navigation system that can detect small obstacles like power lines, creating and regulating fixed paths for air travel, and managing the limitations of battery life (Ehang claims the 184 has a maximum flight time of 23 minutes).
Seriously, what's the point? Given that the flight time is 23 minutes, this is virtually useless for any serious travel. Furthermore, it's likely to be far more expensive than services like Uber and Lyft. The applications are extremely limited and, even if there was interest, it wouldn't be especially safe for the sky to fill up with such drones. But I'm still not believing that there's any market at all for such things. This is solving a problem that doesn't exist. It's the dog from hell; take it out back and shoot it. Can anyone explain to me why this has any value at all? Of course not, because it solves a problem that doesn't exist and never will exist.
Fists in the air! Slashdot is ALIVE!
If it can support my weight (350 pounds) and has good flight/battery time, I'll get one.
"capable of terrifying passengers without a pilot"
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
...and animated video is the only thing this company has ever shown. Have they even every flown one for real?
PS.. Anyone else see a problem with the lower prop locations or are they disposables?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I think this would be a good use-case for an airframe parachute http://cirrusaircraft.com/innovation/airframe-parachute/.
This should put you drone advocates' and self-driving car advocates' faith in your ideals to the test: Would you step into one of these and let it fly you away somewhere? I wouldn't!
Sure, I'd be happy to, once it has actually been developed and the kinks worked out.
This is a totally solvable problem, it just requires time and money.
I've been flying for 15 years, the computer is a better pilot than a human is, in terms of control. Then it just becomes decision making ability. That needs to be worked on, but for fixed flights from point A to point B, known locations, that is totally doable.
As for "emergencies", yes they happen, but the reality is, not actually that often. For example, the number of pilots who have real engine failures in helicopters is actually lower than the number of injuries and deaths from training for them.
Frank Robinson (of Robinson Helicopters) actually proposed to the FAA that auto-rotation practice be stopped, because so many people were getting hurt doing it in his R22 compared to the few that actually had an engine quit.
What's the difference between a drone and a plane on autopilot?
Naval tests of GPS jamming. Who will win the in courts, I wonder, when it comes to interfering with civil aviation: FAA or USN?
...more ideas to steal/circumvent (from other companies testing drones there) and re-produce back at home (in China). *PROFIT*
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
New business model for people smugglers....
What about the concept of having one of these as an emergency evacuation route from the 56th floor of a sky scraper. Granted you'd have to be well off to afford one but you'd not need a pilots license, or the ability to base jump, or depend on a 3 minute elevator that might possibly not be in service. I've had to flee the 25th floor of a 40 floor building on foot in emergency lighting at night during a fire following an earth quake. Not a fun experience by any stretch of the imagination. Luckily I was young, in good shape, and not burdened by having any family or handicapped friends to see after.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
All props are consumable items and eventually become wall art.
Those look like they were bought out of the giant scale RC plane market.
At least they have six, gives the computer a chance at a controlled crash landing if one fails. Of course the passenger is sitting more or less in rotating plane, so good broken prop catching fun potential.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
See, many of us actually are pilots. Many private, some commercial, a few mlitary. In fact, I've flown military UAVs for several years.
What is missing from the drone hysteria is that these "new" concepts are not new. They've been tried and well studied. However, the lessons learned from a century of aviation have been dismissed by the drone enthusiasts. Most of the "cost savings" from "drones" comes in two very clear directions. The first is the assumption that whomever is controlling the drone is no longer a pilot and consequently no longer needs the training and experience requisite to safely pilot an aircraft. This is, of course, a stupid assumption, as large automated aircraft are routinely damaged by low time pilots even though the automation is trying to prevent that. The second assumption is that drones will be cheaper to design and build. This can only be true if we throw away the lessons learned about aircraft design. Why would you need triple string redundant flight control systems? Well, because dual string was clearly inadequate in fly by wire aircraft. Why do we need rigorous software design processes? Well, it's pretty bad when your flight control computers blue screen. Once you realize that a drone is a remotely piloted aircraft and should be as safe to the people around it as "real" airplanes, the cost savings will vanish, as you've created a system that's more complex than a manned aircraft, and competent engineers understand that more complex systems are more expensive.
Is there a place for drones? Sure! Things that are dull, dirty or dangerous. Oceanic survey? Absolutely. The Navy's Triton program makes sense. Dirty? Yup, flying a reaper instead of an F-16 over someone else's country is a good example. Dangerous? Yes, wildfires and cropdusting are excellent places for UAVs. However, flying over my kids to drop off a package? Perhaps we should demonstrate that it's safe to fly before flying willy nilly over everyone.
No, learning from past mistakes does not make me a luddite. Call me an engineer if you feel boorish, but learning is a good thing.
Autonomous pilots are or will shortly be superior to human pilots, there's no question there. However I'm not sure how I feel about quad-copters transporting humans. Unlike regular aircraft and even to a lesser extent helicopters, quad copters are not even remotely aerodynamically stable, one engine dies, or you loose power and the whole thing is instantly totally screwed. Parachutes aren't really an answer to this as they can blow into buildings and power lines. I really think for a practical and safe human transport drone with vtol, you would want a hybrid fixed wing / rotor vehicle with 6 or more engines with enough power that the craft could be stable loosing any single engine. It would then also be able to go on cruise and achieve higher speeds and range, while also being able to glide to a landing if it gets sufficiently messed up. See amazon's delivery research drone for what a hybrid craft could look like.
Problem with your reasoning is that a computer can't decide not the fly the plane if it's not happy with the conditions. Ice on the wings? Weather is too bad? Problems with the instruments? Watch as management approves every flight and presses the go button. There will be accidents and deaths, companies will shrug it off.
Not quite what Metropolis, (1927) predicted but close enough. In the movie, everyone flew bi-planes for personal transport.
Interestingly enough this is the main problem with human drivers today.
How often do you hear someone say that they are too tired to drive? No, they think they will handle it and drive regardless.
What if the weather is bad? A snowstorm? Human drivers take the risk and drives a a speed that their vision doesn't really permit.
It is not a question of if accidents could happen because of this. People die every day because they drive when they shouldn't.
Autonomous vehicles might have the same problem but if they do it will be when conditions that weren't predictable happens, not the predictable ones that happens on a regular basis.
whirlybirds can't safely descend vertically at speed, the rotors enter their own downwash and you end up in a Vortex Ring State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... this is how real helicopters crash and drones too. You can put a drone into that state fairly easily on a still day, just drop fast in one spot, then apply power and note you are still dropping under full power for quite a long way until you apply some tilt or just manage to stop when you get near the ground. If they don't understand the dynamics of this then I am not going to be getting into one.
When we said we wanted flying cars, this is not exactly what we meant!
1. Little wizzy blades are not efficient. Helicopters are more efficient, and fixed wing aircraft are even more efficient.
2. 23 minute flight time, but what is the recharge time? Certainly longer than getting another victim^H^H^H^H^H^Hpassenger in.
3. What is plan B when something goes wrong. I've flown quads, and sometimes the processor does something unplanned.
4. wizzy blades near the ground, how long before someone gets hurt by these blades?
5. Prototype aircraft usually gain 20-100% weight by the time all the required stuff goes in, performance goes down.
Many times you see quad copter fliers get the idea the scaling them up is a good idea. The reality is, that the economics don't work, they aren't efficient.
I'm sure any computer pilot won't have to be worried about his own life when something goes wrong, so why should a computer pilot make efforts to avoid crashes with a human cargo? Put your life in the hands of a computer... Where do i sign ? Is this sarcasm enough ?