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Coming Soon to a Front Porch Near You: Package Delivery Via Drone (wsj.com)
After lagging behind other countries for years, commercial drones in the U.S. are expected to begin limited package deliveries within months, according to federal regulators and industry officials. [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; an alternative source was not immediately available] From a report: The momentum partly stems from stepped-up White House pressure, prompting closer cooperation between the government and companies such as Amazon.com seeking authorizations for such fledgling businesses. The upshot, according to these officials, is newfound confidence by both sides that domestic package-delivery services finally appear on the verge of taking off. Earlier promises of progress turned out to be premature. The green light could be delayed again if proponents can't overcome nagging security concerns on the part of local or national law-enforcement agencies. Proposed projects also may end up stymied if Federal Aviation Administration managers don't find creative ways around legislative and regulatory restrictions such as those mandating pilot training for manned aircraft. But some proponents of delivery and other drone applications "think they might be ready to operate this summer," Jay Merkle, a senior FAA air-traffic control official, said during a break at an unmanned-aircraft conference in Baltimore last week that highlighted the agency's pro-business approach.
Half mile away, but not under takeoff or landing paths. Wonder if I'll ever get drone delivery?
The other day UPS dropped off a large package. No doorbell, no knock, we just found it lying on the driveway outside. It would have been ruined if we had noticed it there an hour later. I certainly hope they don't start dropping packages on lawns and expect people to deal with it.
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Where I live there are constant problems with people stealing packages from porches and front doors. Seems to me drone delivery would make things even worse because they wouldn't have any way to fight this. In my building, the drivers have our garage code so they can put packages securely in the garage. Seems like this wouldn't be possible with drones.
How is Amazon addressing this?
I'm pretty sure my dogs are 100% in favor of drone delivery. Over the past several years, I've found dead squirrels, dead possums... even a dead nutria in my yard, thanks to my dogs. I guess dead drones are next. I might need to get the dogs some chainmail gauntlets, though, depending on the size of the drones.
On a side (and more serious) note - if Amazon starts doing this, and doesn't let you opt out (the same way you cannot opt out of their crappy Amazon-branded delivery right now)... I'll likely be bringing these drones down myself. Amazon can come get them - minus their cameras and any on-board memory chips.
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Like the many drone deliveries Obama ordered in Pakistan, Syria, etc.
I know of only one country using drones in a few provinces, China, since 2015.
Other countries are testing and have trials...but it's not a mainstream thing anywhere.
I am against "Drone Delivery" for one fundamental reason: Gravity. If a delivery truck has a mechanical failure, it's just dead on the road No harm done to the cargo. Gravity does not ensue upon my package. If a delivery drone has a mechanical failure, down it goes, and so does my package.
If a delivery truck takes a hit, it'd have to be a pretty seriously heavy hit to damage my package. If a delivery drone takes a hit... All aircraft are designed first and foremost to optimize weight, because it has to work against gravity to even move. It just doesn't have the bulk to sustain damage like a ground vehicle does.
I can imagine the more criminally inclined shooting down drones with an EMP gun as that would cripple it and disable any recording / tracking device as well. Count be exciting being a drone delivery driver. I also suspect that sooner or later a mid-air collision could happen. Otherwise I suppose it's an okay idea, not sure how practical it is thou, drones are pretty limited by battery range. Maybe for the you want it NOW folks?
Yep!
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Avoiding collisions is relatively easy if all delivery drones follow specific height ranges for west-to-east travels, east-to-west, south-to-north and north-to-south.
But we all know Amazon, UPS, DHL, USPS and others will NOT be cooperating like that, so yeah, expect mid-air collisions.
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If drone tech gets to this point, why have letter carriers hoofing a beat when drones could do those deliveries? Another thing that comes to mind in an era of drones and self-driving cars: why does San Francisco's BART need human operators any more? BART and other subway systems are an even more controlled and predictable environment than open roads or skies, so we ought to be automating those already.
https://m.xkcd.com/1523/
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My building has the mailboxes inside the building's front door. Someone needs to sort the letters and packages, and take anything too big to fit to the super's office for pickup. I guess the super or a building employee can do it, but it still requires human work. Trains need a human operator, if only to look ahead and press a Big Red Button(tm) if anything out of the ordinary happens (computer fails to brake for a station, person on the tracks, cat on the tracks, level crossing gates not closed, etc). This isn't to say that they can't be more automated, but commuter/subway trains can do 60 mph or more, might as well have redundancy to prevent accidents.
aircraft, and thunder. No also what about people w/ PTSD, neighboring day sleepers etc. Where will they banned? not if.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
1) Drones are virtually silent at 20 ft, they often live at 30-40' above ground level
Small ones are.
These are going to be pretty honking big drones, at least if what you're used to is the little camera-carrying things
please post your audio recordings of drones at 400 feet, thanks.
I think this is an incredibly dumb idea, but it also seems possible I'll be proven wrong at some point. I don't see this as being efficient or reliable or safe or cost effective.
Again? It was coming last year too, and the year before that. You aren't going to see drones delivering packages. So stupid.
Drones aren't for cities.
And trains can be 100% automated with no big red button - examples abound, but I'll pick on Singapore to give you something to Google. Then Google NYC subway accidents and look at how many are caused by human error. NYC subways have a driver as well as a conductor to close the doors... for "safety", but really for unions. I'd rather have automated trains with a real cop walking up and down the train if the concern is "safety". And hey, still union. Win-win.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
BART has been automated from the very beginning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Unless it hovers there keeping the thieves away, not interested.
95% of all the posts I see here pointing out issues with drone delivery seem to be thinking of typical city deliveries like most have today. I would think the first years of this type of delivery will be for special cases. There is possibly a pretty good size rural market in hard to deliver areas that would sign up for weekly or monthly supply deliveries right away cause they pay a ton right now for that kind of service. Think up in the mountains in areas costly to deliver to only one house on many acres.
I'd rather have automated trains with a safety spotter on the business end.
OK, but that's an emotional reaction.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Nope -- humans can THINK and spot dangers that a computer was not programmed to notice. Ideal situation is a combination of computer and human.
They can also overthink (or underthink) a situation and thwart the computer's superior reaction time and carefully planned fault tree. A train cannot stop suddenly enough to avoid a person or obstacle on the track anyway. Any system capable of warning the human operator in enough time to do something about it can just as easily stop the automated train. The sole major incident experienced in Singapore was when people overrode the software protection on a broken-down train.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No, it can't, but it can slow down significantly. Danger in a collision (kinetic energy) rises as the square of speed. A reduction from 60 mph to 40 mph would reduce the energy of the crash by 50%. As well as giving whatever is on the tracks more time to move off.
I think that if we had trains that were fully automatic, you'd need to justify the expense of a watcher (who, let's face it will just play on their phone) versus spending that considerable amount of money on something else which improves safety even more.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.