Amazon Unveils Flying Robot Delivery Drones

[Ace Morologist]

It's just a commercial for Amazon Prime, people. Of course they don't/won't have delivery drones.

--Morology!

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

A couple things that might make this more expensive and less effective than it sounds...

1. Non-flat land areas, like say the Rocky Mtns or the Appalachians... I just think that navigating these areas may be a bit much for those package carriers...

2. Inclement weather, snow or heavy rain/winds - Easy to lose a package and the drone

3. Sucks for anyone living near an airfield/airport - All we would need is one of these drones to get sucked up into a 747's engine on take-off and cause a major disaster.

 

[The Enquirer]

current quadcopter drones available for the civilian market dont have that much range nor do they have a significant large battery life span.

these drones have to fly relatively close to the street level where they can either run into power lines or be shot down by other people.

plus i think that some amazon users are going to keep the drones for shit and giggles.

and it all depends on where the drone drops your package.
it could be 5 feet apart from where you thought you would send it a.k.a your neighbours garden or on your rooftop.

so this is a bit overly enthusiastic for a international company.

I'd like to say "Yea but they had to have thought of that!" But after the Xbox One DRM incident I really can't rule anything out. I think it is a little unrealistic as you have to deal with the human factor of people doing a snatch and grab or just shooting them out of the sky.

Also would they just shut down their entire delivery system in the event of high winds? Because I'd imagine this would cause a sudden excess of trucks.

 

[Barbas]

Why don't they just use the humble V-22 Osprey, or a Vertibird?

Spoiler

Flawless, yo.

Yeah, but I doubt this will work. I'd be surprised if they didn't lose a lot of money over this plan.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

More than any of these other problems with the drones themselves, the thing delivers your package via open-air, even if they pack it with special, weather-resistant packaging, there's plenty of other things that could go wrong, moreso than in the back of a truck. Basically I wouldn't recommend these to order something that has only one in stock.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I gotta make another potato gun and go hunting amazon drones lol. i can see their little robot faces mounted on my gaming room wall

Seriously though, apart from the whole, shooting them, stealing them kinda deal.. this is very cool.

I see this whole shooting-them-down thing to be a big potential problem with the service...It's an excellent idea and very Hannah-Barbara but I see the risk of interception being unreasonably high.

 

[DrOswald]

A couple things that might make this more expensive and less effective than it sounds...

1. Non-flat land areas, like say the Rocky Mtns or the Appalachians... I just think that navigating these areas may be a bit much for those package carriers...

2. Inclement weather, snow or heavy rain/winds - Easy to lose a package and the drone

3. Sucks for anyone living near an airfield/airport - All we would need is one of these drones to get sucked up into a 747's engine on take-off and cause a major disaster.

These are all really easily solved problems, as in so easy that they really aren't even problems.

1. This service would be limited to a place within 10 miles of an Amazon distribution center. Amazon distribution centers are located in heavily populated areas. Heavily populated areas are generally flat. And even if they are not, these are flying machines. I find it really unlikely that there is going to be an obstacle so large that it cannot be flown over or around within the radius. And even if there was, all they have to do is not provide this service out there because anyone living in an area so uneven that a miniature helicopter cannot navigate the area is going to be very insignificant to Amazon's overall business. There will just not be enough of them to matter.

2. Since the flight radius of these drones is planned to be so small a round trip, even on the outside edge of operation, really should only take 1 hour max, and that is if these things are really slow. We have accurate enough weather prediction to know what will happen in the next hour. So all Amazon has to do is make sure it is known that they don't send out drones in bad weather.

3. This is the easiest one of all. All we have to do is program the thing to avoid important air space like this. Or just don't include areas beyond the airport in the coverage area. And restricted air space doesn't exactly make up a large portion of residential areas.

All together these things barley even scratch the viability of the plan.

 

[The Lugz]

Something as simple as delivering to an apartment will be difficult to accomplish with this, so I doubt it'll go beyond an initial testing phase. It seems like a joke, more than anything.
I will admit that it did give me a tingle and a sense of finally being in an advanced technological age, moreso than smartphones or the internet.

Make a drone that can lift me and fly me around instead.

Sure, give me the money and I'll do it. it's pretty simple just a matter of scale, cost, run time, ect.. the usual.
pretty amazing how much power you can fit in a 10kg box these days.

 

[Jeroenr]

GPS is actaully VERY precise. Its just that civilians do not get acess to precise coordinates. Actually the sattelites randomize the localtion a bit when sending the signal intentionally, thats why standing still you can be "jumping around". this is intentional and is made so that civilians wouldnt build a GPS guided missiles.
If amazon has acess to precise GPS (doubtful), then they can do a lot of precision landing with that. if they combine it with sattelite visual to crosscheck the GPS, they can autmate pretty much anything there. Thing is, private company wont get acess to either of the two.

That is still in place? I thought they lifted that ban a few years ago

No, it is not.
they stopt doing that in 2006.

GPS hase 2 channels, a civilian one(Standard Positioning Service "SPS" and a military one(Precise Positioning Service "PPS")
wont bore you with details, but take a look here if you like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

what would work is that you must print out a marker with QR code and leave on your doorstep/lawn.
And the onboard camera wil pick it up.

 

[EHKOS]

plus i think that some amazon users are going to keep the drones for shit and giggles.

"What was the address of the last successful delivery? OK, let's go."
Pretty sure they would come claim the drone, with police in tow.

OT: As someone eagerly waiting at the door for the new Ratchet and Clank right now, I say this can't come soon enough.

 

[Nocturnus]

I gotta make another potato gun and go hunting amazon drones lol. i can see their little robot faces mounted on my gaming room wall

Seriously though, apart from the whole, shooting them, stealing them kinda deal.. this is very cool.

I see this whole shooting-them-down thing to be a big potential problem with the service...It's an excellent idea and very Hannah-Barbara but I see the risk of interception being unreasonably high.

Though is it legal to shoot at anything moving through the sky? Like a helicoptor or low flying plane? Do that and you'll get a felony charge pretty quick. Try to shoot them down and then keep them, and risk the built in GPS finding where you live, sending the camera data to Amazon, and then having a slew of police officers at your doorstep within the day.

 

[Shim3d]

If these only deliver one each won't they be everywhere?

I want to write an apocalyptic novel about the world being drowned in a sea of such drones.