Watch Out, Amazon: DHL Tests Drug-Delivery Drone 134
Nerval's Lobster writes "Amazon is apparently not alone in its desire to use miniature drones to deliver packages. On the morning of Monday, Dec. 9, employees at the Bonn, Germany headquarters of package-delivery giant DHL challenged Amazon's plan for dominance of the skies by having medicine delivered from a local pharmacy via a mustard-yellow package-carrying helicopter the Germans dubbed 'Paketkopter.' The quad-rotored mini-drone flew a box of medicines from a launching point near the pharmacy, above traffic and across the Rhine River to DHL's headquarters just over a kilometer away. It made the flight in about two minutes, was unloaded quickly and returned to the launch team near the pharmacy. Amazon has owned total mindshare of the still-imaginary drone-based package delivery market since CEO Jeff Bezos gushed about his plans for Amazon PrimeAir during a TV interview last week. The plan generated immediate controversy due to the negative image of drones following heavy use for surveillance and targeted anti-personnel strikes by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Within the United States, the FAA, FTC and a host of consumer-protection groups objected to the possibility that thousands of autonomous drones would be hovering over U.S. cities, potentially invading the privacy and endangering the lives of those who might run afoul of either cameras or rotors."
Re:Delivery Trucks (Score:3, Interesting)
A quad/hex/octocopter capable of carrying 3kg is capable of killing someone with its rotors.
You also can't really fly one across the country. So it won't replace trucks.
The only thing these would probably replace are cycle couriers in dense cities.
How many accidents do you think there would be if the sky was full of these things flying over busy cities, trying to avoid buildings, birds, power lines, lamp posts and other drones? I don't want to be under one one falling out of the sky with its spinning blades going at 20,000rpm.
A quadcopter with a single engine failure/broken prop falls from the sky. You need 5 or more rotors to survive a single failure.