Why Bhutan Might Get Drone Delivery Copters Before Seattle Does 102
From Quartz comes the story of a Silicon Valley start-up trying to kickstart a delivery system using package-laden drones to overfly gridlocked traffic — in Bhutan. Bhutanese roads are slow, the weather can be brutal, and there are very few physicians to go around.
That’s why, earlier this year, the Bhutanese government and the World Health Organization reached out to Matternet, a Palo Alto company backed by some big name American investors that develops transportation networks using unmanned aerial vehicles to reach hard-to-access places. ... The project in Bhutan, however, is the first big test for the startup. Matternet is aiming to build a network of low-cost quadcopters to connect the country’s main hospitals with rural communities. Matternet uses small quadcopters that can carry loads of about four pounds across 20 km at a time, to and from pre-designated landing stations. The company is able to track these flights in real-time, and aims to eventually deploy fully-automated landing stations that replace drone batteries, giving them extended range and flight time. The drones it uses typically cost between $2,000-5,000.
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Yeah, only the government should be abled to do illegal things with that.
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good thing it will be impossible for anyone else to gain remote control of the drone or for it to be shot out of the sky so somebody can get the drugs to sell on the black market. it's not like these things will travel over the same route on a regular basis or anything.
Re:Great for dealing drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like this method of delivery would be great for dealing drugs, or smuggling drugs across international borders. This is exactly why we need to keep very strict regulation on these things - way too much potential for abuse and illegal activity.
For that price and that payload, I'm pretty sure these are already being used. After all, if they're using autonomous submarines, these would be significantly cheaper, simpler, and less of a hit should one be intercepted. Strict regulations are only effective for people operating within the law (not above or below it).
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Sorry, I did not preview first.
It is also a great way to deliver drugs to doctors and nurses who have a patient who needs treatment fast!
Or are you wanting people to not get treatment to avoid possible abuse?
If that is what you want, then you should be demanding that no painkillers should be given outside a hospital or doctor's office.
Now that would cut out a lot of abuse, who cares about the people who suffer to insure no-one abuses the system?
There is no tech out there that can't be abused, the real quest
Re:Great for dealing drugs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great for dealing drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
The activities you describe are already illegal. It's naughty to kill people too, but adding more laws won't affect people that refuse to follow laws that already exist.
Using the logic you've proposed, we should outlaw computers too. Or even pencils. I've heard tales of pencils being used to write secret notes of illegal activity.
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On the contrary, they've accomplished plenty of shit!
Already did (Score:2)
http://motherboard.vice.com/re... [vice.com]
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Seems like this method of delivery would be great for dealing drugs
Other delivery methods that would be great for dealing drugs are cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, submarines, etc. Gust because the device can be use for drug trafficking does not mean it needs to be heavily regulated.
The weather is brutal (Score:3, Insightful)
If there's one thing that works flawlessly in brutal weather, it's aircraft.
Re:The weather is brutal (Score:4, Insightful)
From wikipedia:
As with other roads in Bhutan, the Lateral Road presents serious safety concerns due to pavement conditions, sheer drops, hairpin turns, weather and landslides
.
I think perhaps the problem is perhaps that weather knocks out mountain roads, and so supplies can't be delivered until they're repaired.
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Multirotors are computer controlled, they work very well in bad weather. I have flown my quad in multiple hurricanes without issue. OK, maybe not hurricane force winds, only about 50 MPH but with upgraded motors hurricane force winds would be no problem. The computer does all the work, it's easy to fly.
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People steal WIRE (Score:2)
People who are living in a nation with annual average wages of $6000 not stealing from these "fully automated landing stations" seems really improbable. I mean, Bhutan apparently has an uniquely low violent crime rate for southern Asia, but that just seems like a lot of money for people so poor.
Re: People steal WIRE (Score:1)
But would they damage or steal it when told "this brings medicine"?
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Would at least some people? Yes.
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But would they damage or steal it when told "this brings incredibly expensive, easy to smuggle things"?
FTFY, so you can see how obvious the answer is.
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Probably yes, because "someone" will replace it "soon" and there will be little or no apparent hard done to the medical facilities. Of course, the reality is the harm is substantial, but it isn't readily visible to the perpetrators so it's quite easy for people to rationalize their behavior.
Re:People steal WIRE (Score:4, Insightful)
So people you deem as poor are also automatically thieves?
Nice.
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Oh my fucking god, people are modding him up? You were serious. Ugh.
Let's explain then, because Jesus Christ this is stupid.
Poverty creates desperation. Some desperate people steal. The end. Being poor doesn't make you mentally inferior, morally questionable(in fact all objective evidence says the opposite is true), or deserving of blame.
What it does do is sometimes make you wonder where your next meal is coming from. And if you're enough of a liar to say that you wouldn't consider stealing some rich
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Poor is in the eye of the beholder, and doesn't breed anything. Consumerism breeds envy, and envy breeds desperation (keeping up with the Jones'). If someone has what they have always known, there is NO envy, no desire to steal.
Good job Racist Elitist .
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Yeah, you're stupid as all hell. People in Bhutan aren't doing fine in the absence of evil western consumerism(which I don't even like). That's just silly.
From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Population below poverty line
31.7% (2003)
There's no fucking elitism in the seeing the fact that a huge swath of the country isn't doing so hot, and guessing that people who aren't doing so hot might be looking to support themselves.
I'm glad you're peddling that colonialist "noble savage" bullshit though. I'm s
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I'm sorry I call out morons directly for their inane bullshit. I'm sorry you were one of those morons sometime, and decided that a vendetta called for.
Yeah, I get downmodded occasionally, particularly when calling out the worst sorts of people who don't actually argue a position, who fucking cares? You? I gotta say that's sad. They're imaginary internet points. And they're not even your imaginary internet points.
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Oh and as long as I'm making genuinely off topic posts to invite perfectly reasonable down modding, don't think I don't know what it means when someone just happens to come in to a thread on anonymous coward to mention how I just happened to have exactly one downmod down an entire thread. Come on. You're not fooling anyone.
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If you have known neither "Insulin" nor "BMW", then you cannot miss either. You cannot "miss" something you never had. WE can look in from the outside and pass all sorts of judgements about people, but that doesn't mean anything other that we (outsiders) are showing our own myopic view of the world.
In the deepest part of the Amazon, where people have lived quite simply for thousands and thousands of years, and we say they live in poverty, is extremely elitist. We are actually guilty of placing our value sys
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How do you steel copper? I've only ever heard of steeling iron.
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Usually it is clad around the copper (like with pots and pans) but in some cases, the steel can be laminated.
However, I assume he meant steal as in take without permission. In the US, all sorts of metal of value is regularly stolen and sold for scrap.
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I'm the dumbass when *(you) was clueless about steeling copper.
And yes, when something is worth around one third to half.of the average anual income and laying out in the open, security and theft should be a concern. Poor is relevant here insomuch that it increases the percentage of value on the UAV compared to income. It makes it more attractive to thieves in the area. It is the same reason liquor stores and gas stations get robbed more in poor areas than the people living next to them. The businessws have
Re:People steal WIRE (Score:4, Funny)
I only heard of Steely Dan ...
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No one said that. But if you for one minute think that poverty doesn't incentivize theft(you know, by means of having greater need), you're a goddamn moron.
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America should at the forefront of this level of innovation. Instead the FAA sticks its head in the sand while the rest of the world goes forward at an incredible pace.
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They are also referring to recharging stations between the hospitals. For example if the range of the drone is 40 miles and the destination is over 40 miles away there needs to be at least one recharge between the source and destination. The beauty of an automated recharge station is that they can be put anywhere along the route.
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America should at the forefront of this level of innovation. Instead the FAA sticks its head in the sand while the rest of the world goes forward at an incredible pace.
Yes, because the US is such a poor backwater with no roads or any other method of distributing life-saving drugs to its residents that such a drone system is required just to save lives. Cities like Seattle just don't have an existing distribution system for medicines and don't have pharmacies all around the place. And the US has no existing private and commercial aviation just like Bhutan doesn't, so there can be no issues of mixing human traffic with automated.
I'm sorry that you can't get your Amazon de
"...the weather can be brutal..." (Score:2)
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because once the storm stops, the road can be washed out for days.
For crying out loud: Think.
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Just a thought.
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Um, it rains here. We have lightning. We have fog. Sometimes we go weeks without seeing the sun.
Don't be taken in by the pretty pictures from our two months of summer sunshine.
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First, there will probably always be some backup land transport capacity for extreme conditions. This could still allow them to keep average operating costs and response times lower than without the drones at all. Second, I'd actually expect a smaller, fully computer-controlled vehicle to be much more agile, with perhaps the sole exception of having to fly against very strong wind. Areas with periodic occurrences of problematic wind conditions ought to be monitored and mined from the long-term telemetry dat
The obvious answer (Score:3)
To " Why Bhutan Might Get Drone Delivery Copters Before Seattle Does" is that Seattle has basic infrastructure like roads that aren't impassible after every storm.
Point to point drone corridors can be marked off on maps and given to pilots.
The kind of delivery that people would want in Seattle involves a burrito delivered to their front door.
These are not the same types of delivery patterns or reasons.
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Why would we want door to door delivery of burritos? There's a food truck down the block.
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what's a car?
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Why would we want door to door delivery of burritos? There's a food truck down the block.
Because it is all the way down the block. The same reason that people order stuff from Amazon that they could get by walking down the block to the store. And ask the people who want Amazon delivery of food because going to the local grocery store is too hard.
I can imagine a country that has a poor system of roads and less commercial infrastructure might need a cheaper delivery system just for critical items, and it won't just be that they're lazy folk who want what they want when they want it without any
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Geesh, and you wonder why you're so fat ...
I'm sorry you let your personal animosity get in the way of getting the point of what I wrote. You didn't even understand that I was talking about other people, not you and not me.
You asked why people would want to-the-door delivery of burritos when there is a food truck down the block, and I told you. Lashing out at the messenger doesn't change the message and doesn't merit your personal insults.
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Who was lashing out?
You were. "... you wonder why you're so fat ..." is a personal insult based on nothing more than your desire to insult someone else for responding to one of your comments.
I was just making a conclusion based on your statement.
I said nothing about me in my statement. There was no basis for any conclusion. Nor did I say anything about you, so you don't even have the excuse that you felt insulted so you needed to insult in return.
But again, we were originally talking about "needs".
No, you were talking about "wants". Quote: "Why would we want door to door delivery of burritos?" That's the comment I responded to.
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the word You is both a singular and a plural pronoun.
Now go order a drone pizza so I can get a free dinner.
all this to attract investors with no experience (Score:1)
does anyone rah-rahing this have ANY flight experience with quadcopters? It doesn't take much wind or turbulence to severely deplete batteries and reduce range. It also doesn't take much to screw up an automated flight system.
a 3D capable single rotor helicopter with a good autopilot is a much better possibility but no one wants to talk about those-it's all quadcopter this, quadcopter that to bring in investors and eyeballs.
If you don't need the stability for a camera platform, a quad/hex is NOT the vehicle
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Problem, those single rotor systems tend to have more delicate parts than quad-copters.
Some quads have four props directly connected to the motors, others a simple gear box on each motor.
Single rotor systems need to tilt the blades at high speeds, I have a friend who has a couple and the amount of work to maintain them is far more than the simpler quad-rotor designs.
ECP
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Our State Constitution has strong privacy protections, and the act of flying a drone that can see in your upstairs window, without a court ordered warrant issued for a specific person at a specific place at a specific time, violates many parts of that.
Anyone at a higher elevation, ie standing on a hill, can see into your upstairs window so standing on a hill would be illegal. By this logic it would also be illegal to fly aircraft as they can also see into upstairs windows. It is not the ability to spy that is illegal it is the act of spying that is illegal.
Airships (Score:2)
Couldn't this be served better with small airships? They would have greater autonomy and I don't think there would be big differences in speed.
Umm, didn't they mention bad weather (Score:2)
as one of the big problems with transportation in Bhutan? How well do quad copters work in bad weather?
It sounds like a solution looking for a problem.
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During the storm? Like crap. After the storm, when all the roads are washed out? Much better than road dependent vehicle.
Bhutan Seattle (Score:2)
Bhutan:
One company running few drones. Low probability of collision between drones
Mostly rural. Low probability of drone striking obstacle
Little civil aviation. Low probability of collision.
Sparse population. Low probability of injury if drone goes down
Seattle
Hundreds of companies wanting to use drones; Much higher probability of collision between drones
Mostly urban with power line, tall buildings, radio towers, etc. Much higher probability of drone striking obstacle
Lots of civil aviation. Much higher prob
Interesting experiment (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was there I saw a farm near the top of a small hill with no roads going to it. I asked - how does the farmer get their crop to market? The answer was by animals (donkeys I think). But apparently the farmers in this area had asked for a road and they probably would get one. The main limitation was how to pay for it - they didn't want to take on any foreign debt for infrastructure developments so it might take a few decades. But they wanted their independence and were willing to wait.
It's very true (as earlier commenters mentioned) that the per capita income is low. But when I was there 8 years ago I was struck at how prosperous and healthy people seemed. If I remember correctly Bhutan was largely a barter economy until the 1950s so some of the discrepancy might be that the official statistics don't capture some elements of the economic activity. There certainly were poor areas and the Nepalese road workers seemed far poorer than the Bhutanese - but I suspect that reality is complicated here. Maybe because Bhutan was never colonized we're seeing what a culture looks like that hasn't been plundered by outsiders? I really don't know but I'd recommend anyone who wants to find out more they should just visit there
With the drones - I'd worry about noise pollution and general impracticality with the current state of quadcopters. But it might work well & I hope that their experiment goes well. When we were there my daughter was bitten by an insect and had a bad reaction - we couldn't tell if it was an infection or an allergic response. Thimphu was a day's drive away. Something like this might work & it might be more economical than building roads. I wish them good luck.
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