DHL Goes Live With 'Parcelcopter' Drone Delivery Service 92
jones_supa writes: In December, Amazon announced it intends to deliver packages to customers using drones. But its initiative was widely ridiculed for being an over-hyped announcement with little to show for it. This summer, Google demonstrated its own drone-based delivery service, using a fixed-wing aircraft to deliver little packages to farmers in the Australian outback. But now, German delivery firm DHL has beaten the tech firms to the punch, announcing a regular drone delivery service for the first time, nine months after it launched its "parcelcopter" research project in December 2013. The service will use an quadcopter to deliver small parcels to the German island of Juist, a sandbar island 12km into the North Sea from the German coast, inhabited by 2,000 people. Deliveries will include medication and other urgently needed goods. Flying below 50 meters to avoid entering regulated air traffic corridors, the drone takes a fully automated route, carrying a special air-transport container that is extremely lightweight as well as weatherproof.
How much? (Score:3)
I guess they'll not deliver in stormy weather....how about an RC boat?
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Because it's going to be less than the weight of a large candy bar. 12km is a very long flight for a quadcopter. I'm surprised they didn't use a fixed-wing aircraft. It would be harder to automate but one RC pilot's salary isn't a bad price to pay for this publicity stunt.
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According to TFA, it is continually monitored, if not actually flown, so they already have a human in the loop.
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Standing in the sea? People on boats tend, usually, to be a little more responsible. Ad at below 50m, they will either have to be expecting it or be pretty fast at grabbing their guns - I doubt it will be in sight for more than perhaps 10 secs.
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That sounds like a challenge :-P
But seriously they're not Americans so they're not going to fill any object that could be a fun target with holes just because they can get away with it.
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Certainly German police would take a much stricter view than US police, and random people are much less likely to have guns within grabbing distance.
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Kids very rarely have weapons capable of doing that ... this is Germany/Europe if you have overseen that fact. ... regularly ridiculed here on /. :) in case you missed that, too.
We actually have strict gun control laws here
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A boat would be much more difficult. The North Sea has strong tides with associated strong and varying currents. It falls "dry" for six hours every 12 hours. Besides, it's Germany: To keep in style, the boat would have to be a u-boat.
I think to make the boat option viable it would have to be a submersible of some kind. And then it could hook up to an underground, automated system that launches a quadcopter drone out of a silo for local delivery.
Re:How much? (Score:5, Informative)
According to heise.de [heise.de] it will be be able to carry 1.2kg
1.2kg = 2.64 pounds (Score:3)
I dont know about you but you could easily carry emergency medications in a 2 1/2 pound payload. There are a lot of extremely valuable things you can fit in a 2 1/2 pounds payload. Now im not sure id want to be the 1st or even 100th customer. Give it a year or two prove reliability then id be okay with it.
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According to TFA,, it is specifically intended for times when the sea prohibits the normal boats; there is no reason to believe an RC boat would me more seaworthy.
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And are such things, with autonomous capability including docking, available now, as autonomous quadcopters are? The point is that this is not a research exercise, this is going into day by day carrying parcels people urgently need delivered safely. If the sphereboat is available off the shelf (and as well as being unsinkable can also not be wrecked on the shore or washed out to the open ocean)), it might make a good alternative.
Of course, this is also a tryout for more generalised future delivery systems w
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Customers using drones. (Score:5, Funny)
"In December, Amazon announced it intends to deliver packages to customers using drones."
Up to that point, if you were using drones you had to do your shopping in EBay.
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As a customer using drones, I was so happy to finally be able to order from Amazon :)
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Pretty Cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Smugglers are probably wringing their hands in anticipation, but hell, every advancement seems to have some tangential consequence.
Look to the innocent use of black powder for fireworks.
Re:Pretty Cool (Score:5, Informative)
Smugglers are probably wringing their hands in anticipation, but hell, every advancement seems to have some tangential consequence.
Already done. http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... [arstechnica.com] http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
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If we stipulate that banning a popular substance increases its value exponentially, and agree there are many who will equate profit with necessity, it is no surprise whatsoever that there exist blokes willing to play the risk/reward lotto.
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I can see how these would be useful in parts of Alaska in the winter
Unless, of course, it is cold or windy.
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if it's cold, windy, and dangerous it is also more practical to wreck nine drones to get the medicine there than it is to wreck two manned aircraft.
I think that's true because getting the second pilot in the air after the crash would require some uber-level persuasion skills.
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12 km? Why not just put up a zip line or an underwater vacuum tube? Seems more efficient with higher volume and less noise/power.
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Most of the employees in Research and Development that we selected for testing were more interested in firing small packages at the guys on the zip line...so you know, being a government contractor, we killed the zip line dev.
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Maybe a Global Hawk, but Alaska is pretty damned big. Besides. we've figured this out long ago Bush planes. Cheap, simple, fairly robust. Certainly able to fly under any conditions that a wee little drone could fly in.
And if you're really sick, you want said bush plane (or the Coast Guard or Air National Guard depending on where you are) to haul your ill ass OUT of wherever you happen to be. Most people who need urgent / emergent medicines need a bit more than just the drug. Like a doctor, nurse, cli
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A ten dollar bottle in Anchorage sells for $240-$325 in the villages with alcohol restriction.
Seems like it would be silly to risk narcotics-like penalties in court when the liquor markup is that substantial.
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Lemme guess, those villages are all Inuit/native right? Will the racism never end?
Me too... (Score:3)
I had the funny HK shirts I ordered secretly replaced with expensive electronics...what would I do with expensive electronics???
Ze war (Score:5, Funny)
Better Watch out (Score:2)
The Poles have quite the RC hacking skills
http://humanrightshouse.org/Ar... [humanrightshouse.org]
FAA and Commercial Drone Use (Score:2)
Copter data (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's some data on the hardware, from http://ca.reuters.com/article/... [reuters.com]
* 65 km/h peak speed, and will cover the distance in about 15-30 minutes;
* It weighs 5kg, and can carry a payload of up to 1.2kg
With 1.2kg it can certainly carry a complement of medicines or even small, urgently needed hardware and parts (batteries or spare bits for medical equipment for instance). Not general use of cours, but it does look like more than just a stunt.
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But really, work out the business case. An island of 3000 or so people needs JUST a small medication (or part or whatever) often enough to spin up this entire system? I can't remember the last time I (as an ER doc) needed just the a medication to treat a patient. If the med is that unusual that it's not stocked then it typically is dangerous enough (or the patient sick enough) to transport the person to a bigger facility. Yes, there are some exceptions (say snake bite antivenom, Digifab [wikipedia.org] but they are def
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But really, work out the business case.
I live in Brisbane with several small inhabited Islands off the cost. It costs Australia Post about $200 to do delivery / collection to the island in transit fees for the barge, not to mention that it puts the truck out of order while it sits on the boat.
I can definitely see a business case for this. A simple small letter does not need a truck to come pick it up. Weekly mail deliveries can be done more frequently and the large stuff can be reserved for a truck when need be.
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That's a weak ass payload limit, I Looked into it a little a couple months ago for something and COTS RC Helicopters could do 10-20 LBS easy
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Could they handle that weight for such a distance, though? And in very rough weather, including rain and strong headwinds?
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So why are people generally using quadcopters for autonomous systems? What's the disadvantage of a single-rotor copter when you're doing autonomous flight? I can imagine that perhaps it's a size issue - quadcopters are lighter or cheaper or more efficient below a certain size or when indoors? Or is it much more difficult to write a reliable control system for a single-rotor system?
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Aside from the technical limitations already mentioned there's a physical limitation too. Go and have a look at the prop span of a helicopter and look at injuries too.
For an autonomous system I like my blades at high speed and low momentum. Having flown my quad into myself it was no fun, but nothing a few bandaids couldn't fix. On the other hand the last injury I heard using a helicopter involved near complete decapitation. It's a whole world more dangerous having a large prop span.
Also there's the number o
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A single rotor is certainly not more efficient, especially if powered by a combustion engine.
Also every crash landing completely destroys the 'drive section' of a helicopter.
A quad copter (made 90%) from plastics likely only needs a battery charge after a crash, because that is the main reason for crashing: out of power.
Start and landing is hazardous, you have to stay clear from the rotor.
Automating a helicopter, especially to fly in narrow areas or under strong, quickly changing wind, is much much harder t
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A single rotor is certainly not more efficient
In terms of thrust per unit power, larger disk area is always better than smaller. That's why turbofans use less fuel than turbojets. That's why props use less fuel than turbofans. That's why helicopters can lift so much weight, but propeller aircraft can very rarely accelerate vertically.
especially if powered by a combustion engine.
Electric motors typically operate at around 90% efficiency, while combustion engines are closer to 30%. On the other hand, that combustion engine will use fuel with an energy density some 40x better than the best batte
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You miss the point that we talk about a mini helicopter.
A thing in the size, or at least lift capability of a drone quad copter.
Further your claim about fuel efficiency is simply wrong. A emgine big enough for a car is below 20% efficiency. Engines small enough for a 'drone' are in the range of ten percent.
To get any meaningfull efficiency you need a turbine, wich is close to 40%.
Erm your last paragraph is wrong on all concerns ... a combustion engine mini helicopter is heavier than a plastic quad copter, s
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Further your claim about fuel efficiency is simply wrong. A emgine big enough for a car is below 20% efficiency.
Excluding transmission losses, modern automotive gasoline engines are typically in the low 30s.
Engines small enough for a 'drone' are in the range of ten percent.
Engines small enough for RC aircraft are typically 2-stroke, which significantly increases your power-to-weight ratio, but roughly halves your energy efficiency. They also typically run on alcohol and nitromethane blends, which have low energy density but high power outputs. Four stroke gasoline engines on the order of a couple cubic inches are used on large scale models, and some rough power and fuel consumptio
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A our dates car engine is below 20% ... not in the 30% range.
Thise videos show unloaded helicopters versus unloaded quad copters.
Perhpas you should start studying some physics?
A helicopter and any quad, hexa, octo or what ever copter fly on complete different physical principles.
Just how light do you think enough battery for an hour long flight is? Hint, it's going to weigh more than the IC engine and a comparable amount of fuel.
If that would be the case: we had plenty of news about drone helicopteers flyin
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A our dates car engine is below 20% ... not in the 30% range.
The average system efficiency may be that low, when you account for transmission losses and off-design operation.
Thise videos show unloaded helicopters versus unloaded quad copters.
Yes. The point was this "fantastic maneuverability" of quadrotors as seen on youtube videos is nothing special. It's merely a function of the squared-cubed law allowing for very high thrust to weight ratios, and traditional helicopter designs offer a no less impressive display.
A helicopter and any quad, hexa, octo or what ever copter fly on complete different physical principles.
Eh, what? The aerodynamic principles governing subsonic flight have been known for a century and a half, and they're t
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The average system efficiency may be that low, when you account for transmission losses and off-design operation.
Sorry, that is wrong. And the smaller the engine (as in 'drone') the less efficient it is.
and traditional helicopter designs offer a no less impressive display.
They do, especially if not a drone but a real one.
Eh, what? The aerodynamic principles governing subsonic flight have been known for a century and a half, and they're the same regardless of whether you have fixed or rotating wings, and fix
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Quad copters don't fly by aero dynamic principles :) That is exactly the point! They fly by 'thrust' only!
ALL rotorcraft fly by thrust only, and that thrust is produced by aerodynamic surfaces, following aerodynamic principles.
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No they are not.
Replace the propellers of the quadcopter with "rocket engines" if you really want to nitpick and claim that the propeller would use "aero dynamic principles".
Now you have a quad engine rocket propelled _brick_ flying by thrust only, no aero dynamics involved at all.
Now to the helicopter: it does not fly by thrust at all, with "thrust" it it only gets its "directions", its lift it is getting from the profile of its "moving wings" in the rotor. Thrust it gets from the tilting of the rotor as t
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Now you have a quad engine rocket propelled _brick_ flying by thrust only, no aero dynamics involved at all.
Technically, aerodynamic principles govern the conversion of temperature and pressure in the combustion chamber into exhaust velocity as the propellant travels through the nozzle.
Now to the helicopter: it does not fly by thrust at all, with "thrust" it it only gets its "directions", its lift it is getting from the profile of its "moving wings" in the rotor. Thrust it gets from the tilting of the rotor as the rotor creates a minimal amount of thrust in addiction to its lift.
Actually, helicopter rotors are typically symmetric, meaning they produce zero lift/thrust at zero angle of attack. The amount of lift/thrust they get is directly dependent on the pitch of the rotor blades, and the "profile" or camber of the blades is only to prevent flow separation on the suction side of the blade at higher angle
What's missing though (Score:1)
What's missing is being built to standards. Everything other digital fly by wire airplane over people has triple-string (triple-redundant) flight controls and can fly safely without GPS. This thing? Nope. Drones are only cheaper when you cut out the safety systems.
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good enough for a personal pizza!
In other news... (Score:2)
And in other news, the US FAA was heard bellowing, "Get off of my lawn!" to a bunch of kids playing with their remote controlled drones...
Poop bombs - go! (Score:5, Funny)
This technology has infinite uses. Say for example, there are some politicians in my country to whom I'd like to mail a bag of soggy dog poop. That might be a problem using traditional mail systems, but thanks to drone technology, you can just attach the bag of poop to a drone and pilot it over them as they're walking to work. Then, because the drone is probably busy with other demands, it's probably most efficient if, rather than landing, it just releases the attach hooks and drops that bag from its normal hovering altitude.
See, this is progress, thanks to technological advancement!
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Just get me my shit (Score:1)
DHL Global Mail is slightly slower than me walking to wherever the shit is sent from, picking it up myself and walking back home again. 4 WEEKS to get something from Boston to Raleigh? Or maybe 12 days stuck somewhere in Georgia?
militarize the drone, drop bioweapons on enemies (Score:2)
want to clear the terrorists our of cities? then do the unspeakable
Roflcopter (Score:2)
Of course, it should be a parcel-carrier (Score:2)
When Amazon made their announcement, my first thought was, the parcel-carriers should all be doing it. Sellers might too, but for FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL and other mail-companies, this is a must going forward.
I even bought some AVAV [yahoo.com] shares back then — the only publicly-traded company I could find, for whom drone-making is the primary business...
Dropped packages (Score:2)