Switzerland Begins Trials of Expensive Postal Drones 55
An anonymous reader writes: Swiss Post has beat Amazon, Alibaba and other researchers into drone-based delivery by launching practical drops using a Matternet four-rotored drone this month. However the company says that five years of testing and negotiation with regulators lie ahead before it will be able to offer a commercial drone-based delivery service. Like Google's Project Wing, the Matternet drone in question is mooted as a potential lifeline in post-disaster situations, but from a business point of view the release notes its potential for 'express delivery of goods' — a further indicator that the future of postal drone delivery may be an exclusive and expensive one.
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Not necessarily. On the upside, the drones only weigh a few kilograms, compared to a tonne or two for a truck, and the drones can fly as-the-crow-flies direct routes, and they are electric vehicles, so are actually potentially much *more* efficient, particularly in Switzerland, where they get a lot of their energy from hydroelectricity.
I suspect in a lot of cases they will be faster and more efficient.
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Not necessarily. On the upside, the drones only weigh a few kilograms, compared to a tonne or two for a truck,
For dispatching a single rush package sure, it could be faster. But what does it do when it arrives? drop it on my front step where anyone can get it, or does it ring my bell, and politely hover at my door? Will it ensure i sign for it (typically rush packages are traceable)...
What if I'm in an office building? Does it drop it on the busy front steps, or does buzz in and drop it off at reception?... What if im a tenant in a skyrise the 30th floor?...does it take the elevator to the 35th floor?
Just doesn't
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In order for the package to be useful, you need to be where it arrives.
Imagine if you received a notification saying it was at the post office and then you replied to it, and it arrived shortly afterwards, so you're always there to receive it.
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Imagine if you received a notification saying it was at the post office and then you replied to it, and it arrived shortly afterwards....
Imagine all that happened, and then I wasn't there to receive it. Because: life.
And it still doesn't address everything from bad weather to drone malfuntion...
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This is for express deliveries. The point is not to be "cheaper", but "faster".
Round and round (Score:2)
Can a 4 rotor continue flying, or at least make an emergency landing without flying wildly or crashing, if one rotor goes out?
With a max load package?
For that matter, can a 6?
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define "goes out" ... this is one of the questions that must be answered before these things should be allowed to fly commercially. Certified helicopters can autorotate from about 500' AGL. A 25 kg (55 lb) UAV falling100-200 feet will be lethal, even if you're in a car.
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Your numbers are complete bullshit. A drone is not a ball of lead.
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You obviously never held a drone or a lithium battery.
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Can a 4 rotor continue flying, or at least make an emergency landing without flying wildly or crashing, if one rotor goes out?
The rotors are driven by brushless DC motors, which are extremely reliable. The drone is far more likely to crash due to weather, collision, software bug, etc. Which is likely to do more harm: A crash of a 4kg drone, or a crash of a 4000kg delivery truck?
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> A crash of a 4kg drone *slowed by its parachute*, or a crash of a 4000kg delivery truck?
FTFY
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> A crash of a 4kg drone *slowed by its parachute*, or a crash of a 4000kg delivery truck?
FTFY
These drones do not carry parachutes. That would make no sense. The parachute would add significant weight, and would do little good. The main structural material of these UAVs is Styrofoam, so they already have a low terminal velocity. Nearly all crashes occur during either takeoff or landing, and too close to the ground for a parachute to deploy.
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Flying machines arena demonstrated this a while back, here's a video [youtube.com]
A six prop arranged coaxially (referred to as a Y6) can, so long as the failed motor doesn't take out the other motor attached to the same arm. And I'm sure the algorithm for the quad can be applied to a hexacopter, allowing autorotation
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These are electrical motors. Unlike combustion engines, they very rarely fail catastrophically and without warning. If they do, the drone falls out of the sky, because it cannot balance anymore.
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These are ducted fans. A bird, bug, scrap of paper, floating plastic grocery bag, etc. can jam or wrap up a prop instantly.
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Bug: no, bird: no, scrap of paper: no. And how many plastic bags do you see "floating" around at altitude? Seriously, you have no clue.
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According to this video [youtube.com] they are a lot mor resiliant that I thought.
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The drone they are testing has a built-in chute. So even if, in the event of rotor failure, it fails to stay airborne it should not do much damage.
I can see it now... (Score:4, Funny)
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Actually they'll just use a new drone that is powered by brandy, thus utilizing existing St. Bernard technology.
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Actually they'll just use a new drone that is powered by brandy, thus utilizing existing St. Bernard technology.
s/brandy/drool/
Drones on the ground (Score:2)
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Airliners, especially Fedex and UPS, are already almost drones. Pilots rarely need to touch the controls, even for take-off and landing. They are mostly there for FAA reasons.
The first ground autonomous vehicles you are likely to actually see on the road will probably be either taxi cabs or big rig trucks. Both have economics that make absolute sense for autonomous vehicles, even at relatively expensive "first adopter" prices.
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Have they perfected the automatic big rig transmission yet?
It would have to be a computer controlled sychro-less manual. Sychros can't last the 250kMiles required for economic truck transmissions.
Did they break the law? (Score:2)
Misread that as "explosive postal drones" (Score:5, Funny)
Was disappointed.
Bike Messengers (Score:2)
How to make drone-based delivery cheap (Score:4, Interesting)
In sub-urban and rural areas I think drone-based delivery can be cost-effective. I think the key is to use a hybrid model with a "drone carrier" truck which serves as a mobile base station so the drones are only making relatively short flights. Imagine a truck that pulls into a sub-urban neighborhood, stops in one central location and then launches a dozen drones to deliver packages to all of the homes within a half mile or so. Or perhaps the truck might not even have to stop, but just drive along launching drones which deliver along its path and then return to it, still in motion.
The advantage to the delivery service is that they could deliver to many nearby locations simultaneously, and trucks wouldn't have to be able to enter difficult locations (which currently constrains the design of package cars). This means the trucks could be larger, carrying more packages, and would deliver much faster, requiring fewer trucks and drivers. Given a self-driving truck, the "drivers" might end up being drone tenders/troubleshooters, rather than drivers. They could remotely designate appropriate drop-off locations when the drones can't find a good locations themselves, as well as handle any problems that arise with the equipment, and maybe still do package handling, to retrieve packages from storage in the truck and move them to where the drones can pick them up, at least until that can be adequately automated.
I think it makes a lot of sense. The technology isn't there yet, but I don't think it's far away.
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The technology isn't there yet
The tech is definitely there.
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The technology isn't there yet
The tech is definitely there.
For fully-autonomous drones finding and delivering to appropriate spots at random addresses? I don't think so. I also think there would be a lot of engineering challenges in building a sufficiently-bulletproof system. As I said, I don't think we're there yet, but close.
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a few ideas:
-GPS on smartphone
-Mark position on map
-other methods combined with asking them to hold up smartphone, which flashes code to drone when it gets close
-manual survey beforehand (could be done on first delivery, after that drones can deliver)
I'm not saying its easy - just that I think we can do it
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Sure, that could be done. I don't think the approach will be practical until the drones can find the delivery point on their own most of the time, though. GPS isn't sufficiently precise, and maps may or may not be, depending. I have some friends on the Google Maps teams and it's surprising how much effort goes into trying to align maps with reality -- and how often they still don't line up. Manual survey could work, but things change.
Getting to the right address isn't too hard, but beyond that I think we
Not expensive (Score:2)
Rubbish, are these postal drones going to be paid? Healthcare? Holidays?
Once they've got it worked out and the local sorting offices fully automated then a lot of postal people could easily lose their jobs. That doesn't sound like more expensive mail to me.
If you're a delivery driver then you should definitely be looking to change your career before drones and autonomous vehicles make you redundant.
Moot. (Score:2)
"...the Matternet drone in question is mooted as a potential lifeline in post-disaster situations,..."
In post disaster situations, we need no post, keep the invoices until the disaster is over.
Going postal (Score:2)
I know a lot of people who were afraid of drones going postal.
Constant buzzing over my backyard? No thankyou! (Score:1)
As much as efficiency and all that is wonderful, I see a problem of noisy drones buzzing overhead day in, day out. Another source of irritation in an increasingly stressful civilization. Would completely destroy a relaxing day in the park and it'd be hell in the city. If they started flying over my back yard, you can bet I'll be erecting nets, or possibly installing a CIWS.
Replace post system (Score:2)
Not yet. They're going after the most complex problem now. What they could really look at is using large UAV's for air shipped goods in large quantities. The problem is again, reliability in making sure they don't crash and kill people on the ground.
The big advantage of using UAV's in flying is that the can exploit the efficiencies of balancing flight time, altitude and velocity while removing the human constraints. I'm not entirely sure what the optimum can be, but I'm hazarding a guess that flying higher