Amazon Patents Drones That Recharge Electric Vehicles (cnet.com) 58
slash.jit shared an article from Futurism:
Amazon has been granted a patent for an ambitious new method of maintaining a charge in electric vehicles. The company wants to use drones to allow drivers to top up their vehicles without having to visit a charging station. Drivers would request a top up from a central server, which would dispatch a charging drone to their location. The drone would then dock with the vehicle and start transferring power, without the car ever needing to come to a stop. This solution isn't meant to administer a full charge to the car's battery, it would only supply enough power to get the driver to a charging station, which are still in somewhat limited supply.
"Amazon first applied for this patent back in June 2014," reports CNET, noting it was finally granted this month. "Like many other patents, there's no guarantee that Amazon will actually create a product based on the design. It could merely be an attempt to stop competitors from doing so."
"Amazon first applied for this patent back in June 2014," reports CNET, noting it was finally granted this month. "Like many other patents, there's no guarantee that Amazon will actually create a product based on the design. It could merely be an attempt to stop competitors from doing so."
How can this even be an innovative invention? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's two obvious components used in an obvious way previously limited only by the lack of economically viable technology to create the device.
Too many patents being allowed nowadays are for inventions that are too obvious given other technical advances. Whether computers, or cars, or knives, or whatever, the crap that is being allowed to be patented is shameful.
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If it was so obvious, why didn't you file the patent before Amazon?
He/she's arguing that this should not be patented because it's too obvious. Then you're asking why they didn't patent it? Uhh...
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For the same reason that Amazon shouldn't have been granted this patent: patents are for actual inventions (and novel, non-obvious ones at that), not ideas.
Well-described ideas can be "prior art" invalidating a patent (e.g. Heinlein's description of a waterbed in, IIRC, the 30s or 40s invalidated someone's attempt to patent waterbeds in the 60s or 70s) but can not be patented them
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Nnone of the tanker refueling aircraft are uncrewed autonomous vehicles (UAV).
...and when airborne tankers do become UAVs, the US Gov will owe Amazon bigtime.
(eyeroll)
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Using todays "drones" to try the same thing with electric energy?
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yes. mobile charging stations already exist.
you can carry them around with you to charge your devices when AC isn't available.
trucks with large battery packs already exist to charge vehicles away from charging stations.
extending this to a drone via patent is stupid.
drones are the new 'do x with a y' = $$$patent$$$; just like the internet and computer has been previously.
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The stupid part of doing this with a VTOL aircraft of any kind is the weight involved. Batteries sufficient to move your car to the next charging station would start around a pound:
https://www.amazon.com/WPS-Fea... [amazon.com]
that's going to require a scary big drone to carry it and the drone's own power source.
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The stupid part of doing this with a VTOL aircraft of any kind is the weight involved. Batteries sufficient to move your car to the next charging station would start around a pound:
https://www.amazon.com/WPS-Fea... [amazon.com]
that's going to require a scary big drone to carry it and the drone's own power source.
Exactly. This would be highly inefficient. It would use much less energy to just have an autonomous vehicle trailer behind it and provide charge.
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Re: How can this even be an innovative invention? (Score:1)
You need to read the patent claims before deciding this. News articles about patents are almost always inaccurate and misleading. As in this case the article is misleading as Amazon have NOT patented the simple idea of vehicle recharging drones. They are in fact claiming a system of done-vehicle charging using some sort of optical recognition and smart scheduling. I didn't read enough to understand.
Point is, everytime you read a media article about patents it is mostly likely plain wrong or at the least mis
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Why not a small ethanol engine that can recharge the battery. Normally you would plug in to recharge, the small engine would keep you charged as needed. It would only run when the battery gets low. A hybrid without the oil and gas industry (replaced by the ethanol industry yes of course)
A small charging generator does make sense for a stop and go vehicle.
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And for dealerships who hate electric vehicles because they require much less maintenance and service. Remember, a dealership's income comes mostly from service - new car sales are basically sold very little above cost - maybe $1000 or so above invoice.
So as long as they can sell you an ICE engine with all the required servicing, they'll be happy to sell you oil changes and all the other stuff you need.
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How many drones worth of Li-Poly HV (Score:1)
For a 5 mile top up of a Tesla S?
I'm ambivalent (Score:5, Funny)
The part of me that remembers topping off my plane in Top Gun approves. The part of me that remembers topping off my ship with power conduits in Starglider strongly disapproves.
Describes the broken US patent system so well... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Which often boils down to the same thing. Where can I buy a mosquito laser, for example?
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In this case it's probably a good thing. The battery technology required to store an EV significant amount of electricity in a light enough package for a drone is a long way off. If and when there is such a thing, this patent will have expired, making it possible for anyone to make such a product without being hindered by a patent.
How big is this drone? (Score:2)
Doesn't pencil out for me. Then again, Bezos could be looking ahead 10+ years when things will likely be a lot different.
The USAF has been refueling planes for decades now. Not exactly a new idea. Not sure ho
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Wouldn't it make more sense to have the electric vehicles charge the drones, based on the battery capacity differential?
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If it's big enough to recharge your EV, it's probably also big enough to just pick up your EV and carry it to its destination :)
Wouldn't it be easier (Score:2)
To have the drone just swap out battery packs and take the exhausted one back someplace to re-charge?
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Thats limiting on advanced new designs and what if an issue happens?
Who has to make a fault good again? The swap service? The drone maker?
Invest in placing battery packs and drones all around the USA? It would be like a car company having its own branded filling station a car of that brand would have to plan to find for any longer driv
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Would a third party to have control over the swap tech? A more limited and standard box design of battery size, shape, weight so a third party can swap the battery out?
Thats limiting on advanced new designs and what if an issue happens?
Who has to make a fault good again? The swap service? The drone maker?
Invest in placing battery packs and drones all around the USA? It would be like a car company having its own branded filling station a car of that brand would have to plan to find for any longer drive.
All that got worked out with filling stations.
It works for propane tanks....
I'm guessing Amazon Drones, servicing the inevitable Amazon Electric Cars, with built in Alexa are more what I was thinking...
Re: Wouldn't it be easier (Score:2)
Propane cylinder exchange is a complete ripoff. It only "works" because it is convenient and often available 24/7 and people generally suck at doing practical math.
The tanks aren't even full.
You are missing the most exciting aspect of this d (Score:2)
Sure charging cars with drones is all well and good, but take that a step further and imagine charging drones with drones!
Imagine a drone flying through the air, almost out of juice - then sending word to AmaNet and a battery drone swoops in from above! Then then both hover for several hours as the other drone slowly fills, until they both run out of power...
But then another battery drone swoops in!! And so on and so forth. Exciting!
Wouldn’t that be seasonal behaviour, though? (Score:3)
Soon to be vividly documented on Nat Geo WILD in “the secret life of drones”: Common drones are actually rather remarkable devices. These sleek, black machines are excellent and acrobatic fliers on par with falcons and hawks. Such aerial skills are on display during refueling season, when exciting docking rituals include an elaborate dance of chases, dives, and rolls. (slightly adapted from Nat Geo [nationalgeographic.com])
Prior art on drones -- described in Diamond Age (Score:2)
Networks of aerostat micro drones that shift electric charge to each other as needed (a bit like ants sharing food): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Why wait? (Score:2)
Hey, that’s a grrrreat idea, but why wait for electric vehicles when we could have (right now!) helicopters deliver gasoline through a boom permanently mounted on all car roofs, you know, just in case the driver runs out of fuel during that trip to the national park? AAA, are you listening?
Seriously, does Amazon expect mass-produced automobiles to be pre-emptively fitted with a roof-mounted dock (added cost; added weight and air resistance and therefore increased energy consumption; waste of space tha
Sigh. (Score:2)
Flying explosive batteries moving into the path of oncoming traffic while trying to make contact with a moving car.
Yeah. Great idea. For a weapon.
Abstracts are not prescriptive (Score:2)
1) Anyone talking about the validity of a patent without using the word "claim" even once is a dumbass.
2) Why would you submit a patent story to Slashdot without including a link to the patent? I had to go three articles deep just to find the patent number. Here's an actual link to the actual patent: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi... [uspto.gov]
3) Why does "freepatentsonline" even exist when you can already read patents online for free at the actual Patent Office website? USPTO even gives them to you in HTML.
An 85 KWH battery weighs around 1100 pounds (Score:2)
The good thing (Score:2)
The good thing is that this patent will be expired by the time it's feasible and then the exact same thing cannot be patented again.