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AI Transportation

Cringely Predicts: Professional Drivers With Drone Landing Platforms (cringely.com) 113

Posted by EditorDavid from the self-driving-drones dept.
In what may be his final year of technology predictions, columnist Robert X. Cringely argues aerial delivery drones "are definitely coming just as fast as regulators will allow them, but I don't think they'll be implemented in the way people expect." As soon as autonomous systems can be shown to be as safe or safer than human pilots, they'll take over most drone piloting duties... Here's the problem with Pizza-to-the-Home: where does the drone land at your house that won't risk hitting a child, pet or vehicle and also won't risk losing the delivery to theft or damage? We can't economically mandate a drone landing tower for every house that's above obstacles and with a guaranteed clear approach.... But we CAN mandate such a landing platform on top of every pizza delivery vehicle.

Using GPS, the drone and car can find each other with the drone landing only when the car is stopped and the approach is clear... [F]or that driver each delivery will take five minutes or less. Pizza is delivered faster and hotter and the driver, instead of making 2-3 deliveries per hour, can make 10-12. This is what we'll shortly see proposed for drone delivery, not just for pizza but for everything else...

Now here's where Internet-style disintermediation comes into play. Such a drone delivery network still costs money to build but that money will be instantly available if the class of goods that can be delivered expands beyond food to anything weighing under, say, 10 pounds. This means prescription drugs and even Amazon Prime or walmart.com packages can arrive on the same car, delivered to that car by multiple drones and drone networks. All it requires is WAAS GPS and a standardized car rooftop landing platform, which I am sure we will shortly see.
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Cringely Predicts: Professional Drivers With Drone Landing Platforms More

Cringely Predicts: Professional Drivers With Drone Landing Platforms

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  • Aspiring to stopped-clock accuracy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by radarskiy ( 2874255 ) on Saturday April 06, 2019 @11:11AM (#58394556)

    Has anything printed under the "Robert X. Cringley" nom de plume ever been correct?

  • You will print a target (Score:3)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday April 06, 2019 @11:16AM (#58394578) Homepage Journal

    The target will be a QR code. You will agree on the rough location of the target during the process. The process of downloading and printing the target will also include agreeing that you're responsible for putting it someplace sensible.

    If the drone gets there and it doesn't look like a good place to drop a pizza, you will have to go somewhere else to get your pizza.

    Nowhere in this process will there be a driver, except to pick up failed drones. That person can be the assistant manager.

    • Or you will buy a sturdy-ish reusable mat with a preprinted QR code. You scan your landing pad when placing order.

      • Or you will buy a sturdy-ish reusable mat with a preprinted QR code. You scan your landing pad when placing order.

        I like this, it should be larger than most people can print anyway. Maybe they could make a pizza box that unfolds into the target. That reduces manual deliveries to one. Include an insert with a foil or plastic protective layer to contain grease.

  • Yeah right (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Pizza is delivered faster and hotter" - sure. It is on a drone, flying outside in freezing temperatures. It is no longer in a nice warm vehicle. Sure, they will put one of those insulator things around it. But it will not be warmer than it would have been in that same insulator in a warm vehicle. That's just incorrect. The whole idea is stupid though. Who is going to put up with the noise pollution from all these damn drones?

  • Pizzas aren't drugs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Saturday April 06, 2019 @11:19AM (#58394592)
    The problem with this guy's guess is that pizza delivery is time-critical (while it's still warm - measured in minutes) whereas all the other stuff can take an hour, two or all day. It is very unlikely to matter. And since a ground based vehicle can carry a hundred times as much weight as a drone, it only needs to "fill up" once and then do its rounds.

    But the density of pizza deliveries is the limiting factor. At any given time there are not likely to be more than 1 pizza per square mile (as different people will order at different times) so what takes the greatest amount of time is getting the delivery van to the correct location. Whether to deliver the pizza directly or simply to receive it from the drone.

    The scheme fails.

  • No. (Score:3)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday April 06, 2019 @11:21AM (#58394596)

    Here's the issue, vehicles are owned by the drivers themselves, not the pizza place. Don't expect drivers to install a huge-ass drone platform on their car and provide their own drone or for pizza places to suddenly invest in vehicles and/or drones.

    There is no driving incentive to reduce delivery time or do away with driver tipping (that's less money for the driver, so yo have to pay them more), so it's not happening. The only way this makes sense is if they can reduce the number of pizza places needed to serve an area but this is countered by the fact that traffic limits the area that can be served.

    These guys ("Robert X. Cringely") know nothing about running a pizza business.

    • Don't expect drivers to install a huge-ass drone platform on their car

      Well, thanks to the miracle of magnetic fields, many of them already put huge-ass lighted signs on top of their cars.

      • Because if you want a drone landing platform on a car to be insured, I will bet dollars to donuts that all of that will have to be UL certified. And that means some sort of permanent installation on the car so the installation doesn't get torn off the car through wind resistance, weather or other problems.

    • Re:No. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FrankSchwab ( 675585 ) on Saturday April 06, 2019 @12:26PM (#58394822) Journal

      So let's explore this. The Pizza parlor invests in nine 1.5 meter square pieces of plywood painted with a high-contrast landing pattern, with suction cups and straps to tie them onto drivers cars. Let's call that $500. They invest in a dozen big drones capable of carrying, say, four extra-large meat lovers pizzas in an insulated pouch - Let's call that $25000, dwarfing the cost of the landing platforms.

      Now, the Pizza parlor hires nine drivers for a Friday evening, straps platforms onto their cars, and sends each to a different area surrounding the parlor. An order comes in, the pizza comes out of the oven and gets popped into the heated box under a drone, the drone goes and finds the closest driver. The driver may be in front of the desired house at the moment, or may be at the previous house - the drone lands, driver moves pizzas to his front seat, and delivers them to the desired house and collects his tip. If the driver is in motion, he pulls into the nearest parking lot, waits for the drone to land, and collects the pizzas.
      From the Customer's point of view, nothing changes in the current pizza-delivery model except their pizza arrives in 15 minutes instead of 45, and is likely hotter when it gets there. From the Driver's point of view, they deliver more pizzas per hour with fewer miles driven. From the Pizza Parlor's perspective, they've made a huge capital investment, but they're delivering 2-3x the pizzas they used to. From everyone else's perspective, there's a constant stream of annoying drones flying overhead (and occasionally crashing into their neighborhood) destroying their ability to peacefully enjoy their backyards. I guess that's an externality that just doesn't need to be considered.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        "From everyone else's perspective, there's a constant stream of annoying drones flying overhead "

        I live on a busy road, I bet these things would be no more noisy than the constant traffic, vehicles are noisy even when only travelling 25mph. Drones could fly a bit higher to cut noise pollution.

        Separate note, the summary is dumb, landing pads wouldn't need to be mandated, you just say: If you don't have a landing pad available that meets specifications xyz then you can't legally have drones delivered to you a

        • And who can't stick up a flat bird table like thing for the fast food to be dropped on to, not difficult.

          People in apartment buildings and condos? I'm not going to order and then head downstairs with a landing pad to wait for the delivery which could take 10 to 30 minutes (or longer if the place is busy). Then you have to bring the order back up along with the landing pad. Maybe the building would have a permanent landing pad to save you the bother of having to take one down with you. But you would still have to go down early because who knows how long it takes for an elevator to come so you can't go down when

      • From everyone else's perspective, there's a constant stream of annoying drones flying overhead (and occasionally crashing into their neighborhood) destroying their ability to peacefully enjoy their backyards. I guess that's an externality that just doesn't need to be considered.

        That's why Amazon is going to have their drones fly in at altitude, balloon down to complete the delivery [slashgear.com] and back up, out of the annoyingly loud range.

        • Amazon is going to have their drones fly in at altitude, balloon down to complete the delivery and back up, out of the annoyingly loud range.

          No they aren't. It's a cute idea, but impractical for a variety of reasons. Quads really aren't that loud anyway.

      • This operation will have to be insured. This will be the stumbling block. Until it can be insured and shown to be reliable and not a threat to health and welfare when be operated or moved, it will not be operated. Think of it this wa: how many things have you seen go flying off of a car at high speed?

      • They invest in a dozen big drones capable of carrying, say, four extra-large meat lovers pizzas in an insulated pouch - Let's call that $25000, dwarfing the cost of the landing platforms.

        $25000 for a dozen? That would be a steal! To carry that much weight, you would be lucky to get one drone for $25000. That doesn't even cover the cost of insurance for the drones.

        From the Pizza Parlor's perspective, they've made a huge capital investment, but they're delivering 2-3x the pizzas they used to.

        Except they are already meeting demand (if they need more drivers then they hire more), so they aren't going to get more sales, just reduce the number of drivers. So your investment in drones is really just a way to have fewer drivers. Drivers are cheap but these drones are expensive. One lost/damaged drone is going to cost a

    • Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by angel'o'sphere ( 80593 ) <angelo.schneider ... e ['oom' in gap]> on Saturday April 06, 2019 @05:01PM (#58395856) Journal

      These guys ("Robert X. Cringely") know nothing about running a pizza business.
      Perhaps he should read Snowcrash?

      But it is funny, to watch how the "drone industry" is searching for a problem to solve.

      I doubt we ever will have something that is worth building up a drone delivery infrastructure.

      • I doubt we ever will have something that is worth building up a drone delivery infrastructure.

        They are actually good for inspections, so they do have legitimate uses. However, they have been found to be very useful for illegitimate purposes. It's currently being used to reach nearly inaccessible locations like prisons. However, in the future I could foresee them being used to drop off drugs to avoid having a physical presence.

  • When did Pizza Delivery people get classified as "Professional Drivers"? How long do you have to be delivering pizzas to be considered "professional"? I drive to work every day to my job - does that make me a professional driver, too?

  • if the vehicle is remotely piloted, then the "pilot" can very easily check to see if your beloved pet is in the way using the camera feed.

    also too, a landing pad high up clear of obstructions is not necessary. a very plan target, in white or other solid color, so that on object would stand out. Even an automated check system, will probably work. AI can give you a definite "no", but a person is required for a "yes".

    Drones are coming, that's for sure.

    So is incredible unemployment. The 2nd gilded age is her

  • And what about using the customer's car rooftop as landing station?

    • Not everyone has a car and not everyone has a house to go along with their car.

      This system is designed for people who have houses and now you want to limit that to people who have houses and cars. I would say that the people without cars should be the ones that need delivery more than the ones with the cars.

  • So how in F do these drones fly legally?

    Here in the Land-of-Oz a certain department (CASA) mandates where you can fly your favorite muti-rotor-copter.
    There's even an App for it. Trust me, it's bloody restrictive as to where one can take off as "they" fret over real helicopters getting struck.
    Got a helipad within 5 klicks? Forget it. Flying over private property - no way! Just as a couple of examples.
  • As the observation was made to me: If the car is not parked on a flat surface, how is the drone going to land on the car?

    I can think of plenty of places where city streets are on hills. Plus throw in weather (rain, sleet, snow, freezing rain) and a drone landing on a car that is parked on a slope is a drone that is crashed in the street and run over by a car and then everyone has lawsuits and insurance payouts.

    This need to go back to the drawing boards with a bit more reality attached.

    • Electromagnets. Wouldn't need to be that strong so they wouldn't eat up too much battery life. All controlled by the drone. Turned on when it lands and as it takes off the electromagnets are turned off.

      Since there's a driver any major accumulation of snow, freezing rain, etc would be taken care of by the driver so that's not a problem.

      • That is very case by case basis. There are vehicles using aluminum now as parts of their exterior. So the drone landing and expecting a magnetic grapple is going to need all sorts of safeties in the landing software to ensure that there is a firm grapple before the rotor blades spin down.

        I actually see the snow being a real problem: target recognition. Requiring drivers to get out of their car during a snow storm to clear the targets mounted on the roof so the drone can see the landing target? During a h

        • Aluminum in cars isn't a problem since the driver puts a landing pad on the roof and the landing pad would have some light metal in it in order for the electromagnets to attract to.

          As for the driver having to constantly clear off the landing pad, that's not an issue either. The drone can send a message when it's a minute or 30 seconds away and the driver can then clear the landing pad. Or the drone will hover when it arrives until the driver clears the landing pad. Not a big issue.

          I'm not advocating for thi

  • There are a lot of people experimenting in this space. Unsurprisingly this problem has been considered with far better solutions than this suggestion.

    The Alphabet Project Wing system for example doesn't land. It remains at a safe distance above the ground and lowers the load.

    This avoids any direct interaction between members of the public and the fragile dangerous drone.

    The risk of theft is significantly mitigated by being able to schedule delivery times to correspond to when you are at home. No need to lea

  • So rather than having my pizza delivered by the pizza delivery guy in his car, pizza delivery guy will drive his car to my house and wait for drone to appear out of the sky with pizza.

    They will use machine learning AI to figure out where to pre-position the landing sites (pizza delivery guys). Pizzas will be 3-D printed and accounted for using blockchain. .....

  • Why land at all? It could hover in front of a window (e.g. outside the 20th floor in a highrise) and you grab the goods off of it.
  • People are focusing on the economics of this for a pizza place, and that's the wrong way to go.

    A ton of delivery cost is "last mile" (not literally, basically from the facility to the door). This is talking about dividing that into two pieces - "to the door" from a mobile landing platform so basically the last 30-100 feet and "to the platform" which is most of that so-called last mile. The Platform As A Service driver or vehicle doesn't have to cover all that range back to the facility - just the quarter mi

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