
Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design - threecoins
http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011
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mapt
Here's what I think is more likely:

A small regional airport is taken over by Amazon. They build hangars and
warehouses onsite.

It's ramped up to land and fly a big turbine-powered mothership every five
minutes. The warehouse dispatches packages to stacks of delivery drones like
the one pictured in the video. The mothership loads the delivery drones in
order. The motherships take off regularly, and then as the mothership flies
near the target swath, the drones are released one by one and glide to the
target zone efficiently before doing a vertical landing.

Empty, they return autonomously to a small recovery facility in a vacant lot
somewhere within ~5km. They're packed into a pickup or a semi and returned to
the airfield in stacks.

\------

Why?

Because VTOL flight is not easy to do at long ranges; Batteries generally
limit that to 10-30 minutes since vehicle mass fraction is large. Because very
small planes are only a small multiple (2-5x) more efficient than VTOL flight.
Because high speeds are something vehicles like this are not great at.

A drone like this doesn't have a great straight-line range when you sling a
heavy load under it; Amazon is not going to erect sizable warehouses within
~5km of every plausible delivery. Their stock is too large, and too sparsely
ordered.

\--------

Or, even more likely?

Replace the flying mothership with a box truck dispenser. The driver stops at
his target neighborhood, sends the drones out, they deliver autonomously,
takes the drones back in 10 minutes later, and returns to regional warehouse
in the next 20-50 minutes of driving, for 30 to 60 minute delivery.

Amazon gets to deliver to a neighborhood rather than to a house.

~~~
mnglkhn2
I believe your scenarios (especially the "truck dispenser") address the market
Amazon has in mind: the suburbia.

If you notice, both video examples show the drone delivering at a house. It
seems obvious that an urban setting is difficult to address. And actually
delivery costs are higher in the suburbs, due to population spread, than in
the cities.

The interesting thing is how do UPS/FedEx/USPS feel about this, considering
that Amazon is aiming to "evolve" their business model? We should soon hear
about FedEx/UPS trying to do drone delivery. But this is not only logistics
but also a lot of other software and I think Amazon might be better suited for
it.

~~~
mschuster91
USPS won't care, their (legally protected) business is shipping letters.

~~~
thinkling
USPS was worried enough to agree to start delivering packages for Amazon on
Sundays, which must've required some interesting negotiations with their
unions.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Sunday delivery workers are paid just above minimum wage and are non-union.

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krschultz
Cue Amazon's PR firm trying to win 'cyber-monday'.

Whether or not Amazon ever delivers packages with drones, the ROI on the drone
R&D is massive simply based on how much attention it draws each year on cyber
monday.

~~~
SwellJoe
Amazon is such an interesting company to watch. They do really dumb and goofy
stuff, all the time, in very visible ways, but under the radar they've got the
largest cloud hosting business in the world chugging along devouring
everything in its path that most people don't even know about. I mean, none of
my non-technical friends know AWS exists or what it is, and few realize Amazon
is one of the most powerful and influential tech companies in the world.

This drone stuff even feels like a distraction so that nobody notices what
Amazon is actually up to. It's currently so far from useful, but it does
generate a lot of PR for Amazon, and the timing is not at all subtle.

~~~
edgall
It's almost Christmas so it means another video from Amazon on their
futuristic drone tech. Sigh.

Most news stations in every country will probably tag this to the end of their
broadcasts thus meaning millions saved in advertising for Amazon.

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ChuckMcM
While I find the technology impressive, it makes me wonder if "Black Friday"
is going to look like the Blitz, a low hum and looking up, wave after wave of
aircraft coming over the city looking for the right place to drop their
payload ...

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eclipxe
I like the placards placed in "safe landing zones". Simple solution to hard
problem.

~~~
varelse
And mess with your neighbor's life by placing your own landing placards in
your fenced-off backyard.

~~~
vektyr
I assume that could be prevented by using QR codes or something.

~~~
scott_karana
This fails if:

1) If you can see over the fence...

2) If it shows up in Google Maps ;)

#2 might be implausible now, but if people get really accustomed to this, I
guarantee that some handymen are going to tile/spraypaint large, permanent
drop points in their yards.

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zw123456
For a while I have thought that a cool way of doing this would be if the
drones could fly close to high voltage power lines and use induction to power
it and charge the battery. Then when it gets close to the destination it could
peel away from the high tension lines and use battery for to cover the last
mile. That way you could have the warehouse in some industrial area or
whatever. They could make a deal with the power companies and those lines
could be like the arterial lines for the drones. I have Googled around and
this is not a new idea but I have not seen anyone try it or test it, at least
not from the searches I have done. I believe it is feasible as those lines are
500KV and as a drone moves past it, there is a significant EM field around it
and an inductor lowered down 20 feet or so from the drone could pick up enough
power while maintaining a safe distance. Has anyone else heard of such a thing
being tried anywhere ?

~~~
guroot
Wouldn't that pose problems for the navigation equipment?

~~~
brandmeyer
Depends on how the IMU and GPS are designed. It could pose a problem for
equipment that isn't purposed-designed to ignore that frequency. However,
textbook solutions for that problem exist. 60 Hz is well outside the vehicle's
closed-loop control bandwidth, so just ensuring that there isn't an aliasing
problem with that (or the rectified 120 Hz) would be sufficient.

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kriro
My major takeaway is that they are trying to push as close to instant delivery
as possible (30 minutes seems like pretty remarkable goal). Potentially taking
out the delivery service middleman is also good. I have my doubts (regulation,
security concerns, social doubt a la Google glass) but overall it seems like a
good long term strategy to try this.

If they ever come close to hitting the 30 minute delivery it also opens up the
entire food delivery industry as a potential Amazon extension. Buying one of
these "premade meal delivery" startups could also be an option.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> If they ever come close to hitting the 30 minute delivery it also opens up
> the entire food delivery industry as a potential Amazon extension. Buying
> one of these "premade meal delivery" startups could also be an option.

This is my thinking as well. I'm actually surprised they haven't started a
small project in a specific area where they're delivering hot meals. It feels
like they want to, eventually, sell everything possible to people.

I would actually be surprised if they don't, eventually, buy several of these
start-ups around prepared food delivery.

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milesf
Love that they got Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear fame to do the video. I'm
guessing he likely had a hand in writing the copy as well.

~~~
FigBug
Amazon signed Jeremy to do his new show on Amazon Prime, so I'm expecting to
see more Jeremy/Amazon promotion going on.

~~~
sneak
Violent jerks have no place in a civilized society.

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petersouth
I think there's gonna be alot of teenage pranks and destruction. People
setting the landing spot in the water or people stealing them with nets. Not
sure if much recourse unless there camera footage or gps locator.

~~~
igammarays
This is the standard fear response to new technologies. Uber: how can you get
in a car with a stranger? Airbnb: Even Paul Graham said "are you nuts?". Self
driving cars: but what if people take advantage of it's collision avoidance
abilities to walk in front? etc. etc. The fact is, most people are not
malicious, life goes on anyway, and the risk of vandalism is quantifiable and
included in the cost of doing business.

And in this case vandals can easily be prosecuted, since a drone is already
hooked up with remote control, GPS tracking, cameras and monitoring.

~~~
ghaff
I find a lot of the whole drone delivery thing pretty silly outside of some
specific scenarios. Nonetheless, there is an equally silly "we must guarantee
100% reliability and security" thought." UPS does fine. They have no trouble
leaving most packages at my door. They probably don't live the same thing at
other doors. (Though I don't know their heuristics for such things.)

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pinkunicorn
Shit, I thought this was a marketing gimmick. Looks like they might actually
be delivering. And it looks quite awesome to be honest.

And development in Israel? Wow!

~~~
babuskov
I don't get it. What so special about development in Israel?

~~~
PopePompous
That means they'll have onboard countermeasures for surface-to-air missiles.

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cxseven
Every neighborhood should have a delivery nexus where packages are to be
picked up / dropped off! That'd make more sense than everyone needing a
dedicated Amazon landing pad in their backyard.

You could also have fresh baked goods and produce economically delivered daily
like they did back in the cutting edge of the 1800s.

~~~
nimish
Like a post office?

~~~
cxseven
Yes, except the idea is to have one within walking distance for most people,
and it could possibly be automated and unstaffed.

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listic
I wonder how can delivery with drones be more economically effective than with
cars and drivers, with "distances of 10 miles or more"? Which, if I'm not
mistaken, still somewhat exceeds capabilities of today's drones.

~~~
brianwawok
People are expensive.

~~~
ghaff
They're not that expensive and are very flexible dealing with the very analog
common-sense-requiring situation that is dropping off a package.

~~~
giarc
They are much, much more expensive then drones. Minimum wage, benefits,
delivery vehicle maintenance, insurance, etc etc etc.

~~~
ghaff
Yes, people are more expensive. In that they're paid wages. Others things you
list are common to automated platforms. But people are also good in dealing
with imprecise situations that are common with package delivery. I actually
believe Amazon is seriously interested in pursuing this. I also believe it's
largely stupid.

~~~
giarc
Do you know why medic-vac helicopters exist? Not necessarily because they move
faster than an ambulance, but because they can travel as the crow flies. Even
if a drone and a human delivery driver cost the same, a human could never come
close to the delivery speed of a drone simply because they can fly over stop
signs, stop lights, inefficient road design and get to the home the fastest.
And for Amazon, that is the value, getting the package to the customer as
quick as possible.

~~~
ghaff
Yes and medic-vac helicopters also exist because they're responding to genuine
emergencies which justifies both the expense and any externalities (e.g. noise
and marginal danger) associated with their flying over houses etc. to save a
few minutes. Sending flocks of flying vehicles over houses to deliver cables
or pizzas because people need them RIGHT NOW is not the same.

I do see scenarios where drones make sense but I have a lot of trouble
envisioning people being fine with the skies of suburbia being filled with
drones all the time.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
They are not very loud; they have a smaller impact than a UPS truck or a pizza
delivery guy racing against time. They will get lots of vehicles off the road.
I see folks embracing drone delivery as a solution!

------
coderdude
"Jeff Bezos beats DoD at it's own game" -Business Insider

~~~
serge2k
Drone delivery without explosions.

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alooPotato
I'm really curious how this beats a amazon owned delivery truck? Serious
question.

Economically and at scale, it seems like both the truck and drone are actually
pretty cheap.

Speed of delivery and at scale, the only way the drone is faster is if there
is a warehouse in each city and your item is stocked. Otherwise, the
bottleneck in delivery time is the long distance shipping.

Feasibility and at scale, the truck seems way less risky and more adaptable to
bad conditions.

~~~
darkxanthos
With automated drones and Amazon brick and mortar stores the idea of large
warehouses could be challenged. They could shift packages in an automated
fashion to areas with more probable demand. Drones are crazy cheap as well. I
can imagine hundreds of these in the sky at once in Chicago if not thousands.

~~~
ghaff
>I can imagine hundreds of these in the sky at once in Chicago if not
thousands.

Which sounds like an utterly horrifying scenario. It's not so much that I
can't imagine this sort of delivery not working in some scenarios as that I
have a lot of trouble imagining it working at scale.

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logicallee
people in the 60's thought we would have flying cars in the 21st century.

in reality we'll never need to go anywhere anymore, not for work, not for
meetings, not for a movie, and not for groceries. what's a city for anyway?
Oh, nightclubs I guess...

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blackjack48
A couple days ago, I needed a new cordless landline phone and wanted to try
out Prime Now. It was impressive that I could track my courier's location and
have it arrive within half an hour - only problem was that it was the wrong
model. I've ordered hundreds of things from Amazon and can't recall ever
receiving an incorrect item. To make matters worse, the CS rep I spoke to said
they couldn't send couriers to do returns or exchanges: I had to UPS it 2,000
miles to Kentucky. Winning the ecommerce delivery race won't mean anything
unless Amazon can maintain its high accuracy rate and positive user
experience.

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gist
It would seem to be a better option to try and drop a package by parachute
rather than have to land the drone, release and takeoff. If the package is
only 5 lbs. or less and has a parachute attached that seems much safer (for
both the drone and for people) than landing and taking off assuming a
predetermined landing spot is located.

My other issue with this is given changing weather conditions and the amount
of wind or rain a drone can handle (energy efficiently that is) how many days
per year can this service be offered vs. how many customers there actually are
that need this type of delivery. (Note the example that they give ..)

~~~
repsilat
> by parachute

...

> wind or rain

Obviously parachute delivery is more sensitive to weather conditions.
Parachutes would need active guidance to be at all practical. If the
parachutes and guidance systems aren't recoverable (collected from your
mailbox, maybe?) that'll add to delivery costs.

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eli
And on the day before "Cyber Monday," what an opportune time for Amazon to
dominate headline for a day. Such luck.

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anon4this1
Does anyone else think that underground tunnels are a superior way to solve
the last few miles problem? Tunnels about 1 foot in diameter with little
wheeled vehicles pushing around payloads of takeaway food, groceries , parcels
at reasonable speed with control computers determining routing and stopping
collisions. A functioning network of this type would be more valuable than
power or cable utility networks, and horizontal tunnel drilling tech means
that you dont have to dig up huge swathes of road to put tunnels in.

~~~
axiak
More likely than not, these drones are for the rural last mile problem, where
drivers aren't worth the cost. In that case tunnels wouldn't be worth the
cost.

~~~
ghaff
It's most likely the last 20 miles problem where delivery costs are a problem.
I live in an exurban area but I imagine UPS economics works fine here. If I
live in the back of beyond I imagine it's hard to make any delivery system
work without subsidies.

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sixQuarks
Is it just me, or is Jeremy Clarkson's voice off by a few milliseconds in the
video?

~~~
darawk
Ya, I noticed that as well. Very irritating. The service looks awesome if they
can, uh, deliver though.

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TrevorJ
Thinking about it a lot, and I think the simpler way to solve the same problem
would be shipping container sized package 'vending machines'. These could be
distributed anywhere a couple parking spaces worth of land could be rented.

You could either pick up your items yourself, or pickups could be handled via
an "uber for packages" type model.

The advantage of a system like that would be how quickly it could change based
on demand, and it would work well inside all the current shipping
infrastructure.

The trick would be stocking the right items in the right locations, but if
anyone has the data to be able to do that it's Amazon.

~~~
azernik
It's called Amazon Locker, and it's existed for years.

~~~
TrevorJ
Amazon locker just swaps the last step in the delivery to a central location.
I'm talking about micro-warehouses that could easily and quickly distributed.

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josephpmay
I have trouble understanding where the package goes in the drones (which I
guess is good for deterring theft). Also, they don't really provide any scale,
but the drones appear to be pretty huge.

~~~
pcl
For scale reference: towards the end of the first video [1], they show the
drone landing on a pad next to a fence, and a few seconds later, a woman picks
up the box and pad.

I'd say it's about 6 feet on a side, and maybe 4 feet tall.

[1] [https://youtu.be/MXo_d6tNWuY?t=107](https://youtu.be/MXo_d6tNWuY?t=107)

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wowzer
While time will tell if we ever actually see this drones in action, imagine
how cool it must be for the people working on this project. They get to go to
work each day playing with some really fancy model airplanes. Plus, this is
Amazon pushing yet another aspect of technology forward. They may overwork
their employees, but cool things are coming out of those offices.

------
narrator
Probably won't be able to deliver in bad weather. Small aircraft aviation is
always subject to the whims of the weather.

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damian2000
This made me think about self driving cars and whether its possible to make a
self driving delivery van or truck - able to handle bulkier / heavier loads
and all weather conditions.

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orasis
The big question is: How loud are the drones? Every quad-rotor I've been
around is too loud for the average upscale neighborhood that these will be
delivering to.

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pmoriarty
Direct links to the videos:

[https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/112715/d...](https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/112715/download/PrimeAirVideo01.zip)

[https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/112715/d...](https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/112715/download/PrimeAirVideo02.zip)

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zeisss
so, assuming this works: Won't they get a lot of problems with wind / bad
weather regions? I guess they won't be happy if they can do this only half of
a year, and the other half the drones are sitting around.

So, if this takes off (phun intended) will Amazon try weather control next?

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legohead
Can't wait to see and hear hundreds of drones in the sky.

~~~
shpx
Yea this was one of my first thoughts too, drones are incredibly loud, even if
its just one every few minutes it'll be unbearable. There are ideas on how to
make them less loud, like putting the props inside the drone, but I suspect it
will be very difficult to make them completely silent without flying really
high.

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kylehotchkiss
Anybody know where this was filmed?

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dharma1
still gonna get shot down in texas

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ck2
They are going to have to go back and update all the movies that attempt to
guess the future.

Apparently there are going to be a bunch of drones flying around delivering to
people in the suburbs.

Looks very cool but in the real world so many things can go wrong, I am sure
people are going to intercept and either damage or steal the drones.

~~~
hiddencost
Haha. You must live somewhere pretty crazy if you expect that much violence
and theft. People don't randomly attack everything. Sure, there'll be some
losses, but that's true of any business, plus you'll have the theft on camera
and just stop delivering to those neighborhoods. Compare the cost of drone
loss to UPS' cost due to accidents. It would take an insane amount of effort
to steal that many drones.

~~~
ck2
Yes I live in a low-incoming neighborhood and everything gets destroyed by
unsupervised kids and teenagers that run around after school before parents
get home (and some even after parents are home).

But I also live near college student housing and they pretty much do something
similar with their drinking and partying.

Just like UPS cannot leave packages for me here, I couldn't get drone delivery
either.

Not everyone can afford or wants to live in suburbs.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Low income areas also conveniently (for Amazon) have lower amounts of money to
spend, so they are a much less desirable location to provide a service like
this. They wouldn't have to provide this service everywhere for it to make
sense to do it in some places.

