
Delivery By Drones - apompliano
http://anthonypompliano.com/2013/10/14/delivery-by-drones/
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alooPotato
Anyone know how these type of "logistics" companies are planning on solving
the last 10 feet problem.

I.e. where does the drone land? How does the recipient pick up their package?
What if you live in an apartment, how do you get your pie?

This make me think drone delivery is probably waaay more valuable in suburbia
than a city setting. Delivery in the suburbia seems costlier currently (larger
distances, lower densities so less stops per route, etc) and drones are well
suited to deliver to a nice big front/back yard.

In cities - I don't see how they'll deliver pizzas, but maybe non-perishables
can be deposited into receptacles on rooftops or street corners and picked up
asynchronously.

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Qantourisc
How about a large QR tag :) With the data: DROP-ZONE-house-number-5a :)

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savszymura
The article points out that the drones don't have onboard cameras.

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furyg3
Pizza, Starbucks, mail? Really? What worthless examples.

I'm guessing most mail can be eliminated, tomorrow. Make snail mail marketing
illegal, you take out probably 90% or more of all mail. You also take out 90%
of the income for the post office, making the rest more expensive, driving
people to digitize what bits they haven't already done. Convenience win,
environmental win.

As for Pizza, what socially worthless tradeoff. Noise pollution, total
surveillance by corporations, crashed drones and trash in your backyard, for
what? So that we can get fatter with even less effort?

Rescue services, organ transplants, air pollution monitoring, emergency
communications, OK. But making it easier for someone to get a Frappachino? Do
we still need to solve that problem?

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chm
No.

Millions of details need to be sorted out before even beginning to draft
legislation. One must be insane to think this could "just work" and promote
innovation. Try running an airport. This would be orders of magnitude more
complicated. Not unfeasible, but please be patient and methodical.

How long until the drone owners start selling not ads, but data
collection/reconnaissance services to corporations/governments...?

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apompliano
I agree there are numerous issues and details. If a suburban area decided to
take a stand and pass legislation, we could begin ironing out those details.
By no means am I suggesting a free-for-all right out of the gate, but a well
executed ramp up of activity could prove successful.

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nikatwork
I really hope Zookal have their safety measures sorted out. All it takes is
one drone to run out of juice carrying a thick stack of physics textbooks and
crash into a pram. Then the party's over for everyone.

Seriously though, how are the flightpaths going to be managed once multiple
services start flying drones? Centralized proximity detection service based on
GPS? (Hmm startup idea anyone...)

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lostlogin
If my GPS experiences are anything to go by, big stuff (buildings and
mountains) and cold (possibly heat too?) make GPS inaccurate enough that it
would be pretty much useless. Up high in subzero temperatures on a mountain we
would get strange coordinates back due to (I assume) the mountain blocking or
reflecting signal somehow. And that was when it worked - sub zero with a big
wind chill and the batteries would last about 10 seconds, then back under the
jacket it had to go to warm up. This has been on multiple brands of hardware.
Things may have improved since this experience as it was 5 years ago.

~~~
nikatwork
I doubt GPS could be trusted for autopilot, but if the accuracy is reliable
for a ~30 foot sphere it could be used as a proximity alarm. ("Cool your jets
human, there's another drone nearby")

The GPS on my iPhone is good enough to pinpoint my 2D position to within ~10
feet, so I don't see why not.

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evacuationdrill
GPS is good enough for autopilot; I've flown with them just fine. It's also
common to do GPS approaches in inclement weather, and when you break out of
the clouds, the runway is right where it should be!

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evolve2k
Fast forward 10-20 years, above your house is the constant whirr of hundreds
of drones going back and forth above your property every single minute of
every day.

One drone is fun, hundreds need more thinking through.

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ollysb
I imagine they'd have to be limited to vertical paths anywhere near the
ground, otherwise as you say the noise of hundreds of drones would be
unbearable. I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be a few stations
around urban areas for silent landing/launching i.e. nets for drones to drop
into(potentially assisted by small parachute/wings) and launchers(catapults
etc.) to get them out of earshot before they fire up their motors. You'd still
have a little activity in the last few meters but how many deliveries are
actually delivered to a particular area per hour?

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seanmcdirmid
I recently read something about HN cynical top-level comments syndrome. Is it
just too hard for us to dream anymore? I'm confident we'll work out the
details; the future is going to be really cool!

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bromagosa

      > Mail, pizza, and Starbucks all delivered by drones which saves everyone money and creates more happiness
    

I liked the article until I read this. I don't think you can link the
existence of Starbucks with creating happiness at all.

[1]
[http://www.beyondbars.org/starbucks_private_prison_labor](http://www.beyondbars.org/starbucks_private_prison_labor)

[2] [http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/07/16/dear-starbucks-
cust...](http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/07/16/dear-starbucks-customers-
you-are-killing-palestinians-and-lebanese/)

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unicornporn
> Mail, pizza, and Starbucks all delivered by drones which saves everyone
> money and creates more happiness

I don't see how it would create more happiness. The "oh look, a drone"
reaction would lay off pretty soon. But, perhaps it can save some energy and
lessen the use of fossil fuels.

Also, I see they're self-driving. How well would this work with tiny in air
obstacles like power lines?

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apompliano
There is anti-collision software included. I'm imagining it works very similar
to the way Google's self-driving car does.

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orjan
Actual article: [http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-
first-d...](http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-first-
delivery-by-drone-service-in-sydney/)

~~~
Cardeck1
Maybe the official world's first drone delivery. We tested this service years
ago but unfortunately the FCC regulations stopped us.

So the question "are we innovative enough to follow?" is somehow exaggerated.
We could've asked the same question 4-5 years ago. The better question would
be "When will the FCC adapt to innovation?"

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apompliano
Elaborate on your experience? I'd love to know what happened (any
conversations...) when you encountered the FCC regulations?

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Cardeck1
Well we wanted to build a similar project maybe more complex a few years ago
and we tested some standard drones and some custom made ones for it and then
we wanted to launch a service like this. We did some research about it and
there weren't any regulations for drones so we waited...and we are still
waiting...probably 2015 will be the year.

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tomphoolery
Tacocopter: It's real now!

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underwater
Delivery by self driving car makes more sense to me. Both are automated but a
car avoids weight, landing and FAA issues. Not to mention that our homes are
already configured for easy access to roadways.

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richardw
I've imagined a sub-car-sized delivery drone. Think one or two-wheeled drone
that arrived outside with your bread and milk. Impacts traffic less, you don't
need to be driven, makes smaller purchases more economical.

You could have a postbox-like port that it could put items into.

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savszymura
You mean like self-driving motorcycle? Why won't people just get on a bike,
and pick up small items themselves (+health benefits, sustainability)?

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richardw
Convenience, safety and lower costs. When you're cooking and you forgot some
ingredients, push a few buttons and 10 minutes later your order arrives, sans
humans and hassle. Like pizza delivery, but for everything and with fewer
costs. Lower costs mean smaller transactions become economical. No flying
bladed helicopters mean reduced risks and requirements for landing spots.

We have grocery delivery in my area, but it's such a hassle because I have to
be home within their time window and I have to book it a couple days in
advance. Why can't I just hit a "now" button and it arrives via drone, at 2am
if I so desire, when most delivery people are sleeping? Or in a rainstorm,
because the drone doesn't care?

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segmondy
Crap, it's not going to work until we solve energy usage. It's not free energy
or cheap to deliver by air.

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motyar
Need pizza? hack a drone. BTW great idea.

