
Wal-Mart seeks to test drones for home delivery - robandrews
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/27/us-wal-mart-stores-drones-exclusive-idUSKCN0SK2IQ20151027
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soylentcola
I'm curious because every battery operated "drone" I've seen has a pretty
limited range and flight time. Some of the higher-end multicopters built for
videography can carry a decent camera for maybe a half hour but it seems like
for deliveries, you'd be really limited in terms of weight carried and
distance. The thing still has to get back to the warehouse even if it manages
to land, drop the package, and fly back without hitting anything.

I say this as a big fan of hobbyist multicopters as well. The more automated
the solution, the less useful and feasible it seems to me. I guess you could
have someone at the "home base" watching a camera feed over LTE and maybe the
latency wouldn't be so bad but just in terms of logistics, I can't see how
some battery-powered DJI multicopter would be of much use outside of some edge
cases.

Still, I guess it's cool to see companies experimenting. Sometimes you learn
one thing by trying another. And on the surface it really does seem to make
more sense to fly a small, battery-powered craft to drop off small items
rather than having to drive a car back and forth across town to deliver a
t-shirt or a roll of TP.

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blktiger
According to the article, walmart wants to test a drone delivering a package
from a truck and then returning to the truck. If that is the case, then they
could use an automated truck to deliver packages to the general area first.
Then the drone would activate and deliver the package the last few feet to the
door. Presumably, if they did something like this the drones would have their
batteries charged while the truck was driving to each location.

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hyperpallium
In the various combinations, I wonder if there's a place for a mini-autonomous
van, too small for a person, but can carry a few packages.

The main truck stops regularly along a main road, and releases a few of these
tiny vans. The last few feet to the door (tricky to navigate, usually require
a "off-road" person) are by drone, as here.

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ape4
Wow, that could work. A self driving van. Of course, the drone would charge
from van.

How about the optimization: as the van is slowing down or looking for a
parking spot the drone takes off. Van begins unparking as the drone gets near.

Or in cities, the drone could take the subway.

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andykellr
I'm ok with quiet, unmanned, self-driving delivery trucks that automate the
package delivery process. I am not looking forward to delivery drones buzzing
around overhead becoming a normal occurrence.

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TillE
They won't. They're an absurd impracticality anywhere outside of Silicon
Valley (suburban homes, no weather ever), and completely unnecessary even in
those ideal conditions.

People are excited because they're cool toys, not because it actually solves a
problem.

~~~
Someone1234
Indeed. Even ignoring the total impracticality of them, you can also look at
just energy issues.

In order for drones to be cost effective, they need to stay in the air for
minimum the full trip out and back from the home, but if you look at the
location of most big warehouses (e.g. Amazon, Walmart) they're built outside
of big cities for cost reasons, so now you have to fly twice as far to deliver
packages onto the opposite side of the city.

So either the FAA will need to allow liquid fuel drones (gas, diesel, etc)
which have their own safety issues, or they'll need to be extremely large to
hold enough batteries. Plus the recharge time of batteries will also be an
issue.

I think weather and safety are their biggest detractors, but I think energy
problems are next on that list. All these companies keep doing is pumping out
press releases but without any specific details about how far their drones can
travel, under what conditions, etc.

I'd short sell anyone who announced they're going to invest in making this
work. It is fine as a pet project and to get some publicity, but if they start
throwing millions behind it, I'm betting against them and it.

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georgeloring
> but if you look at the location of most big warehouses (e.g. Amazon,
> Walmart) they're built outside of big cities for cost reasons, so now you
> have to fly twice as far to deliver packages onto the opposite side of the
> city.

90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Walmart. If they were able to
launch drones from their store locations it might address this concern.

~~~
Reedx
Wow, I assumed that was a guesstimate, but it's the actual stat! Crazy.

[http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-
statistics/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart-company-statistics/)

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khgvljhkb
Seems pretty inefficient to fly things, because the energy needed to keep it
floating in air. Although history tells us never to say never about
technology, it seems like having small autonomous robots on wheels. They could
travel on the sidewalks in cities, and also go the fastest way straight thru
forest (for the many who live outside of cities).

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mod
Flying has _got_ to be more efficient than traveling through a forest.

As a person who spends a lot of time in the forest, there's a ton of
impassable obstacles. Cliff faces, streams, briar patches, downed logs, etc.

The robot on the ground would spend more energy in the forest than the robot
in the sky.

I think being in the sky also helps keep them from being a target for looting.

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toxican
>I think being in the sky also helps keep them from being a target for
looting.

But then a target for shooting :)

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peter303
On a related note Camden Real Estate has suspended free holding delivery
packages for the 60K apartments it manages across the USA. They said they
stored a million packages at cost of 150K employee hours.

Since the younger computer savy apartment crowd tends to order more online, I
expect this issue to grow. Maybe apartments will compete on package amenities.

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JonnieCache
Walmart seeks to test press releases for free advertising.

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viach
They could also use cannons and shells with parachute for delivery in Silicon
Valley area. Well, looks like I missed another startup opportunity...

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rcurry
I'd certainly be willing to put up with a few broken windows in exchange for
the novelty of having my books arrive via field artillery.

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analognoise
This title would make a great Onion article, where 'drone' is a human being
forced to run to each delivery point for 7 dollars an hour.

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jonknee
Amazon must have them absolutely terrified.

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maxerickson
My guess would be that they wrote anything they could think of into the
application so that they can play around without doing another one.

Given their scale, a few million spent on this or that doesn't say much about
what they will actually end up doing.

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davidw
I'm imagining some of Walmart's clientele ordering stuff via drones in order
to have something moving to shoot at.

