
Mercedes-Benz conducting the biggest test using drones to ship everyday items - flinner
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-28/mercedes-plans-more-drone-deliveries-after-100-perfect-flights
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michrassena
I can imagine drone delivery's an effective solution to the last mile problem
for automated delivery? Have a self-driving truck navigate through a
neighborhood, the drone takes off with the package and delivers it to the
doorstep and returns to the truck. The truck can continue driving around as
drones rejoin it down the road.

Now we have both pieces of the equation: how to get to the house without
paying a driver, and how to get to the porch without paying someone to walk
and carry.

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QAPereo
How many jobs would that “repurpose” in delivery if you add a automated truck?
Energy and materials to build and maintain drone fleets, noise, all seem like
issues, since this is added on to the existing truck.

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michrassena
You make a good point. Would those steps actually lead to cost savings?
Driving a truck and delivering packages requires less specialized skills than
maintaining the fleet. How do delivery companies handle maintenance on their
human-driven trucks? It is contracted out? If the company can run three trucks
per staff member vs. one per truck, wouldn't the savings be worth it? Are they
going to pay this new staff member 3 times as much as a driver?

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account0099099
What is this going to sound like when cities have hundreds of whining drones
flying around? Are we just going to have to get used to the noise pollution
from the drones so people can get their coffee delivered faster?

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simplyinfinity
What is this going to sound like when cities have hundreds of whining cars
driving around? Are we just going to have to get used to the noise pollution
from the cars so people can get their coffee delivered faster?

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This actually might lower the delivery times and delivery cars on the road
which is a good thing! Less traffic, less air pollution, faster delivery
times, less jobs (not a good thing tho).

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mikeash
It's true that we already deal with annoying vehicular noise, but that's
hardly an argument in favor of repeating the same mistakes.

I'm not convinced it would be anything like a net gain. I'm not a fan of car
noise, but a delivery truck carrying hundreds of packages makes less noise
than a drone too small to even carry one of them.

Hopefully it's possible to make these things much quieter....

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d0lph
True, but imagine if these drones handled food/grocery/retail delivery, the
amount of cars on the road would drop immensely. As long as the tradeoff is 1
car -> 1 drone.

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mikeash
Trading off one car for one drone would result in a massive increase in noise.
To be a win, you'd need each drone to replace hundreds or thousands of cars,
and right now the equation is the other way around.

Cars are getting quieter all the time, too. Tire noise already dominates for
most vehicles at city speeds, and EVs improve the picture even further. Diesel
trucks are often pretty noise, but they're mild compared to a drone, and
electric trucks will drastically cut down on noise.

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semi-extrinsic
Not to mention in most places, highways (the places where cars make the most
noise) are far away or acoustically shielded from where there are people.

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FLUX-YOU
Who had the bright idea to put a drone video up top that has nothing to do
with Mercedes? The company in the video isn't even mentioned in the article.

Stay weird, Bloomberg.

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Animats
That's the reverse of Mercedes' previous robot delivery scheme. They did a
test with Starship Technologies delivery robots, where a van was filled up
with the robots, it went somewhere, and the robots fanned out to deliver
things. That would make sense for dense areas like apartment buildings and
offices, once you get doors and elevators to cooperate.

This new test delivers stuff by drone from a distribution center to the vans,
which then make local deliveries with humans. That seems backwards. The drones
are doing the heavy lifting, something trucks do very well.

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totally
What's the failure mode for quadcopters, can these land safely with loss of
one motor? Definition of "safely" would ideally consider human casualties.

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semi-extrinsic
Well, this happened a couple of years ago in a World Cup skiing event.

[https://youtu.be/xeviAWB0i4Y](https://youtu.be/xeviAWB0i4Y)

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totally
That's an incredible link, thanks for that.

That someone would be skiing, whatever, 100 miles per hour and might then die
because of a falling electronic lawnmower really highlights seen vs unseen
risks.

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theDoug
Biggest seems to be a superlative with no basis. Perhaps _its_ biggest test?

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fenwick67
All this drone delivery stuff is theatre until they start building obstacle
detection and avoidance into them. Yes, drones can take off from point A, then
fly up, over to point B, and land. We already knew this.

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oh_sigh
Even modern consumer drones have obstacle detection and avoidance built in

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PeachPlum
Last mile is best served on foot, not by vehicle.

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goldfeld
People wonder why the bees are gone or why it's gonna be a total wasteland for
life in no time.

