
Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target - spking
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/26/volans-i-drones-can-haul-cargo-for-500-miles-and-land-on-a-moving-ship.html
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haberman
What 20 pound load could have saved the Titanic? Why wouldn't such a
miraculous tool or part have been brought aboard already as a precaution?

~~~
Broken_Hippo
At the time, probably nothing. At best they could have sent out life jackets
or something similar, though I don't know how much they weighed at the time.

But if that happened today, we could minimally start getting inflatable
lifeboats out to the people, supplementing afterwards with blankets for heat,
life preservers, food, and so on. If you kept some on the ship in a slightly
similar tragedy, the drones could offship as the sinking is happening and then
immediately deliver goods to survivors. This last option seems more useful.

~~~
haser_au
[https://www.amazon.com/Sevylor-Colossus-2-Person-
Inflatable-...](https://www.amazon.com/Sevylor-Colossus-2-Person-Inflatable-
Boat/dp/B0032GT9X8)

Weight: 9.5 pounds each.

They're not for long term use, but it would have kept people out of the water
until proper rescue boats arrived.

Obviously these didn't exist back in 1912, but then again, neither did these
drones.

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daveguy
Technology like this is why The Wall is a waste of money when it comes to
deterring drug trafficking.

~~~
ShorsHammer
Jamming drones is easier than you think, the new battleground will be
autonomous flying to avoid trivial radio/gps jamming. MIT has open source code
for this already.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qah8oIzCwk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qah8oIzCwk)

[https://github.com/andybarry/flight](https://github.com/andybarry/flight)

~~~
a012
I'm no expert but how autonomous works if there's no positioning methods
involved? (To avoid GPS/GLONASS,... Jamming)

~~~
tfolbrecht
Surprised nobodies mentioned celestial sensors.

Celestial navigation by imaging the sky, and combining that data with a clock
and compass.

~~~
varjag
Very unreliable for ground based systems.

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jmickey
Aerones have developed a drone that can haul a human -
[https://www.aerones.com/eng/news/?text_id=18](https://www.aerones.com/eng/news/?text_id=18)

~~~
asynchronous13
so did i :-) We logged a lot of hours with a person onboard who didn't touch
the controls.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7SjOOuTct0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7SjOOuTct0)

~~~
Hasz
That's really neat. It looks like the company is defunct -- what happened?

~~~
asynchronous13
Yeah, some founder conflicts right when things were getting good. I've been
able to leverage the experience to keep doing cool things though :-)

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SCAQTony
Fine and dandy when flying over a desert but when the drone meets the city and
an "autopilot" failure occurs over a freeway/highway/street or someone's head
the consequences will be unforgivable.

~~~
candiodari
I don't get that. Before the sun rises tomorrow, for the US alone, 32
Americans will make a mistake with their car that kills someone (potentially,
but unlikely, themselves, 2 will kill themselves, 29 will kill someone else,
one will kill 2 others, for a total of 33 deaths). At the same time, a further
2000 Americans will injure someone with a car, and another 3000 will cause
severe (I believe > 1000$) property damage, mostly on cars.

That's on 260 million cars, or an accident rate of something like 1.3% on a
yearly basis (unfortunately, this masks the fact that ~70% of those accidents
are done by < 10% of drivers. So plenty of people are, frankly, just plain
insane and have double digit accident rates).

That, we find perfectly acceptable. Drivers that crash cars about once a year
are not that rare. And it's not like these people are the ones having minor
accidents. Maybe it's just me but ... weird how people's sense of risks work.

~~~
narag
Don't you have a score system? It has a noticeable effect, that probably
happens by taking the insane drivers off the road.

You start with ten points that you lose with infractions, more points for more
serious ones. If you run out of points, you don't drive or face jail.

~~~
astura
It plain just doesn't work (as implemented.)

First off, it is much too lenient and the points drop off your record much too
quickly. Most infractions can be reduced in court and many crashes (especially
single car crashes) don't result in infractions unless they are serious.

Secondly, those people will just drive unlicensed anyway, so it really doesn't
matter if we take their license away or put them in jail for a month, they
already don't follow the rules and don't give a shit. There's nothing
physically preventing someone unlicensed, uninsured, or unfit to drive from
climbing into an vehicle, starting the engine, and driving on public roads.
The only thing that can deter them is getting arrested after the fact, but
that's pretty rare.

My dad lost his licence years ago (for good reason) and a judge has denied his
application to get it reinstated many times (for good reason). He still drives
all the time and still crashes his truck fairly regularly. Sure, he gets
arrested once in a while, but that doesn't stop him.

~~~
narag
The difference seems to be that here in Spain you are seldom sentenced to less
than two years. Jail, when you finally get there, is a serious matter. And of
course you can't drive in prison so problem solved :)

Points and permit revoking are the way to fast-track what otherwise would be
administrative sanctions, clustering them to build a criminal case.

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ryanmarsh
My first thought was “oh they built a bomber”. Curious if drones with
capabilities like this will start getting export restrictions.

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merinowool
If I was a drug lord, this is something I would invest my money to.

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Tepix
Once this (cool) tech is commonplace (they already have competitors) these
airborne drones will be a logistical and regulatory nightmare.

~~~
avoutthere
Nah, once there are established rules about which classes of aircraft use
which altitudes, corridors, etc, it will be just like private aviation
operating in the same sky as commercial airlines.

~~~
Tepix
But their numbers could be so much greater!

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nordsieck
Of all the things I think this will really impact, I think food delivery and
fresh ingredient delivery will be near the top of the list.

~~~
onion2k
It's a little sad that people's first thoughts about tech like this is "It can
bring me goods faster than FedEx!" That's such a trivial thing to use it for.

Emergency deliveries in rural areas are where this will be most useful.
Getting medicine and mechanical parts to remote places during crisises is
_hard_.

~~~
sonnyblarney
I think the simple economics of it would completely rule out this being used
for 'fresh groceries' ... or rather only to people who want to pay 10x for
their groceries.

My bet: the military/security/coast guard, for far off service posts (like
when they put hydro wires way out in the middle of nowhere), offshore Oil, and
for very specific things (i.e. medical equipment) for remote communities.

~~~
asynchronous13
I agree with you that deliveries to offshore oil and specific functions will
be very practical.

However, not so sure I agree that economics will prevent 'fresh grocery'
delivery. It will be different vehicles for sure, but the operating costs of a
small electric vehicle with 5-10lb payload can be very low (cents/hour). I
doubt there's going to be direct farm-to-house deliveries, but instead
something that can augment the current transportation infrastructure. Imagine
a national grocery chain adopts small electric drones for last-mile delivery.
They leverage existing shipping network in place to keep stores stocked, and
just send drone deliveries from store-to-house. Actual flight cost for one
round-trip store-to-house is going to be pennies.

~~~
ams6110
Marginal flight cost might be pennies, but they will also have to account for
the cost of the drones, maintenance, repair, replacement, and liability for
damages that they do.

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CaptainJustin
This reminds me of Passerine Aircraft.

I believe they are also attempting to take advantage of runway-less takeoff
and fixed-wing flight (more efficient than four fans pressing down).
[https://passerineaircraft.com/](https://passerineaircraft.com/)

Am I correct in understanding that Volans-i has two propulsion systems?

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tim333
Looks like cool tech. I wonder if they could do the same for a regular
aircraft - put electrically driven propellers to lift it off the ground for a
few seconds while it accelerates to above stall speed.

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arvind3199
Admirable, sets a timeline for instant delivery systems

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cyrux004
It makes me happy to see that people are venturing out and building something
that takes longer and has a higher failure rate that web apps/software.

~~~
icelancer
The man who gets the most press in the tech community is trying to launch
rockets to Mars and build electric supercars and networks that cost ludicrous
amounts of money. Whether you think these ideas are any good or not, people
are doing large things in our society. It ain't all web apps.

~~~
djsumdog
He did start with web apps though (PayPal).

~~~
tim333
Well, zip2 then x.com then PayPal. Also sold some program when he was 12 pre
the web. Here's some video of him after the zip2 sale
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHKT3yxYvDQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHKT3yxYvDQ)

~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
That was adorable.

Coincidentally he completely totaled that car on Sand Hill Road with Peter
Thiel on a trip to a meeting at Sequoia Capital[0].

[0] [https://www.inverse.com/article/26369-elon-musk-peter-
thiel-...](https://www.inverse.com/article/26369-elon-musk-peter-thiel-story-
mclaren-f1-paypal-tesla)

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alkonaut
So basically every terror org on the planet have crude off the shelf 500mile
cruise missiles now.

~~~
Tepix
They've had this for 15 years already, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Simpson_(blogger)#DIY_Cr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Simpson_\(blogger\)#DIY_Cruise_Missile)

~~~
alkonaut
Fair, but that's built with off the shelf _parts_ , not an off the shelf
device (He didn't actually mass produce it I assume?). In the article is a
device you can unpack from the store, and then have it go 500 miles with 20lb
bomb within minutes. I find more frightening than the fact that it's possible
with the right skills to _build_ something like it.

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orf
20 pounds = 9kg, for the rest of the world.

~~~
merinowool
If that is cocaine, then it is almost $1m of cargo.

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ttul
“Both have graduate degrees from Stanford, which is where they met.”

So, basically the silver spoon of Silicon Valley. These guys have a shot!

