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Amazon Drones

EastEnder said:
In theory yes, but not in practice. Small drones can only carry small things, and large drones capable of carrying significant cargo payloads aren't really a reality yet - and even if they were, the idea of something the weight of a small helicopter flying around unmanned may have just one or two regulatory issues to contend with... But perhaps the biggest show stopper is battery life. To delver to a rural location requires a drone that can keep flying for long durations - most long duration flying craft use combustion engines & fuel tanks, not batteries & electric motors. Realistically, you'd really need something like a turbine powered drone the size of a car to make rural deliveries viable. So what you'd basically be talking about is a dedicated helicopter equivalent craft used to deliver a DVD box set to a farmer's house. I suspect we'll be stuck with a man in a delivery truck for a long time yet. This is a gimmick, nothing more.
Click to expand...

tl:dr its for hipsters and rich arseholes
 
EastEnder said:
In theory yes, but not in practice. Small drones can only carry small things, and large drones capable of carrying significant cargo payloads aren't really a reality yet - and even if they were, the idea of something the weight of a small helicopter flying around unmanned may have just one or two regulatory issues to contend with... But perhaps the biggest show stopper is battery life. To delver to a rural location requires a drone that can keep flying for long durations - most long duration flying craft use combustion engines & fuel tanks, not batteries & electric motors. Realistically, you'd really need something like a turbine powered drone the size of a car to make rural deliveries viable. So what you'd basically be talking about is a dedicated helicopter equivalent craft used to deliver a DVD box set to a farmer's house. I suspect we'll be stuck with a man in a delivery truck for a long time yet. This is a gimmick, nothing more.
Click to expand...
With the next generation batteries they'll fly a lot further and be able to carry much greater weight.

It surprises me that so many of you don't see the unavoidability of drones turning up. We've seen mass market cars, computers, internet, mobile phones... technology changes to fix design issues. Drones are coming.
 
wheelie_bin said:
With the next generation batteries they'll fly a lot further and be able to carry much greater weight.

It surprises me that so many of you don't see the unavoidability of drones turning up. We've seen mass market cars, computers, internet, mobile phones... technology changes to fix design issues. Drones are coming.
Click to expand...

91sn32Q.jpg
 
wheelie_bin said:
With the next generation batteries they'll fly a lot further and be able to carry much greater weight.

It surprises me that so many of you don't see the unavoidability of drones turning up. We've seen mass market cars, computers, internet, mobile phones... technology changes to fix design issues. Drones are coming.
Click to expand...
It surprises me that you that you seem to confuse inevitability with "coming soon". Yes, I'm sure in the future we will see drones used for all manner of things, including parcel delivery. But it'll take a bit more than the next generation of batteries. It's decades away at best. The list of obstacles is simply huge, and only some of them are technical. Flying cars have been only a decade away, since about 1950... Still waiting for mine.

There are two separate issues here: The use of advanced technologies for delivering stuff & Amazon's promotion of drone delivery technology. I have great faith in technology, and am sure that many years from now things such as drone parcel delivery may be a practicality. However what Amazon are doing is generating publicity by exciting the public with futuristic notions. They're doing it for free advertising, and people are buying into it.
 
EastEnder said:
It surprises me that you that you seem to confuse inevitability with "coming soon". Yes, I'm sure in the future we will see drones used for all manner of things, including parcel delivery. But it'll take a bit more than the next generation of batteries. It's decades away at best. The list of obstacles is simply huge, and only some of them are technical. Flying cars have been only a decade away, since about 1950... Still waiting for mine.

There are two separate issues here: The use of advanced technologies for delivering stuff & Amazon's promotion of drone delivery technology. I have great faith in technology, and am sure that many years from now things such as drone parcel delivery may be a practicality. However what Amazon are doing is generating publicity by exciting the public with futuristic notions. They're doing it for free advertising, and people are buying into it.
Click to expand...
I wasn't suggesting it will be Amazon who will be the first. Drones are already being used commercially for certain purposes (here are 69 pages of companies with a commercial license: CAP1361: CAA approved commercial Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA) operators), the CAA is already looking at how to respond to small drone use, technology to stop and take over control of drones exists for security, the next generation batteries will go commercial at last in the next 2 years, etc etc. It doesn't look like decades to me, 5 years tops.
 
Options:
1) tagged delivery mat in back garden (if you have one)
2) tagged delivery mat outside upstairs window
3) delivery is in half an hour, so you get it when you're home; automated call and you click a button on the phone or say "yes" for the drone to put its parcel down when you're standing out front.
 
But I like to have a chat with the delivery person when my parcel arrives, you know, talking about the weather, how the day has gone etc etc..
How will I do that with a drone??
 
I thought that drones weren't allowed to fly over people or over towns, won't that limit who gets delivery a bit.
 
It's no effing good if the drone can't fly through the open window and hang clothes up, put perishables in the fridge, prezzies under the tree and so on. And why can't it have a little chat with you while it's doing that? "Ooh it was a bastard getting here, pardon my French, those eagles will be the death of me, 3-in-1 please if you've got it, ta, lovely"
 
wheelie_bin said:
With the next generation batteries they'll fly a lot further and be able to carry much greater weight.

It surprises me that so many of you don't see the unavoidability of drones turning up. We've seen mass market cars, computers, internet, mobile phones... technology changes to fix design issues. Drones are coming.
Click to expand...
"Next-gen batteries" are not a given. Battery tech has been stagnant for some time. Motor efficiency, maybe, but unlikely to see revolutionary gains there either.
 
ItWillNeverWork said:
Seems a bit inefficient to have a dedicated drone for each parcel when you could just stick a few hundred parcels in the back of a van.
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Ah, but what if the van itself were actually made up of hundreds of individual drones that could splinter off as it closed on the destination area?

optimus-prime-20090622044515697.jpg
 
mauvais said:
"Next-gen batteries" are not a given. Battery tech has been stagnant for some time. Motor efficiency, maybe, but unlikely to see revolutionary gains there either.
Click to expand...
Big ones: US agency reaches 'holy grail' of battery storage sought by Elon Musk and Gates,
Small ones: Technology | Oxis Energy,
Mass produced ones: Dyson to invest $1.4 billion creating next-generation batteries,
Wearable ones: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016...ld-power-next-generation-wearable-electronics.
 
wheelie_bin said:
Big ones: US agency reaches 'holy grail' of battery storage sought by Elon Musk and Gates,
Small ones: Technology | Oxis Energy,
Mass produced ones: Dyson to invest $1.4 billion creating next-generation batteries,
Wearable ones: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016...ld-power-next-generation-wearable-electronics.
Click to expand...
I don't doubt something will happen eventually. But assigning any value to it within a specific timeframe is asking for trouble. It's been about a decade if not more with basically no progress. There's a lot at stake so it's not like Samsung etc are being lazy.
 
If fully automated drones deliver anything for consumer mainstream purposes, they will bring it on wheels not flying.
 
I call bollocks to the whole idea ...

It ain't going to happen in the next 5-10 years ..

Posties your jobs are safe!
 
I'm a delivery driver. My boss thought it was hilarious yesterday to say he's going to replace me with a drone.
 
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