Commercial drones: Opinions?

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

Google just bought up the robotic defense contractor Boston Dynamics.

It's their eight purchase of a robotics firm over the past six months.

This could be the start of seeing robots much more often in our daily lives or just another tech bubble, time will tell.

...........Well ether that or Amazon and Google are in an arms race.

Actally the ceo of google was in the military.. You could soon see security robots in cities with real guns

[Galacticruler]

I'm fine with drones used for delivery of packages to US homes.

The US government and the FAA, however, are not. Yes, thats right, its ILLIGAL to fly RC drones or even AI drones above 10ft from the ground, after that its technically "US Airspace" and falls under their jurisdiction.

I'd like to see little tracked or wheeled drones instead of arborne ones, it would turn out much better, and the paths could be less noticeable.

[Camacha]

Actually its easier in real life to do docking in mid-air. Its just that ksp isn't realistic.

Can you explain yourself? I think doing this in reality is not trivial, if you actually do all the building and coding yourself like I do in KSP.

[InfinityArch]

@Camacha: Mid-air refueling. While it's hardly a trivial matter, the ability for both craft to maneuver does wonders.

[Themohawkninja]

No people = less weight

less weight = more mileage

more mileage = lower fuel costs

lower fuel costs = more cost efficient

Not to mention no putting people in harms way, and that you can make them orders of magnitude smaller than manned drones.

There's nothing much against them that doesn't have some equivalent human error.

Plus, have you guys seen what a quadcopter, some cameras, and a lot of math can do?

[jwenting]

I'm fine with drones used for delivery of packages to US homes.

The US government and the FAA, however, are not. Yes, thats right, its ILLIGAL to fly RC drones or even AI drones above 10ft from the ground, after that its technically "US Airspace" and falls under their jurisdiction.

technically it's not, it's privately owned most of it but the government has usurped power over it "for the common good" from ground level all the way up to the edge of space.

Now, I can understand that in part for air traffic control and safety purposes, but if it means you can't fly that RC helicopter you bought in your back yard (which in many places is indeed illegal), where no aircraft is ever going to crash into it, that's just silly.

[WestAir]

If ATC Next Gen ever gets going, I'm hoping these drones will be able to utilize ADS-B Out. The system apparently allows every other pilot with the same equipment to see other aircraft's precise location in real time. Even if they can't be compliant with NextGen's equipment [Which is hard to imagine, since an ADS-B system is practically an upgraded Mode-S with a GPS], it would be fairly easy to ensure that commercial drones avoid flying into airspace covered by published SIDs and STARs, and avoid flying over VORs or other traffic-heavy corridors. Nothing is fool-proof, but I'd trust a drone to be collision-smart a lot more than I'd trust a C172 with two fuzzy radios, a transponder built in 1972, and a student pilot asking where the bottom of Class-B airspace is so he can fly under it.

Edited December 26, 2013 by WestAir
Spelling.

[Savage117]

Honestly I think people are over complicating some of these issues. I will agree criminal activities are going to happen when it comes to the drones, but the question is, is it any worse then the criminal activities performed on the current delivery methods? For example: For package delivery, if I had the know how, I could hack into the current system and change the address of a specific delivery to an address of my choice, same as hacking a drone to come to an address of my choice.

If theft of the drone, or its package, is a possible problem, give it some sort of locating system that's tracked in real time, its likely to already have such a system for navigation purposes. You would of course make it hard to disable, to give the authorities some time to get to it before its deactivated.

To address the problem of pets or small children approaching or messing with the drone in some way. Add some sort of proximity warning device, say it emits a painfully loud sound if someone comes too close while its landed, and it emits an equally painful sound at another frequency that only animals respond to. The one issue with this is you couldn't have an acknowledgment system attached to the drone, so the customer would have to have another way of accepting the delivery and sending the drone back to base. Or the drone just delivers the package and leaves, no acknowledgment needed. This would also discourage theft of the drone, about as much as a car alarm discourages car thieves.

I saw something on this on the Philip DeFranco show, I think, and he had a little blurb about this that I haven't seen elsewhere. The drones will be designed with a fail safe, so that they will land safely should some problem in their systems occur or the drone is damaged in some way. This is of course assuming the damage isn't so severe that it can't land safety. But honestly this is a problem with current delivery methods as well, the driver of the vehicle could be drunk, or the vehicle has some sort of catastrophic failure that causes a crash, in the case of the delivery vehicle damages will be much worse and possibly lethal to driver and pedestrian alike. While a drone falling from the sky would probably be less dangerous and less harmful to property and people, it would certainly be less lethal, its smaller, it masses less, and it can react faster and more accurately to sudden changes in its environment.

To address the flight regulations, I don't think that would be too hard, if you are flying a plane low enough to hit one of these while its on a delivery run, you are flying too low, they are not going to have a very high flight ceiling and I would think they would fly no higher than they have to, to avoid buildings and such. In other words they would very likely occupy a place in the air below the current flight lanes, completely negating the need for air traffic avoidance systems. And they would be programed to avoid no fly zones like airports and military bases and such. Helicopters might be a problem though, perhaps a rudimentary flight traffic avoidance system may be needed.

I think this is a great idea, although it would be costly at first, but cheaper all around than a delivery truck. Fuel, maintenance costs, and cost of the drone itself would probably still be way cheaper than a truck, plus you don't have to pay it a salary. Plus it would take pressure off the delivery drivers by taking all the small item deliveries, delivery drivers would only be needed to deliver the packages a drone can't. It would create jobs, and as far as I can tell it won't replace anyone’s job, unless we create one that can carry the large packages.

I take that back it might replace pizza drivers, that's unfortunate. But a robot won't swipe a slice of your pie on the way to your house, or beg for a tip.

I have more but it's late and this post is rather long. Happy holidays everyone.