Parcel Delivery by UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle)

"son_of_flubber" wrote in message
...
http://qz.com/120654/china-could-bec...very-by-drone/

The drones in those pictures generally have a very short duration; probably
in the order of 20 to 30 minutes. I don't see them doing much remote
delivery.
--
Jim in NC


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On Monday, December 2, 2013 5:21:47 PM UTC-5, Morgans wrote:

The drones in those pictures generally have a very short duration; probably
in the order of 20 to 30 minutes. I don't see them doing much remote
delivery.

First of all, the UAVs need to be autonomous (no human pilot).
Now imagine a FedEx truck driving slowly down your suburban street with six UAVs departing and returning to the rooftop flight deck (complete with autonomous parcel loading robots and recharging stations.) Jetsons!

On Tuesday, December 3, 2013 12:47:28 AM UTC, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Monday, December 2, 2013 5:21:47 PM UTC-5, Morgans wrote:



The drones in those pictures generally have a very short duration; probably

in the order of 20 to 30 minutes. I don't see them doing much remote

delivery.



First of all, the UAVs need to be autonomous (no human pilot).

Now imagine a FedEx truck driving slowly down your suburban street with six UAVs departing and returning to the rooftop flight deck (complete with autonomous parcel loading robots and recharging stations.) Jetsons!

Will they ring the doorbell and then fly away before you can get there? If not they will never replace delivery drivers.

John Galloway

On Mon, 2 Dec 2013 17:21:47 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote:


"son_of_flubber" wrote in message
...
http://qz.com/120654/china-could-bec...very-by-drone/

The drones in those pictures generally have a very short duration; probably
in the order of 20 to 30 minutes. I don't see them doing much remote
delivery.
The drone performance was quite adequate to the task at hand, and it's
a smart move.

What you saw is Amazon getting its name all over newspapers, TV
screens and blogs in the middle of the holiday shopping season. They
paid the cost of producing and airing a commercial; the rest comes at
no additional charge!

As another poster suggests, the system demonstrated would cause a
historic business boom for pediatric and veterinary hospitals.

Accidents and lawsuits would definitely give these big businesses a
problem. But big business usually finds ways to cope and get its
way if there is enough profit. E g air liner crashes and the cost of
safety measures versus the often cheaper move of paying the
litigation or its insurance costs.
IMHO what might well kill it off is the profit motive itself in other
parts of the economy. I think there would be enough people who
would hijack and steal these drones and it would be very difficult to
prevent or catch them. The scenario now gets horrific. The drones
would become heavily armed and fight off intruders. So we dont
need Skynet to nuke us into near oblivion - the oblivious
consumers would hardly notice terminators evolving and new
forms of gang war and anti drone vigilantes becoming the norm
and topics of documentaries and movies.
Bring back Marvin the Paranoid Android.

On Sunday, December 8, 2013 3:59:57 AM UTC-7, Ray Swinfield wrote:
Accidents and lawsuits would definitely give these big businesses a

problem. But big business usually finds ways to cope and get its

way if there is enough profit. E g air liner crashes and the cost of

safety measures versus the often cheaper move of paying the

litigation or its insurance costs.

IMHO what might well kill it off is the profit motive itself in other

parts of the economy. I think there would be enough people who

would hijack and steal these drones and it would be very difficult to

prevent or catch them. The scenario now gets horrific. The drones

would become heavily armed and fight off intruders. So we dont

need Skynet to nuke us into near oblivion - the oblivious

consumers would hardly notice terminators evolving and new

forms of gang war and anti drone vigilantes becoming the norm

and topics of documentaries and movies.

Bring back Marvin the Paranoid Android.

http://samy.pl/skyjack/

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor wind above 10 knots nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

On Sunday, December 8, 2013 10:47:00 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor wind above 10 knots nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Ha. Yep. I expect that small UAVs will eventually have liquid fuel engines.. The electric motors make it cheap and relatively safe to prototype the hardware and software. That makes it fertile ground for a generation of young people and hobbyists to play and innovate. I wonder what the "horse people" said about those geeky Wright brothers?