OT-Droneing

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...ime-air-drone/

Per :

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...ime-air-drone/

Can anybody imagine the racket those things would make in an area where
there are a lot of them operating?
--
Pete Cresswell

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

Pete, drones are silent.

racket is the NYS Border Patrol shooting at the drones.

On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:35:01 -0500, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per :

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...ime-air-drone/

Can anybody imagine the racket those things would make in an area where
there are a lot of them operating?

Nothing a .22 couldn't solve. If Amazon delivered a package that way
to my house, the octocopter would probably crash into the 150ft trees,
or if it made it to the ground, I would grab the octocopter and
reprogram it for my own purposes. I'm probably not quick enough to
grab it before it takes off again, but the local dogs will certainly
do it for me. Dropping the package from altitude doesn't seem like a
great idea. Maybe a funnel and chute mounted on the roof?

Has anyone at Amazon actually thought about how this would really work
among the GUM (great unwashed masses)? If the rough calculations in
the article are approximately correct, each octocopter will need to
recharge between deliveries, making the cycle time rather long.

Prediction: The USPS will soon have a similar idea for letter
delivery as a cost saving measure.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 12/3/2013 11:32 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:35:01 -0500, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per :

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...ime-air-drone/

Can anybody imagine the racket those things would make in an area where
there are a lot of them operating?

Nothing a .22 couldn't solve. If Amazon delivered a package that way
to my house, the octocopter would probably crash into the 150ft trees,
or if it made it to the ground, I would grab the octocopter and
reprogram it for my own purposes. I'm probably not quick enough to
grab it before it takes off again, but the local dogs will certainly
do it for me. Dropping the package from altitude doesn't seem like a
great idea. Maybe a funnel and chute mounted on the roof?

Has anyone at Amazon actually thought about how this would really work
among the GUM (great unwashed masses)? If the rough calculations in
the article are approximately correct, each octocopter will need to
recharge between deliveries, making the cycle time rather long.

Prediction: The USPS will soon have a similar idea for letter
delivery as a cost saving measure.


Wouldn't they just cycle units between charge and run over a
larger fleet? Hardware is cheap, payroll is expensive.

Avoiding wires, trees and buildings is established
technology now. And you get mostly direct-line travel which
has benefits I would assume. Drones don't mind early and
late home delivery either which is a burden for drivers. So
far, so good, maybe.

I thought about delivery confirmation, maybe solved with
face recognition camera. A robot calls to say the drone is
at the door; open it, receive parcel. Thought about
inclement weather, probably addressed with sealed plastic
wrappers. Service limits would preclude delicate glass
things, flammable liquids, eggs and tomatoes probably. These
are workable areas all.

Then I thought about all the bonehead things your average
citizen does to subways, rental cars, public washrooms etc
and decided this may be an impractical idea given the
citizenry . Which doesn't even bring up our predilection for
large often specious legal claims.

I wish them well. Even in failure we'll all learn something.


--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:35:01 -0500
"(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Per :

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...ime-air-drone/

Can anybody imagine the racket those things would make in an area where
there are a lot of them operating?

The majority of the racket would be them crashing into each other if
there are a lot of them.

The Associate Professor of Physics at Southeastern Louisiana University
could have saved himself some calculation time by looking at what is on
the market already. The payload and endurance are already commercially
available, at a cost of a few tens of thousands (quid or bucks, makes no
difference here). Control, yes, if you know the GPS co-ordinates of
where it's going it can get very close. They can land themselves within
1 metre *provided* the GPS signal is good all the way to the ground.
If it's not, or if there are any home Wi-Fi installations blocking the
control signals at the target end then crashes are going to be frequent.
Unless Amazon can carve themselves a dedicated hole in the radio
bands and no-one comes along to steal it (such as the CB-ers if
they're still around).

Shooting them down isn't going to be easy, they are very hard to see
even with the controller in your hand, and judging range is very tricky.
(As an exercise we try to land ours on a declared spot about 50m away.
And rarely get within 5m of the spot. That's knowing where it is and
controlling the direction it's flying in.)

What else? It's going to have to fly high enough to be clear of all
ground obstacles, but low enough that the aviation authorities consider
it out of their airspace. That's less than 400ft above ground in the
UK. OK, so add a sonar altimeter, at a price. The value of the extra
weight and the increased battery capacity to power the device is more
expensive than the monetary cost.


Technically it's quite do-able to get the thing hovering at 390ft above
the delivery point. Getting it down in one piece where the recipient
can retrieve the payload is the hard part. And having something with
the value of a UPS van delivering just one small package an hour. If
Jeff's dogs don't get it....



Mike

mail order tapired

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6...2c78970b-800wi

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...core-says.html