Amazon Unveils Smaller Delivery Drone That Can Fly in Rain (bloomberg.com) 34
Amazon unveiled a new delivery drone on Thursday that's smaller, makes less noise and can fly through light rain, the latest effort to get the troubled and long-developing project off the ground. From a report: The company has spent nearly a decade pursuing founder Jeff Bezos' vision of autonomous drones that can deliver a package weighing less than 5 pounds as little as 30 minutes after a customer places an order. Beyond speeding delivery times, drones could significantly cut the cost of delivery which still mostly requires a person driving a vehicle to someone's home. The new drone, dubbed MK30, will go into service in 2024 and replace the existing MK27-2, the model that will be used to make deliveries in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, this year. The new unit has a longer range, can fly in a wider range of temperatures and has new safety features, Amazon said. It will be years before the Federal Aviation Administration approves commercial drone deliveries, although the agency is letting companies conduct test flights in increasingly populated areas so long as they don't pose significant safety risks.
I always wondered (Score:3)
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Well, you do have to wonder if people will start capturing and hacking Amazon delivery drones which in turn will cause Amazon to develop "defensive" safety features.
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Ten gauge? That's a goose gun, my great grandfather used to hunt them commercially.
Pet eagles (Score:2)
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Not a bird expert.
I don't believe eagles attack birds (or drones) on the wing. AFAIK territorial disputes are fought on the ground as well. We have bald eagles that overwinter with some ducks at the Keephills power plant cooling ponds. I have seen them grab rabbits, mice and nesting birds but not other birds in the air.
The drone would be an eagle target while on or close to the ground.
I believe there are some falcons that hunt and attack in the air. Probably require a variety of species to properly
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Not a bird expert. I don't believe eagles attack birds (or drones) on the wing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com].
https://coptrz.com/blog/birds-... [coptrz.com]
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Thanks! Interesting.
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There are several videos of eagles attacking drones in the air. That's what the GP was probably referring to. I'm not an eagle psychologist, but it might be territorial defense behavior rather than hunting.
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Cost cutting? (Score:3)
Wasn't there JUST a post about Amazon cost-cutting measures? Back in the early 2010's I had reasons to pay close attention to Drone/UAV news. I started to notice that every year, around black Friday, Amazon would post some nonsense about "delivery drones". The pattern continues....
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At least they admit there is a long road ahead before they get general approval and licensing from the FAA.
Right now it's a bit like 3D: you know someone is going to hype it again but for now anyways it just ain't happening.
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I think the key word is "hype". Acknowledgment of the FAA issues, is just what they can use, to conveniently hide the impracticality of it on a widespread scale. I don't really know what the game/strategy is that they're playing...it could just be a division within Amazon that has Bezos's fascination, but still has to try to justify their existence.
Drone delivery sounds like a neato sci-fi future...but when you start thinking about the practicality of every Amazon delivery truck being replaced with a doze
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Yeah, I am not sure it even stands up to a sound economic analysis when all costs are added in. Drones + spare drones + maintenance infrastructure + operation infrastructure+liability issues.
What do the drones do if there is a competitor with drones and they don't talk to each other? There doesn't have to be that many objects in the air before there are spatial interference issues. uh collisions. So that means flight standards for drones and collision avoidance systems. Frick it took ICAO and the
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Tree branches, powerlines, parked vehicles, over-excited dogs, etc. I've been trying to figure out how they'd do it, without some sort of "Amazon Drone Delivery" infrastructure installed at each and every receiving location...something that specs out clearances, safety parameters, etc...maybe some sort of standardized receptacle. I'm sure the marketing answer would be "AI will solve everything!".
Yeah, flying a drone from Point A to Point B is not the hard part.
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What seems obvious to me, but which I don't see anyone exploring, is drones for rural delivery. Why have a ton of truck and a driver to drop off a package in the middle of nowhere when an autonomous drone can do the same thing? It would seem to be a no-brainer. Zipline has been using fully autonomous fixed wing drones to deliver medical supplies in rural Africa for years.
https://www.flyzipline.com/ [flyzipline.com]
Sure, the cities have higher population densities, but the Airbnb hosts out in the boonies need new towels a
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My TV is already 3D. It's 1920 pixels wide, 1080 pixels tall and 1 pixel thick.
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We are pigs, ja?
Ja
Und zis is a blanket, ja?
Ja
So, zis is funny ja?
Ja!
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Delivery is a major cost centre for Amazon. They have to maintain a fleet of vehicles and pay drivers. If they could replace several vehicles with a single drone equipped one, and eliminate all the driving for the "last mile" part of the delivery process, it would save them a huge amount of money.
That's why they created the Amazon locker network. If the customer can be encouraged to do the last mile delivery part themselves it saves Amazon a significant amount of cash.
Stuff they will cut will be things like
New tech drives drone deliveries (Score:3)
Drone deliveries are powered mainly by smoke, mirrors, 3D renders and CGI.
The reality is that although there are quite a few drone-delivery trials underway right now, this is a solution looking for a problem. Or should I say, a solution that seeks to create a problem that the likes of Amazon and Google can then solve by way of delivering UTM (unmanned traffic mangement) systems.
Google Wing keeps boasting about how successful its trials have been... but that's only because they're not charging anyone for the service. Who's going to pay $10 to have a $5 coffee delivered by drone, because that's about what the cost will be if/when they actually start charging. Also note that Google requires its vendors to set up shop in its warehouse so it's not B2C delivery, it's B2G2C (business to Google to customer) delivery.
Google and Amazon are simply trying to convince governments that there is a need for the service they plan to use to make a small fortune -- that UTM. By positioning themselves as *the* UTM provider, Google/Amazon get to clip the ticket on every drone flight that takes place. The FAA even tried to get a "Networked Remote ID" system in place recently and that would have required drones to be configured so that they could not even take off without permission from the UTM. Pay to fly!
Remember that both Google and Amazon make their money from providing services and their drone delivery trials are just a means to an end with the goal of being *the* UTM that *every* drone owner/operator pays before each flight.
The reality is that drone delivery, as promised by Google, Amazon and a host of others, will *never* be economically viable. Sure, you *can* delivery pizza and coffee by drone but it can't be done at a price that will make it profitable. There's a lot more value in some kid on a moped or in a Honda Jazz on the pizza delivery run. One drone == 1 pizza but you can really load up a moped or Honda with a lot of food and amortize the cost of the trip over many, many deliveries -- all at minimum wage.
And... don't even get me started on the fraud that is "eVTOL air taxis" :-/
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Who's going to pay $10 to have a $5 coffee delivered by drone, because that's about what the cost will be if/when they actually start charging.
Made up number, or does that come from somewhere?
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Probably made up, but it's still the same problem as the free delivery we're getting right now. At the price Amazon is charging me annually, there's no way the profits they make outweight the shipping costs when going through third parties, even if it were only Canada Post (the low-cost option), but they're also sometimes using FedEx, Purolator, UPS... the math just doesn't add up, someone has got to be loosing money somewhere and it's not me since the stuff I order is, at most, the same price as the local
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My guess is it gets people to order stuff on Amazon that they would not have otherwise. If you know you have free fast shipping, you just go to Amazon and order it. If you don't, you might get it at a local store, or do comparison shopping to see where you're getting the best deal.
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Coffee? Maybe not... But a pizza-delivery could certainly be done by a drone, which will replace the driver. The driver, who is earning the increasing minimum wage (plus tips), breaking traffic law, polluting the air, and still only delivering within 30 minutes, what the drone may be able to bring in 20...
First of all, a drone could carry multiple pies — Ukrai [youtube.com]
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Why would drone delivery cost $10?
If we imagine a world where the technology is perfected, the main cost is the hardware and the electricity. The hardware/maintenance cost is amortized over the many thousands of deliveries the drone will make in its lifetime. The electricity cost is going to be fairly low per delivery, especially if the warehouse can produce its own with solar panels.
There will also be increased custom to offset the cost, because now people can order stuff and have it delivered in minutes i
Rain? Its now winter... (Score:2)
How well do they do in snow?
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They only need to add small flamethrowers on top, to convert that snow into rain.
Problem solved!
Under 30 Minutes? (Score:2)
They can't even meet their 2-day Prime shipping goal.
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They're suffering the same issues that everyone else is. Lack of staff and their subcontractors likewise are having difficulty getting people who want to get in/out of a truck 200 times during a shift all while fighting traffic for $12/hr.
Alternatives. (Score:2)
I'm finding that curbside pickup is a great option when you need it quickly. I'm finding local vendors to be as competitive as Amazon on price plus I don't have to wait two days.