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Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

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Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#91

Post by mnglkhn2 »

mapt wrote: post #22

Here's what I think is more likely: A small regional airport is taken over by Amazon. They build hangars and warehouses onsite. It's ramped up to land and fly a big turbine-powered mothership every five minutes. The warehouse dispatches packages to stacks of delivery drones like the one pictured in the video. The mothership loads the delivery drones in order. The motherships take off regularly, and then as the mother…

I believe your scenarios (especially the "truck dispenser") address the market Amazon has in mind: the suburbia.

If you notice, both video examples show the drone delivering at a house. It seems obvious that an urban setting is difficult to address. And actually delivery costs are higher in the suburbs, due to population spread, than in the cities.

The interesting thing is how do UPS/FedEx/USPS feel about this, considering that Amazon is aiming to "evolve" their business model? We should soon hear about FedEx/UPS trying to do drone delivery. But this is not only logistics but also a lot of other software and I think Amazon might be better suited for it.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#92

Post by [deleted] »

mapt wrote: post #22

Here's what I think is more likely: A small regional airport is taken over by Amazon. They build hangars and warehouses onsite. It's ramped up to land and fly a big turbine-powered mothership every five minutes. The warehouse dispatches packages to stacks of delivery drones like the one pictured in the video. The mothership loads the delivery drones in order. The motherships take off regularly, and then as the mother…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#93

Post by jaxomlotus »

dangson wrote: post #41
btgeekboy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this "mess with your neighbor's life"? I wouldn't see this being a huge concern unless you happened to place 4 or 5 orders a day.

I think the poster was implying that you trick the drone into delivering your neighbor's package into your backyard by putting the card out even when you're not expecting a delivery.

I'm betting that by the time this is real (and assuming the shown implementation is what actually goes live), everyone will have their own personal QR code so there will be no mistakes.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#95

Post by mapt »

bigiain wrote: post #76
DasIch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drone could hover over the sidewalk in front of a building, you could signal it with your smartphone similar to how the sign is used in the first video. The drone could then drop the package or it could have a mechanism that allows you to pull the package from the drone while it's in the air above you.

Heh - have you ever been close to a quadcopter capable of carrying a 2lb payload for 20+ minutes? It's pretty much 4 carbon fibre lawnmower blades thrashing around in the air. I'm not getting anywhere near close enough to remove a payload from one while it's attempting to keep a stationary hover in an area of poor gps reception. I'm reasonably careless with my little quads (~350g with 5 inch plastic props spun by 220…

You can mitigate this a lot with more props of shorter diameter moving slower, and grilles to serve as prop cages, at the expense of somewhat lower flight efficiency.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#96

Post by keville »

criddell wrote: post #88
nine_k wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just hooliganism: there is real booty to collect. I suppose the flying altitude should be outside te air gun range, with descent right naivete landing spot.

You can also collect booty from parked UPS and FedEx trucks.

In San Francisco, at least, the trucks' cargo areas are locked and reasonably well-secured when the vehicle is not attended, to reduce the opportunity for exactly this crime. I'm sure there are areas where sniping a few boxes from a truck as the driver is otherwise occupied is not so difficult, but that's not something one could expect to get away with repeatedly.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#97

Post by toyg »

blazespin wrote: post #28
mapt wrote: post #22

Here's what I think is more likely: A small regional airport is taken over by Amazon. They build hangars and warehouses onsite. It's ramped up to land and fly a big turbine-powered mothership every five minutes. The warehouse dispatches packages to stacks of delivery drones like the one pictured in the video. The mothership loads the delivery drones in order. The motherships take off regularly, and then as the mother…

I agree with the last one, but ground delivery robots would make way more sense. I don't know about 30-60 minutes, however. The soccer shoe emergency can't really be that big of a market. Emergency medicine by drone delivery I get, but the reason people go shopping nowadays is either grocery or an excuse to get out of the house. Drones are never going to eliminate the excuse to get out of the house factor.

One word (well, acronym): DIY. Middle-class suburban dad is trying to fix the newly-bought house, but he's constantly running out of the right size of screws and/or stuff he didn't even know he needed. At the moment that scenario results in a a lot of trips to the hardware store, but cheap 60-minute deliveries would change it for the better.

Neonatal supplies, cleaning supplies, you name it -- the sort of thing you really don't want to shop for, it's bulky and you never know if you're getting the right brand: if you could order it from a bookmark, knowing you'll have it in 60 minutes, then the actual shopping experience would become much more fun, because you can actually pay attention only to the funky meals you'll cook and the new stuff you can try.

And of course, geeks would jump on this like crazy -- 60-minute deliveries for new hard disks, mice, games and any other soho/gaming equipment? I would sign in blood ink right now.

I have my doubts the drone model can scale (for example, in Manchester, UK today we had 80mph gale winds...), but it's an awesome idea that would definitely change retail.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#98

Post by shiftpgdn »

mapt wrote: post #90
hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this will be limited to urban areas, like all of Amazon's premium delivery options. 30 minutes of flight time at 30 mph means you could cover the entire city of Houston (the largest city by area in the U.S.) with about 4 warehouses. I think you're much better off trying to increase the range of your drones than using carriers because your coverage area is quadratic with your drones' range but linear with yo…

Drones have got to get back in addition to getting to the target, and you only get 30 minutes if most/all of your payload is dedicated to battery. The drone has a fairly short range while fully loaded, and a lot longer range while empty.

86% of Amazon's deliveries are under 5lbs AND a glider style drone has way longer flight times than a traditional quad/octocopter.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#99

Post by toyg »

jaxomlotus wrote: post #93
dangson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the poster was implying that you trick the drone into delivering your neighbor's package into your backyard by putting the card out even when you're not expecting a delivery.

I'm betting that by the time this is real (and assuming the shown implementation is what actually goes live), everyone will have their own personal QR code so there will be no mistakes.

Take a pic of your neighbour's QR, print a copy, profit.

Re: Amazon Shows Off New Prime Air Drone with Hybrid Design

#100

Post by Chathamization »

krschultz wrote: post #37

Cue Amazon's PR firm trying to win 'cyber-monday'. Whether or not Amazon ever delivers packages with drones, the ROI on the drone R&D is massive simply based on how much attention it draws each year on cyber monday.

I like the way they make it sound like the only thing stopping drone delivery is government regulations:

> We will deploy when and where we have the regulatory support needed to safely realize our vision.

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