Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 167 posts

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#91

Post by michaelt »

asynchronous13 wrote: post #54
Piskvorrr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drone in the video seems to be flying like a brick; complete engine shutdown, IMNSHO. If any of the four rotors were operating, the vector would be significantly different. As to why "it's raining drones, hallelujah" - too early for that; I very much doubt there's enough of a data recorder to reconstruct the event, even with a commercial-grade drone.

> I very much doubt there's enough of a data recorder to reconstruct the event, even with a commercial-grade drone. Why do you think that? It's very easy to record telemetry data on even hobby level devices. In fact, it's pretty standard if someone uses a ground station. I'd be surprised if a commercial grade drone didn't have that capability.

In an airliner's black box, there's enough redundancy to keep logging (and tell what happened) even if the main power fails, or the radio link fails, or the main processors' software crashes.

I've never seen a drone with data recording that sophisticated.

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#93

Post by emehrkay »

donatj wrote: post #14
nns wrote: post #8

Am sure when the first cars hit the road, similar news made it to the newspaper front pages then.

It did, and the auto industry invented the term jay walking and ran a newspaper campaign against them.

Reminds me an NPR story I listened to a few years ago about how the cigarette industry is responsible for furniture needing to be fire retardant (people falling asleep while smoking). The story was about the unknown effects from the chemicals found in the furniture.

edit -- found the story: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/23/153308887/fight-over-flame-ret...

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#94

Post by IshKebab »

shocks wrote: post #68
itgoon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't really a drone community. With RC, almost everybody involved was an enthusiast who would meet with other enthusiasts. Anybody interested, even for a few minutes, can get a drone. This is the RC world's "Eternal September".

Ha, that is true. I had to join a club before I even knew what to buy...

That sounds rubbish to be honest.

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#95

Post by ph0rque »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #52
_yy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, maybe, but for sure not in Europe. We don't even have a word for "jaywalking" in Germany.

And there's no single word for Schadenfreude in English, but it exists there as well ;) IIRC, it's a traffic offense in Germany, too (as well as here in Prague ;)). While city centers may be pedestrianized again, it's bound to be an uphill battle for some time.

I'm more partial to Fremdenschämen myself. Also fits in this situation :)

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#96

Post by matheweis »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #58
asynchronous13 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I very much doubt there's enough of a data recorder to reconstruct the event, even with a commercial-grade drone. Why do you think that? It's very easy to record telemetry data on even hobby level devices. In fact, it's pretty standard if someone uses a ground station. I'd be surprised if a commercial grade drone didn't have that capability.

I'm pretty sure it was capable of this; I just don't think many units have this enabled and running, as opposed to the always-on recorders mandated for commercial aviation.

Depends on the drone...

The Pixhawk controller (that many of us from the RC / tech community use) can record so much data that it can be overwhelming.

The commercial 3D Robotics SOLO uses an updated version of the same controller, and has such data logging enabled continuously. In fact, it -also- streams it continuously to its controller unit; even if you lose the drone there will be enough data in the controller to figure out what happened. 3DR uses that to back their flyaway warranty (if a SOLO flys away or crashes due to a software/hardware fault vs user error, 3DR will replace the entire thing free)

(I'm not affiliated with 3DR other than owning a Pixhawk.)

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#97

Post by TheCondor »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #44
Dwolb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this is possible with a software update, but it doesn't fix the standards to which the drone was mechanically constructed. Other commercial flying objects are rigorously safety tested for their ability to remain in the air despite different mechanical failures. Without the same standards applied to drones, we are likely to continue to see near-misses or full accidents happen. (Note: I'm not weighing in for or…

Good point - the weakest point of current drones is that the same power source is used for engines and control, without any redundancy.

Is there enough data to determine the weakest weakness? Energy makes logical sense, it is also fairly easy to fix with an auxiliary energy supply that could kick in in an emergency situation. That's fairly easy logic to build as well, it seems like something a pro video drone might already have. They don't have a lot in the way of instruments typically, do they have wind gauges and such on the bigger more professional drones? We only see the bottom of the crash, could it have rolled from a gust of wind and become unstable and just not recovered in time? How do you monitor ice build up? How stable are they when a single motor fails? What about the base station? My cheap qav250 drops like a stone when I flip the radio power off, that opens the door to a lot of other potentials for failure, including interference, I know many have gps and return home functions when they lose signal but those are options that are added on. what about a vps signal failure which isn't that unusual in the mountains...

I guess the issue at hand becomes cost, between licensing, insurance and then building devices that are higher quality as if they could endanger life, I suspect they'll be cheaper than planes and helicopters but quite a bit more costly.

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#98

Post by dham »

Spooky23 wrote: post #77
nns wrote: post #8

Am sure when the first cars hit the road, similar news made it to the newspaper front pages then.

Yup. And the carnage created brought operator licensing, mandatory registration, mandatory & regulated insurance for personal liability in most states and a substantial traffic code + police to enforce said code.

But people have been flying RC forever. It's not like it's a new hobby. AMA has been around for 80 years. It's just a fad right now. Everyone couldn't fly 4 channel airplanes or 6 channel helicopters, but a monkey could fly a quadcopter.

The same guy who gets into RC airplanes and helis is not the same person who gets into quadcopters. From what I've seen the quadcopter community does not feel like the regular RC community. Very reckless bunch of folks from what I've seen, and they're ruining it for all the other RC folks like me who have flown for 20+ years with no problems.

Re: Skier almost hit by camera drone in World Cup slalom

#99

Post by pvitz »

frik wrote: post #87
vanadium wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, all the news in the U.S. I've heard around the athlete wearing the airbag was quite contradictory to the assertion that the airbag exacerbated the problem; the story was that it actually may have saved him from much greater injuries.

On day one yes. The serious injuries were found out later in hospital, the picture changed the next day. If you read the article, several persons with different views are quoted including U.S. American Ted Ligety... (The follow up articles are usually not on page one.)

Who else is quoted in the article with an opinion similar to Ted Ligety's? Also, I don't want to insinuate bad motives, but it should be pointed out that he is a co-founder of slytech (http://slytechprotection.com/athlete/ted-ligety/).
Post reply on HN