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Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

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Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#101

Post by [deleted] »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #17
onion2k wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little sad that people's first thoughts about tech like this is "It can bring me goods faster than FedEx!" That's such a trivial thing to use it for. Emergency deliveries in rural areas are where this will be most useful. Getting medicine and mechanical parts to remote places during crisises is hard .

I think the simple economics of it would completely rule out this being used for 'fresh groceries' ... or rather only to people who want to pay 10x for their groceries. My bet: the military/security/coast guard, for far off service posts (like when they put hydro wires way out in the middle of nowhere), offshore Oil, and for very specific things (i.e. medical equipment) for remote communities.

[deleted]

Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#102

Post by dsfyu404ed »

narag wrote: post #43
candiodari wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get that. Before the sun rises tomorrow, for the US alone, 32 Americans will make a mistake with their car that kills someone (potentially, but unlikely, themselves, 2 will kill themselves, 29 will kill someone else, one will kill 2 others, for a total of 33 deaths). At the same time, a further 2000 Americans will injure someone with a car, and another 3000 will cause severe (I believe > 1000$) property damag…

Don't you have a score system? It has a noticeable effect, that probably happens by taking the insane drivers off the road. You start with ten points that you lose with infractions, more points for more serious ones. If you run out of points, you don't drive or face jail.

Unfortunately one of the downsides of living in one of the non-terrible parts of the US is that you basically need a car to be a functional member of society. The insane drivers stay on the road because they just drive illegally. They borrow their spouses cars and stuff.

There isn't much appetite for points systems in the US because points systems just enrich the state and insurance companies at the expense of commuters because our laws about how traffic should work are so detached from what traffic actually does.

Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#103

Post by simonh »

noir_lord wrote: post #86
simonh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She the whole wall is going to be manned with anti-drone squads? If you’re manning the border, why do you need such a huge wall? Wouldn’t a fence provide better visibility?

Fence and tethered ballons with sensor packages underneath every few miles. You have issues with weather affecting coverage but it would be a lot cheaper than a massive ineffective wall.

So now we have hundreds of monitors checking wobbly camera images all the time trying to spot tiny drones in all weather and all times of day. How often do balloons need refilling? Aren’t balloons highly visible and extremely vulnerable? Has anything like this ever even been tried in practice?

Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#106

Post by ryanmarsh »

bjoli wrote: post #60
ShorsHammer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jamming drones is easier than you think, the new battleground will be autonomous flying to avoid trivial radio/gps jamming. MIT has open source code for this already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qah8oIzCwk https://github.com/andybarry/flight

How about going low tech and just use gyroscopes to keep steady and fly in a straight line until it is unlikely that any jamming might occur?

The SR71 had a combination of star and inertial navigation. I imagine someone could build an astro-inertial navigation system today without much trouble.

Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#107

Post by timmaah »

simonh wrote: post #103
noir_lord wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fence and tethered ballons with sensor packages underneath every few miles. You have issues with weather affecting coverage but it would be a lot cheaper than a massive ineffective wall.

So now we have hundreds of monitors checking wobbly camera images all the time trying to spot tiny drones in all weather and all times of day. How often do balloons need refilling? Aren’t balloons highly visible and extremely vulnerable? Has anything like this ever even been tried in practice?

Been tried and working for decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System

Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#108

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

sumoboy wrote: post #10
SCAQTony wrote: post #4

Fine and dandy when flying over a desert but when the drone meets the city and an "autopilot" failure occurs over a freeway/highway/street or someone's head the consequences will be unforgivable.

Program a better flight path to avoid people. How is it refueled after landing hundreds of miles away?

Depending on what its hauling it may be disposable.

Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#109

Post by alkonaut »

Tepix wrote: post #58
alkonaut wrote: post #52

So basically every terror org on the planet have crude off the shelf 500mile cruise missiles now.

They've had this for 15 years already, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Simpson_(blogger)#DIY_Cr...

Fair, but that's built with off the shelf parts, not an off the shelf device (He didn't actually mass produce it I assume?). In the article is a device you can unpack from the store, and then have it go 500 miles with 20lb bomb within minutes. I find more frightening than the fact that it's possible with the right skills to build something like it.

Re: Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target

#110

Post by agumonkey »

nordsieck wrote: post #93
agumonkey wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

medicine too

Most medicine stores well. A flying epi-pen / defibrillator might be really useful, though.

But if you're stuck in a mountain and in an emergency, a drone delivery could be quite the very nice
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