121–130 of 286 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is actually hilarious because now they can't call it a fluke or an act of god
Crashing it a second time is, in my books, an act of God. I guess God isn't really that fond of Amazon.
God: "Hold my staff"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn’t make it better. The cable hangs down from the crane and thus the rest of the structure is still nearby. The drone should be well clear of any obstructions precisely to avoid this sort of thing from happening with hard-to-see ancillary obstructions. Something went really wrong here with the tech.
I'm genuinely curious what you'd define "nearby" and "well clear" as in concrete numbers. For the sake of clarity: I am not arguing against your point, nor am I defending Amazon or the tech in any way shape or form.
For concrete numbers, I would say stay 50 yards away from construction equipment, and always laterally or above, not below. Honestly these drones are enormous so I think "don't go under" can just be a blanket rule. They can't be going under trees or bridges or overpasses either, they're too big.
Edit: Also, the drones themselves should be far enough apart that if one crashes the other has time to react and stop or change course. I don't have a concrete number there, it depends on their speed and acceleration, but they shouldn't be flying so close that if one crashes they all will.
Little after 10am, pure speculation but wonder if the angle of the sun overwhelmed the dynamic range of the image sensor over a particularly inopportune area of the frame. Guessing no LiDAR on drones like this.
I'm currently in Phoenix and it's a little after 10am and the sun is almost directly overhead at this time of day. Would they need sensors pointing directly overhead in-flight?
To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. So it's not as bad as "they don't see cranes". But it absolutely raises the question of whether they can see cables , whether hanging from cranes or spanning telephone poles. And honestly, cables are really hard to see in the air. That's literally why high-voltage power lines hang thos…
That doesn’t make it better. The cable hangs down from the crane and thus the rest of the structure is still nearby. The drone should be well clear of any obstructions precisely to avoid this sort of thing from happening with hard-to-see ancillary obstructions. Something went really wrong here with the tech.
To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. So it's not as bad as "they don't see cranes". But it absolutely raises the question of whether they can see cables , whether hanging from cranes or spanning telephone poles. And honestly, cables are really hard to see in the air. That's literally why high-voltage power lines hang thos…
The police is not qualified to investigate this. The only people that should be investigating is people who understand the code that the drones run.
Accidents will happen as long as we, as a society, agree and desire to have new tech. The investigations and bug fixes should be left to people who understand the tech.
To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. So it's not as bad as "they don't see cranes". But it absolutely raises the question of whether they can see cables , whether hanging from cranes or spanning telephone poles. And honestly, cables are really hard to see in the air. That's literally why high-voltage power lines hang thos…
Flying in uncontrolled airspace in VMC is a “see and avoid” environment, meaning this looks like a pretty bad screw up by Amazon. The fact that two different drones crashed into the same object raises even more serious questions on the quality of Amazon’s tech and their ability to safely monitor it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn’t make it better. The cable hangs down from the crane and thus the rest of the structure is still nearby. The drone should be well clear of any obstructions precisely to avoid this sort of thing from happening with hard-to-see ancillary obstructions. Something went really wrong here with the tech.
I'm genuinely curious what you'd define "nearby" and "well clear" as in concrete numbers. For the sake of clarity: I am not arguing against your point, nor am I defending Amazon or the tech in any way shape or form.
Both of these allow healthy margins of error, whether that error is from a human pilot or ATC, or from computer systems - either in the vehicle or the ground.
I'd argue these would be a great place to start for drone aviation.
If such limits make drone burrito or toilet paper delivery expensive, that seems fine.
Amazon engineer this morning to colleague: "Hey! Maybe we should include some cranes in our training data."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but it's the launch/landing site that is in question. It's not just a helipad set up. It's very sci-fi looking and looks very complicated. I'm wondering if the drone itself lands at the top and then lowers the pod for loading to keep them out of reach of the employees. Probably even touted as a safety feature. I just haven't seen the system in operation, and their website just ignores this part as it's not some…
There is a bunch of videos on Youtube on Zipline, some of them from the company itself (this one showing specifically the "platform": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=airEzThGlx8 ), and some from various tech people looking into the whole thing (like Markus Brownlee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88yQTzlmsiA ). Probably a better overall source of into than their website.
And it looks much safer than Amazon's approach of directly landing the heavy drone in your garden.