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

Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

abc15.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 286 posts

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#221

Post by vel0city »

MountDoom wrote: post #191
diggan wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings? Maybe asking the obvious, do you need to? Why not drop the package downstairs, people can use the elevator like normal people? Assuming there is some sort of hand-off with identification.

Many parts of Europe solved it in a more low-tech way: street-side parcel lockers unlocked with your phone. Massively reduces delivery cost (i.e., one driver can deliver far more packages per hour), is pretty convenient and safe (no packages left unattended), and best of all, doesn't require a fleet of UAVs. You can pretty naturally extend this once you have self-driving vans. I think Amazon has a proprietary version…

The last tower I worked in wasn't some really big tower (only about 16 stories) but in the lobby near the security booth there was a set of shelves operated by a food delivery company. Every day there would be a few restaurants listed, you'd place your order, and they'd deliver everyone's food around noon to the shelves. You'd just go down and grab your meal.

Seemed to work well enough for the times I used it. Honestly though I really valued the time to take a break and go for a walk and have lunch away from sitting at my desk.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#222

Post by squigz »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

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…

Why is "don't use autonomous drones for such things" not in that list?

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#223

Post by 0x0203 »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

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…

> Genuinely curious what the solution here is.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the drone shouldn't be flying anywhere near the crane. It's an active construction zone with a structure that moves and swings about in unpredictable ways with people and equipment moving about below. It shouldn't be delivering to the construction zone, and if it can't figure out how to stay out of the area, it doesn't belong in the sky.

There are some FAA requirements about cranes/temporary structures that would give pilots an appropriate NOTAM, but I don't know if all cranes require this. That said, I'd argue that if it isn't tall enough to require notifying the FAA, the drone is flying too low.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#224

Post by heavyset_go »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

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…

A human is smart enough to know how cranes work and not to fly into/under them.

Maybe the solution is not to cheap out by trying to squeeze every possible cent out of package delivery and pay to keep humans in the loop.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#225

Post by scottbez1 »

numpad0 wrote: post #170
crazygringo wrote: post #102

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 machines are never to be flown near cables. It's not like human pilots on a helicopter can detect and avoid the cables in the first place. Long-distance transmission wires are sometimes inspected with helicopters, so I guess there are exceptions and protocols, but outside those, flying machines just aren't supposed to fly near cables except for explicit intent to catch them. Especially across or under. You may…

Here's an excellent video from Juan Browne around the challenges that wires present to aircraft operations [1]. Some of these are human factors for manned aircraft, like seeing a wire but then forgetting it's there, but one of his points is that it's simply safest to avoid flying below 1000ft AGL. That's not an option for drones today, and they presumably don't (yet) have the ability of humans to make inferences about the likelihood of cables near cranes and transmission line towers, making them particularly vulnerable.

[1] https://youtu.be/jjV_k4-DstQ

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#226

Post by heavyset_go »

perihelions wrote: post #149
andrewl-hn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have a tall mas or an antenna and massive cables stretching at angles around it for support. The distance between the base of the mast and the base of supporting cables can be quite large, so even a simple logic like "stay 100m away from tall structures" can be insufficient. It would be interesting to see what comes out of this investigation. Hopefully the injured person will be alright.

> "stay 100m away from tall structures" But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings? That must be half the near-term market for these kinds of drones: people in dense, urban areas well-served by local droneports, who are looking for convenience above all else. If you can't safely manage urban canyons—you can't manage. It'd be like selling self-driving cars that are only approved for private…

> But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings?

Elevators, dumbwaiters, baskets and pulleys, or just go downstairs and get it yourself.

Also, how tall are we talking? Where have you been where the upper floor windows actually open?

edit: the more that I think about this, the more it bothers me. Getting close enough to a building to deliver a package through a window with a drone sounds incredibly improbable and dangerous. A small gust of wind and the drone crashes into the building. You'd need some kind of pad at a distance from the building, or use the roof. Looks like there's a design for that[1].

And what if a package or drone falls from such a height?

I think the concept on its face is flawed, but then again, this exists[2].

[1] https://pejaver.com/DronePort/DronePort.htm

[2] https://jedsy.com/

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#227

Post by spaceywilly »

notatoad wrote: post #208
crazygringo wrote: post #102

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…

>Genuinely curious what the solution here is. no fly zones around construction sites?

The same problem actually already exists for non-drone planes, because they must be able to operate in poor visibility conditions. FAA issues notams for construction cranes if they pose a risk to nearby airports. One solution for drones would be to extend these notams to all cranes/other obstacles, and the drones must subscribe to these notams to operate in the airspace.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#228

Post by heavyset_go »

_grilled_cheese wrote: post #212
crazygringo wrote: post #102

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 company that I work for builds power line detectors for helicopters. They sense the electromagnetic fields generated by the lines and alert the pilot when the field strength exceeds a threshold. I would imagine this tech could be easily adapted for a drone. Obviously that wouldn't work for a crane though...

What happens when they aren't live or is that just a thing that doesn't happen? I know nothing about this topic.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#229

Post by jabroni_salad »

bronco21016 wrote: post #179

I spent some time searching the FAA NOTAM database... https://notams.aim.faa.gov/notamSearch/nsapp.html#/ I can't seem to locate any NOTAMs indicating the presence of the crane. There are NOTAMs for a crane to the NNW of KGRY (Phoenix Goodyear Airport) but Tolleson is to the east of that airport. Is there a hole in how we're doing NOTAMs if we're expecting to have UAS operating at low altitude away from airports? Als…

I looked at the NOTAM guidance and they are simply not required if the crane's boom is lowered at night. Actually this pattern appears in a lot of NOTAM requirements. The FAA is permissive by default and they seem to think you don't need to report things that are 'visible'.

Also, I dont think any of the equipment in this scene needs to be advertised to aircraft. None of this stuff is taller than a normal tree and we aren't filing NOTAMs for the presence of every public park, right?

https://i.imgur.com/fmxVXQz.png

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#230

Post by codedokode »

numpad0 wrote: post #174
codedokode wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cables are not hard to see with eyes.

Not at a distance. They're basically transparent even to our naked eyes at aircraft speed and distance scales. Let alone to digital cameras on flying robots. They'll probably have to either use really good active sensors(ITAR), or infer possible areas of danger from visually cable-end-like features.

Yes human also cannot see them from far away and flying at high speed but what I wanted to point out is that robots usually get the cheapest and lowest quality sensors.
Post reply on HN