Amazon Prime Air • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#461

Post by markvdb » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 9:57 AM UTC

snogglethorpe wrote: post #60

It doesn't seem like the battery density exists for anything except fairly short distances with very small packages. For the vast majority of deliveries, this could only be a "last mile" mechanism, with the bulk of each delivery happening via more traditional transport. 30-minute delivery from the warehouse? Not going to be possible for 99% of purchases, even those that are under the weight limits. Moreover, you can'…

Battery density is not that much of a problem. Supply from warehouse to moving warehouse vehicle (truck?) to multiple delivery vehicles (drones). Parallellise and automate the last mile.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#462

Post by grey-area » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 9:58 AM UTC

Great idea, for small items. A few other companies are exploring this, but with the funding from Amazon, and the scale Amazon delivers at, it could make a lot of sense for them - they could actually make this a reality. I'd try this out just to see the Octocopter coming in to land.

Weight will be a problem I guess, as many of the things Amazon delivers are larger and would be difficult to carry on a drone unless it was a significant size. So small items only, at least initially.

I did also wonder about landing spots - these things are going to need a guaranteed flat spot to land, so that they are not damaged and can take off again, but I guess with a smartphone the user could indicate their preferred landing spot via GPS.

And of course there is an issue with airspace and regulation, which I guess will be their biggest hurdle - flight paths over cities could get pretty busy quite quickly, and you'd need some sort of one way system or sophisticated traffic control to avoid collisions, so a bit of a headache for authorities to coordinate, but these are all soluble problems.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#463

Post by michaelt » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:04 AM UTC

greyshi wrote: post #455

michaelt wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Textbook drone delivery: http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/14/zookal-starts-world-first-d... Cake drone delivery: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1020621... Pizza drone delivery: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dominos-tests-delivery-pizza-r... Parcel delivery drones: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57601531-76/drones-in-chin... Beer delivery drones: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/brandin…

Those companies are very different from Amazon.

Sure, but I'm into politics, so I've learned to judge by results rather than claims and reputation.

And there isn't a drone on my doorstep yet.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#464

Post by markvdb » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:06 AM UTC

orenjacob wrote: post #403

Has anyone calculated the energy usage of sending a 1kg package 10km alongside 100s of other packages on a diesel powered UPS truck vs sending it by itself, hanging below a battery powered octacopter? How much more/less energy does the octacopter consume per package?

Rather calculate the diesel powered truck doing 80% of the distance to delivery place, and the drones flying the last 20% of the distance from the truck.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#465

Post by icebraining » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:06 AM UTC

MaysonL wrote: post #345

esusatyo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News on Dropbox: Why would anyone want this? I can do this already with my home PC, all I need to do is install package xyz and let it run in the background. How does this handle duplicates, this is doomed to fail.

Hell, CmdrTaco on iPod...

It should be noted that CmdrTaco never said his opinion applied to most people. He thought it was lame, and to him, it was.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#466

Post by jaseg » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:09 AM UTC

lancewiggs wrote: post #409

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drones could hitch a lift on people's autonomous vehicles. Amazon would give you a roof rack and pay you when it rides on; they can hook in to your GPS and schedule to anticipate routing.

Nice. We all have windows - and many of those windows open. A basket that hangs outside the window with a battery powered beacon is another option for delivery. The baskets could even be secure and waterproof.

Instead of a battery-powered beacon you would likely use fiducials [0].

The issue I see with delivery to windows is all the clutter that is commonly found in front of windows such as power lines, tree branches etc. since that cannot yet be easily detected with computer vision and inexpensive 3D sensors.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary_marker

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#467

Post by sentenza » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:11 AM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #462

Great idea, for small items. A few other companies are exploring this, but with the funding from Amazon, and the scale Amazon delivers at, it could make a lot of sense for them - they could actually make this a reality. I'd try this out just to see the Octocopter coming in to land. Weight will be a problem I guess, as many of the things Amazon delivers are larger and would be difficult to carry on a drone unless it w…

Oh man, I started reading about this 20 minutes ago, and now already have a mental image of the landing platform that I'll install on the roof of my house.

They probably didn't say anything about when this will come to rural Germany, did they?

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#468

Post by markvdb » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:12 AM UTC

ngoldbaum wrote: post #36

Vernor Vinge described a similar rocket-based delivery system in his short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High", which eventually became the novel Rainbows End. Crazy to see this actually happening in the real world.

You really want to see Jacques Tati's "Jour de fête". It's the 14th of July, French national holiday, late 1940s. There is the traditional village fair and party. The village mailman gets inspired by a combination of alcohol consumption and a stunt movie about speedy modern American mail delivery.

An absolutely hilarious prequel to this drone delivery thing, and a must see for people even remotely working on this project or anything similar.

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#469

Post by repnescasb » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:15 AM UTC

esusatyo wrote: post #233

jmduke wrote: post #176

(Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but not for anything related to this. This is the first time I'm learning of Prime Air.) I'm somewhat disheartened by the skepticism of a lot of comments from HN, Reddit, and Twitter. Not stuff like "I wonder how they'll handle adverse weather" (which I think is intellectually interesting) but stuff like "As soon as one of these kills a dog it's done for". What merit is there in rootin…

Hacker News on Dropbox: Why would anyone want this? I can do this already with my home PC, all I need to do is install package xyz and let it run in the background. How does this handle duplicates, this is doomed to fail.

Me on dropbox today: Why would anyone want this?

seriously. Sure, the mob uses it, but they also use facebook, skype and whatsapp ... and soon they get their christmal gifts delivered by santa's little drones

Re: Amazon Prime Air

#470

Post by jaseg » Mon, Dec 02, 2013, 10:20 AM UTC

greeneggs wrote: post #424

lancewiggs wrote: post #240

Responses that I have not yet seen in the comments. 1: These could deliver into my apartment on the nth floor by coming through an open window, as well as the mentioned balconies and front yards or the roof. 2: We could not just set our delivery point up using a app on our smartphones (GPS wtc), but those phones could also broadcast over the various radios to the device and even use the camera to help the UAV navigat…

"1: These could deliver into my apartment on the nth floor by coming through an open window, as well as the mentioned balconies and front yards or the roof." This is what I would like. Even if they use a regular delivery truck most of the way, it would be great if they could cover the last fifty feet with a drone, to leave the package on my balcony. (Amazon's switched to using their own courier service in my area. Th…

I think tree branches will be a rather large problem for these drones since you need a pretty high resolution 3D sensor to accurately detect them.

GPS is most certainly not enough for navigation next to a building since you can hardly get an accuracy below 5m. I would bet on navigation by computer vision and 3D sensors.

Another interesting aspect of this is the choice of location where to drop the package. You certainly would not appreciate finding your emergency math textbook in the middle of your flower bed. This could for example be solved by setting up delivery spots in advance, or perhaps by using human judgement through something like Amazon's Mechanical Turk.