Delivery drones: Where are they when we really need them?
- Reference: 1585553573
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/30/why_no_delivery_drones_during_coronavirus_lockdown/
- Source link:
So where are the delivery drones that swoop in with our shopping, to let us practice social distancing while also enjoying a life of louche, on-demand luxury?
We've been promised they're coming. Amazon revealed its [1]Prime Air drones way back in 2013. Alphabet trialled its Wing delivery drones as recently as [2]March 2019 . Airbus [3]buzzed some around Singapore last year too to transport parts to ships 1.5km from shore.
So where are they in our hour of need?
Mostly in labs trying out tech that will make them less rubbish.
"The biggest challenge is the payload because the efficiency just isn't there," said Thomas O'Connor, a senior director of analyst firm Gartner's Supply Chain Industries and Programs team.
O'Connor recently surveyed global retailers about their intention to adopt drones: a mere 1 per cent said they're on a near-term road map.
It's not hard to see why. The payload on Wing's 2019 experiment in the Australian city of Canberra was a mere 1.5kg, barely enough to cover a small bottle of milk and a loaf of bread. Which is nowhere near enough to excite retailers or transport companies. Corner stores the world over failed to feel even a moment of fear about their possible disruption.
But residents hated the experiment. Noise complaints abounded and prematurely ended the tests.
Noise problems are among the other barriers to delivery drones identified in a January 2020 [4]article in [5]Building and Environment , the international journal of building science and its applications .
Penned by researchers from the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research Team at Australia's RMIT University, Swinburne University, and Boeing, the article identifies problems facing would-be urban drone operators including:
Requirement for line-of-sight radio comms can't be satisfied by cellular networks;
Absence of social licence amid fears drones pose safety risks and could cost jobs;
Urban environments creating challenging flying conditions that don't help with safety;
Privacy implications of camera-carrying drones;
Drones have poor endurance that limits range and necessitates frequent battery replacement;
Regulations are mostly nascent.
Yet the article still concludes that delivery drones will one day become viable, perhaps once we build a drone-friendly world for them to inhabit.
"Ground-based delivery is enabled by roads and pavements, which may need to be emulated in a form of 'air lanes' for airborne delivery," the authors suggest. "There are also trends towards reduction of poles and wires for communication and power delivery (e.g. wireless communication and solar power generation). Futurist predict that the existing methods of moving people in tall buildings becomes untenable for buildings greater than a kilometre height and suggest that cars of the future will include vehicles that travel up and down the outsides of such buildings. This raises the possibility that people might be delivered by large drones.
"Dense, tall, cities could offer advantages for a drone delivery that could land on the roofs of such buildings or perhaps deliver to each level or apartment, as opposed to street level delivery. This potential advantage has already led to architects taking such factors into consideration, with dedicated docking or landing stations being considered at several levels."
Gartner's O'Connor said the work to make drones better is under way. "The increments are happening," he told The Register , pointing to [6]UPS winning a licence to operate a drone airline in the USA as one example of an organisation working to improve drone technology.
UPS wants to ship medicines to hospitals or rural areas. Which will be handy, but not what we need right now: weekly loads of groceries of family doorsteps.
O'Connor could't say when that will be possible. But he noted recent experiments by giant Chinese retailer JD.com, some aimed at drug delivery to homes. He also cited the firm's research, based on retailer feedback, suggesting 70 percent compound annual growth rate in drone operation by retailers.
The resulting fleet will be 1.9 million strong by the year 2028. Perhaps even in time to make COVID-28 much less of a drag. ®
[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/02/amazon_prime_air_announcement/
[2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/20/wing_drone_delivery_virginia_usa/
[3] https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2019/03/airbus-skyways-drone-trials-worlds-first-shoretoship-deliveries.html
[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132319306705
[5] https://www.journals.elsevier.com/building-and-environment
[6] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/01/ups_launches_drone_medical_fleet/
Re: Er ...
Perhaps the drone is more valuable than its payload?
I'm sure that there will be drone chop shops springing up all over the place should these become common and always assuming that the UK laws will get changed which is unlikely any time soon.
Re: Er ...
By the time the law changes, the laws of physics will implode and we'll have teleportation doing away with the need for anything as crude as a drone.
"Futurist predict"
It's all well and good to use science-fiction as a basis for prediction, but the question is how can drones be useful now ? Apparently, the answer is : they can't.
We're not going to redesign our cities to fit drones. Telephone poles are here to stay for a while yet, because small towns do not have the money to bury all wires and get rid of them in one go. It'll take a long before everything gets buried, and that will only happen when burying wires is as cheap as setting up poles.
And cars going up building walls ? Please. Sci-fi is nice, but the energy cost of dragging a car up a wall is insane next to a person in an elevator. Even when we get fusion working and energy becomes "free", there will still be no reason to go and drag tons of mass to elevated places just because we can. The danger of having them drop back down in an uncontrolled manner is just too great.
Re: "Futurist predict"
"because small towns do not have the money to bury all wires and get rid of them in one go"
I live in an area with buried utilities. They are great aesthetically. And they are more reliable than overhead wires. But the do fail at times. And when they do, repairs are costly. And slow. And are prone to leave trenches in the roads and yards. My thought would be. By all means tidy up your overhead wiring if it needs it and you can afford it. But think long and hard about whether underground is really appropriate for your situation before you start digging.
Re: "Futurist predict"
Now that I think about it, why not beef up the overhead utility conduit and using it as a track for delivery "drones". Sort of a 19th century solution. But it might be quieter, safer, less bandwidth intensive, etc than airborne delivery vehicles. Downsides? I doubt the pigeons will like it.
Not rubbish at all!
I hear on good authority that they are a wonderful source of spare parts.
Re: Not rubbish at all!
And I have seen the YT video that helps ensure the spare part collection
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRgAn9GJEbQ
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRgAn9GJEbQ
I note that the AAIB have started noting UAV incidents
e.g. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/868948/AAIB_Bulletin_3-2020_Lo_res.pdf page 47, with a further 7 incidents 'noted' on subsequent pages.
Good to see that at least licenced UAV pilots are behaving properly and reporting such incidents, though.
"There are also trends towards reduction of poles"
"Wireless communication". Please, tell me where are we going to place all those 5G antennas... buildings facades are not always the best place, especially when they are not tall enough, don't have good line-of-sight to destinations, and behind trees... oh, should we got rid of local trees too, and then complain Amazon forests have not enough to counter carbon dioxide production?
Should we remove street lights too? Well, maybe we would see the stars again!
BTW: power and fibre lines can be deployed underground - and in many places they are - even if it's more expensive.
Re: "There are also trends towards reduction of poles"
Some suggestions that every streetlight will contain a nano cell and a CCTV camera.
Not to mention a car charger when we get some bigger cables in.
Re: "There are also trends towards reduction of poles"
I had heard recently that BT aren't going to make telegraph poles any longer.
Apparently they're long enough already.
Not gonna happen.
At least not in the next few decades. Perhaps when someone discovers the anti-graviton
There are just too many problems. Battery life being the main one, but also noise, obstacles, safety, privacy. Those are all pretty big problems, not easily fixed.
Of course if you keep predicting the future, then some of it will come true eventually. Just in this case, not in any useful timescale for most of us.
Self driving cars are much more likely.
Drones with wheels are a thing...
in [1]Milton Keynes .
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbQN-a2d1s0
Re: Drones with wheels are a thing...
You would think that those little robots that trundle around MK delivering stuff would regular targets for vandalism and robbery. But for some reason they are left alone for people to point at and take photographs. Quite successful so far and their coverage is being expanded.
Delivery drones of the future...
will be blimps.
It'll happen
Mt GUESS is that 50 years from now, automated delivery will be ubiquitous. And some of it at least -- the light and/or urgent stuff -- will be by air. But the problems are legion and will take a LONG time to solve. And unlike autonomous cars -- which some people covet strongly and a smaller number of folks actually need -- there's no particular urgency.
Vertical cars?!
cars of the future will include vehicles that travel up and down the outsides of such buildings
What are these futurologists smoking?
Must get the order right...
Here's the problem: any camera drone that lands in my back garden sure as hell isn't leaving in one piece:
1) Underpants back on.
2) Balaclava up.
3) Test drone resistance to baseball bat.
And if Amazon complain? It's my word against theirs - see them in court.
Er ...
I suspect that a lot of drones would set off on their deliveries and either fail to arrive or arrive minus their payload.
My coat? It's the one draped over the throwing net and 128 rolls of toilet paper.