Amazon recently announced they intend to use drones to speed delivery of customer packages to their front door. The service, in testing phase currently, is to be called Amazon Prime Air. While I have no doubt they really are testing a system like this, for now it seems more like a publicity stunt. They are just the latest in a line of companies announcing drone deliveries of everything from pizza to textbooks. I would not be surprised to see UPS, FedEx, DHL, and other shipping firms start their own testing programs.
While I think the concept is interesting, regulations will obviously need to be worked out first, and reliable systems with proven track records will have to be developed.
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ridiculous thing
Maybe it's time to get on the APM development team and "offer" my code for inclusion. I hear the new rally point feature is very useful in the face of failsafes...
Should any amazon drones inexplicably disappear, please look the other way.
Apparently Jeff Bezos has been reading early 1950 issues of Popular Mechanics in which we were assured that we would all shortly be zooming around in flying cars. (And LanMark, what they haven't told you is that the "8 exposed propellers" double as anti-theft devices. You'll have a pass-phrase, maybe something like "Hail O Glorious Amazon Robot Overlords," and if you try to grab your goodies without uttering that, Mr. Octo will shred your digits.)
Also: The article I found on this, at http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/12/01/amazon-working-on-flyin... has in it a link to a marvelous caper in Atlanta, in which four people were arrested for smuggling tobacco (yes, tobacco) into a prison using a Flamewheel hex (just like mine!!). It seems they actually succeeded at least once, thus putting themselves way ahead of Amazon and in fact perhaps being the first to use a "drone" to actually deliver something, rather than just hounding for publicity. See http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/4-arrested-trying-smuggle-cont.... Hilarious!
@Phillip Moffett, @Chris Anderson...very cool!
@BluSky1...positive exposure on 60 Minutes is a good thing! If the 60 Minutes demographic comes to accept the possibility of peace-time civilian drone use, that is a big win. I did not know there was a 60 Minutes piece.
Having to put your systems through the FAA test sites and the cost that will take will become an effective ban.
@taylor - I don't think amazon is ever planning on deploying human piloted drones. If (and that is a huge if) they ever deployed something like this they would require full auto nav for delivery. In practice though we are a _long_ way off from this for a bunch of reasons...
Well don't come crying to me when amazon kills someone and the ban it for everyone. We are on the brink.
Its all merely propaganda and Amazon is getting great advertising by just speculating that UAV's will deliver their goods in the future.
Give the current technology for cost effective autonomous delivery aircraft, there's just too many variables that would cause the craft to go belly up on your lawn. Telephone lines, bushes, trees, people, dogs, random crap in the way that the craft would hit. I'd also to see the AUW of a craft carrying a package and enough batteries to make a "run" to a house 15 miles away and return. Great advertising campaign though...
Nothing says safety like 8 exposed propellers and landing in populated landing zones. :) I think having protected props like the SFC4410 would be much more realistic to a future delivery vehicle. Granted I don't expect the FAA to drop the LOS element of their rules in the next decade at the very least as well.
What Amazon Prime Air really is, is a marketing ploy to get people talking and clearly a 60 minutes spot does that as well.. I really don't think Jeff considers this even as a possibility over delivery drivers that you pay low wages.. how exactly do get insurance policies that make it even feasible over other means... I think driverless delivery vans would be more realistic :)
The interesting part about Amazon tackling this popular concept, is that they might actually have the tenacity and the capital to pull it off. Knowing the FAA though, I really can't see this happening in the next 5 years.
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