On point 12, Drone delivery: If the FAA is the reason, we should expect to see this already happening in China?
My hypothesis is, the problem is noise. Even small drones are very loud, and ones large enough to lift the larger packages would be deafening. This is something that’s very hard to engineer away, since transferring large amounts of energy into the air is an unavoidable feature of a drone’s mode of flight. Aircraft deal with this by being very high up, but drones have to come to your doorstep. I don’t see people being ok with that level of noise on a constant, unpredictable basis.
Good point. OTOH, I feel like there are some cities in the world (maybe in China?) where it’s super noisy most of the time anyway, with lots of honking cars and whatnot. Also there are rural areas where you don’t have neighbors to annoy.
Lawnmowers are also very loud yet is widely tolerated (more or less). Plus, delivery drones need only to drop off the package and fly away; the noise pollution will only last for a few seconds. I also don’t see why it would necessarily be unpredictable; drones don’t get stuck in traffic. Maybe a dedicated time window each day becomes an industry standard.
But the real trouble I see with delivery drones is: what’s the actual point? What problem is being solved here? Current delivery logistics work very well, I don’t see much value being squeezed out of even faster/more predictable delivery. Looks like another solution in search of a problem to me.
To me, the most important thing isn’t speed or predictability. It’s price. Current delivery methods require a human being. People are expensive. If a delivery drone removes the human being from the equation then that could remove a significant fraction of the price.
Why couldn’t land-based delivery vehicle become autonomous though? That would also cut out the human in the loop.
One reason might be that autonomous flying drone are easier to realize. It is true that air is an easier environment to navigate than ground, but landing and taking off at the destination could involve very diverse and unpredictable situations. You might run into the same long tail problem as self-driving cars, especially since a drone that can lift several kilos has dangerously powerful propellers.
Another problem is that flying vehicles in general are energy inefficient due to having to overcome gravity, and even more so at long distances (tyranny of the rocket equation). Of course you could use drones just for the last mile, but that’s an even smaller pool to squeeze value out of.
In general, delivery drones seem less well-suited for densely populated urban environments where landing spots are hard to come by and you only need a few individual trips to serve an entire apartment building. And that’s where most of the world will be living anyway.
On point 12, Drone delivery: If the FAA is the reason, we should expect to see this already happening in China?
My hypothesis is, the problem is noise. Even small drones are very loud, and ones large enough to lift the larger packages would be deafening. This is something that’s very hard to engineer away, since transferring large amounts of energy into the air is an unavoidable feature of a drone’s mode of flight. Aircraft deal with this by being very high up, but drones have to come to your doorstep. I don’t see people being ok with that level of noise on a constant, unpredictable basis.
Good point. OTOH, I feel like there are some cities in the world (maybe in China?) where it’s super noisy most of the time anyway, with lots of honking cars and whatnot. Also there are rural areas where you don’t have neighbors to annoy.
There is at least one firm doing drone delivery in China and they just approved a standard for it.
Lawnmowers are also very loud yet is widely tolerated (more or less). Plus, delivery drones need only to drop off the package and fly away; the noise pollution will only last for a few seconds. I also don’t see why it would necessarily be unpredictable; drones don’t get stuck in traffic. Maybe a dedicated time window each day becomes an industry standard.
But the real trouble I see with delivery drones is: what’s the actual point? What problem is being solved here? Current delivery logistics work very well, I don’t see much value being squeezed out of even faster/more predictable delivery. Looks like another solution in search of a problem to me.
To me, the most important thing isn’t speed or predictability. It’s price. Current delivery methods require a human being. People are expensive. If a delivery drone removes the human being from the equation then that could remove a significant fraction of the price.
There are multiple land based delievery methods that don’t require a human: https://www.gearbrain.com/autonomous-food-delivery-robots-2646365636.html
Why couldn’t land-based delivery vehicle become autonomous though? That would also cut out the human in the loop.
One reason might be that autonomous flying drone are easier to realize. It is true that air is an easier environment to navigate than ground, but landing and taking off at the destination could involve very diverse and unpredictable situations. You might run into the same long tail problem as self-driving cars, especially since a drone that can lift several kilos has dangerously powerful propellers.
Another problem is that flying vehicles in general are energy inefficient due to having to overcome gravity, and even more so at long distances (tyranny of the rocket equation). Of course you could use drones just for the last mile, but that’s an even smaller pool to squeeze value out of.
In general, delivery drones seem less well-suited for densely populated urban environments where landing spots are hard to come by and you only need a few individual trips to serve an entire apartment building. And that’s where most of the world will be living anyway.