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Except a lot of deliveries to residential areas happen when nobody is home. So getting a text to go outside and get my package from an automated vehicle won't h

Except a lot of deliveries to residential areas happen when nobody is home. So getting a text to go outside and get my package from an automated vehicle won't help me at all. And this is where drones can come in handy. The drone could deliver the package from the truck to my doorstep. Sure, it may not work in urban areas with high rises but it will work just fine in single family house neighborhoods and that's a huge part of the country.

Zombieball 10y ago
I think this highlights an important idea. The driverless vehicle and drone tech aren't mutually exclusive. You could potentially have a driverless box van that parks on a street corner and has drones pick packages off it and take them to your door.
- arrosenberg 10y ago
  Without doing any of the math, this actually seems like the right solution. An automated truck that can drive around while a swarm of drones are continuously dropping off packages - basically an aircraft carrier.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    I deal with writing software for some shipping and logistics as part of my job. This is already how a lot of this stuff works. A manufacturer ships stuff to a DC, which ships stuff to a 3rd party pool provider, which ships stuff to a store, which then ships stuff to the customer (via "regular" mail). Each step can be thought of as trading throughput for latency. Some manufacturers only ship things to the DC like once every few months (sometimes thousands of containers at a time), the DC to pools once a week (generally in tractor trailers), the pools to stores once a day (in either trailers, or delivery trucks), and the stores to customers multiple times a day (regular mail) Adding another step on the end of that seems like the most likely "end goal" to me. Get around the problem of the inefficient "last mile" of delivery by making the delivery truck a drone platform.
rogerdpack 10y ago
Or maybe the drone could drop it off in the back yard instead, or what not?

Zombieball 10y ago

I think this highlights an important idea. The driverless vehicle and drone tech aren't mutually exclusive. You could potentially have a driverless box van that parks on a street corner and has drones pick packages off it and take them to your door.

arrosenberg 10y ago
Without doing any of the math, this actually seems like the right solution. An automated truck that can drive around while a swarm of drones are continuously dropping off packages - basically an aircraft carrier.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  I deal with writing software for some shipping and logistics as part of my job. This is already how a lot of this stuff works. A manufacturer ships stuff to a DC, which ships stuff to a 3rd party pool provider, which ships stuff to a store, which then ships stuff to the customer (via "regular" mail). Each step can be thought of as trading throughput for latency. Some manufacturers only ship things to the DC like once every few months (sometimes thousands of containers at a time), the DC to pools once a week (generally in tractor trailers), the pools to stores once a day (in either trailers, or delivery trucks), and the stores to customers multiple times a day (regular mail) Adding another step on the end of that seems like the most likely "end goal" to me. Get around the problem of the inefficient "last mile" of delivery by making the delivery truck a drone platform.

rogerdpack 10y ago

Or maybe the drone could drop it off in the back yard instead, or what not?