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Alphabet’s Wing begins making commercial drone deliveries in the US
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoI would love to see the iterations that led to that final design, because there's almost nothing conventional about it. I know they spent a surprising amount of time just on the hook. https://www.wired.com/story/wing-alphabet-x-drone-engineering/ https://www.wired.com/story/wing-alphabet-x-drone-engineerin...
- throwaway_bad 7y agoThe hook was what I remembered the most from their video 5 years ago though! https://youtu.be/cRTNvWcx9Oo?t=67 https://youtu.be/cRTNvWcx9Oo?t=67
- mdorazio 7y agoThat's a great point. If you look at it, it makes sense because it's much easier to load balance packages that might have off-center mass when you have linear rails with multiple propellers like that, and for forward speed and longevity the wings make sense, but... what else did they try first? I feel like there must have been a dozen steps from quadcopter to osprey-like VTOL to gyrocopter to this.
- dTal 7y agoI work in electric aviation, and we're looking at similar hybrid fixed/vtol/distributed designs. You need the VTOL for most practical drone applications including delivery, but you need fixed-wing linear flight for range. It's better to use many small fans for the VTOL part for reliability and stability, and it's more trouble that it's worth to try and re-use the same thrust units for hover and for forward flight (the design points are completely different). The main clever thing that strikes me about this design is the twin boom, which minimizes drag in forward flight and is very frugal with support structure for the lift fans. On the other hand, this drone doesn't look production-ready to me. Too many exposed wires and servos. I don't rate its chances in a good downpour.
- petre 7y agoDefinitely not production ready. It's got exposed PCBs on the side of the boom. Probably the engine drivers.
- mkl 7y agoAny idea why the right tail is a different shape? Is that an antenna sticking out? Why the bulbous white part?
- thanhhaimai 7y agoI believe that's a Pitot tube. It's to determine the airspeed of the drone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube
- what_ever 7y agoThat Wired article is from 07/15/2018.
- romwell 7y ago>and it's more trouble that it's worth to try and re-use the same thrust units for hover and for forward flight (the design points are completely different). Do you know why the Osprey designers went for tilt-rotor? Would it be easier or harder to do something like that at drone delivery scale with electric motors?
- staplor 7y agoAm I missing something or does that article about a hook not include a picture of said hook?
- eranimo 7y agoHow would this ever compete with land-based delivery? What are the numbers?
- haditab 7y agoI have no numbers but if executed properly it should reduce the number of people required in the total delivery process and it should in faster delivery.
- mdorazio 7y agoI don't think it's really meant to compete directly to start with. This is a technology PoC that will be initially be used to deliver small, "I need it now" packages to locations that are easily air-accessible but might be a pain to get to via driving. In the future it's likely this will be a complement to normal ground-based delivery for heavier packages and packages in high-density areas, probably with a "mothership" ground vehicle or small local warehouse as a base of operations.
- MagnumPIG 7y ago> locations that are easily air-accessible but might be a pain to get to via driving Also known as everywhere in a city
- mdorazio 7y agoYes, fun fact: not everyone lives in a city.
- masonic 7y agoBut an inner city context is exactly the worst for drone delivery. Where do they drop it safely? How do they navigate to that low an elevation around high rises, awnings, trees, overhead wires, etc.? How do they avoid pilferage or outright theft? Animal damage?
- ferros 7y agoWhile I'm always excited by reading these articles, my mind always goes back to the boring problems like privacy and noise.
- haditab 7y agoI have no idea how loud these things are but I suspect that they would be less noisy than a typical UPS/Fedex truck.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoIf I'm in range of an EV drone, it's very likely I'm in range of an EV truck. The truck doesn't have to hover. So I would suspect the opposite - perhaps even compared to an idling diesel truck - because drone props tend to sit right in the really irritating whining spot of the spectrum.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI can sleep with an idling Diesel engine quite close, even in the vehicle. Don’t reckon I could sleep with a drone hovering above my house.
- novok 7y agoA drone whine is high(er) pitched, so it doesn't go through closed windows and doors nearly as much, and the noise is a relatively short range and not supersonic like a helicopter rotor. Diesel truck rumble is low pitched and pretty much goes through everything, closed or not.
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoAnd the human perception of higher pitched noises is that they're much more noticeable and much more obnoxious. And when the kid across the street is flying his drone, I can hear it in my living room through my double-paned window. I'd much rather hear the FedEx truck idling than that fucking thing whizzing around - and it's hundreds of feet away!
- gniv 7y agoThis video is exactly two years old, the drone looked the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_zoJfkElmw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_zoJfkElmw
- Udik 7y agoDrone deliveries is one of those ideas that look simple and always almost within reach, but the more people try them the more they reveal their complexity. I wonder why hasn't any company just proposed or built a network of pipes in which autonomous pods can zip around to deliver goods. Doesn't seem too expensive- the pipes don't even need to be interred outside cities and they don't need to be huge- just enough to deliver grocery-sized stuff. Seems immediately feasible and with a load capacity that air deliveries will never support.
- tathougies 7y agoIirc this was a thing in turn of century london
- jamesknelson 7y agoActually... they have built such a system! It’s long gone now, but some major cities used to have a mail delivery system built on underground pneumatic tubes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_York_City https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_Y...
- Filligree 7y agoDo you know what killed it?
- gregschlom 7y agoThe electricity-based message transmission systems (telegrams, fax, email, etc)
- metaphor 7y agoDiscussed in the wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_York_City#Closure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_Y...
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoVictorian London had the London Pneumatic Despatch Railway for the Post Office. https://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/londons-victorian-hyperloop-forgotten-pneumatic-railway-beneath-capitals-street https://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2013/12/londons-vi... Edit: Oh, and many large late Victorian shops and offices had pneumatic tube systems for passing money away from the shop floor, or exchanging messages. They're still made: https://www.aerocom.co.uk/air-tubes https://www.aerocom.co.uk/air-tubes
- beefsack 7y agoWing's trial here in Canberra has felt a little unremarkable. People don't really talk about it, apart from the occasional local news piece about someone complaining about the noise. I'm quite interested to see how much people buy into it in the US. From a consumer point of view it seems they're directly competing with established services (eg. Uber Eats), and the main differentiator is a gimmick.
- readhn 7y agoMany big things were ignored at first and many thought of them as just another fad: 1. internet 2. PC then Smart phone 3. digital camera 4. bitcoin ... the list is long. continuous battery innovation and expanding flying range / lift power will make drone delivery a regular every day occurrence, just like uber service or amazon next day delivery service have become. there are so many ideas and applications that are just waiting to be unleashed...!!! we live in truly amazing times!
- dclusin 7y agoBitcoin still hasn't been disproven to be a fad :)
- tempsolution 7y agoAnd it never will be :D. There was never any need for crypto currency to begin with and pretty much all of them fail to deliver on their core promise of decentralization. If they do deliver on that promise, they are so slow that the idea of global deployment is ridiculous... The core idea of crypto currency (i.e. byzantine fault tolerance) is 2000 years old. The fact that this happens now already demonstrates that there never was any need for this and there won't be.
- s1artibartfast 7y ago>There was never any need for crypto currency Of course there was and still is. The three main purposes as I see them are as follows: 1) International money transfer free of regulatory oversight. 2) Anonymous purchase and money laundering 3) Decentralized currency free of government manipulation - Bitcoin falls short of this. Cryptocurrency is a great solution for all of these needs. Of course I agree that most currencies add little or no value to their core product, especially the ICO crowd.
- strooper 7y agoIt will be interesting to see the implementation of three dimensional drone traffic. Who is working on the drone path guidelines, and traffic control policies?
- malandrew 7y agoUber and NASA are working on this.
- karthikb 7y agoAirbus has a strong team working on this. https://www.airbusutm.com/ https://www.airbusutm.com/ You can read more here: https://www.airbusutm.com/uam-resources-airbus-blueprint https://www.airbusutm.com/uam-resources-airbus-blueprint
- pininja 7y agoHere’s the airspace management talk we gave at the last Uber Elevate Summit, which gets into some 3D topics. https://youtu.be/ojkK5zI2VO8 https://youtu.be/ojkK5zI2VO8
- zhoujianfu 7y agoI feel like automated flight could always avoid incident by detecting all objects (at the same elevation) within $x feet, and if the object is north of you, move up $y feet, and if it’s south, move down $y feet, unless another object is above/below you, in which case veer $z degrees clockwise and continue travel until you can change elevation?
- pininja 7y agoFor aircraft to aircraft there’s a automatic advisory which coordinates this between aircraft. https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Airborne_Collision_Avoidance_System_(ACAS) https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Airborne_Collision_Avoid... I’ve heard some Airbus have it tied into their auto pilot too. When all else fails, the rule is “turn right”.
- 7y ago
- FillardMillmore 7y agoI have my reservations about drone deliveries. But if they are proven to be reliable and somewhat cost-effective, I would pay a 10-15%+ premium to get my groceries delivered by airdrop. What's more valuable, your time or your money?
- wavefunction 7y agoWhat's wrong with a grocery van dropping them off?
- jayd16 7y agoDrones can work all hours.
- ryanhuff 7y agoIt would be nice if a drone could make deliveries to a spot in my backyard. There are too many packages being stolen from people’s front porch in my neighborhood.
- alasdair_ 7y agoCalling it now: thieves will use cheap drones of their own to steal your packages with minimal risk to getting caught.
- throwaway66920 7y agoOr just shoot down the delivery drones
- puranjay 7y agoI'm very sure the drones would have cameras to catch the culprits. You wouldn't want to destroy property owned by a $800B corporation.
- 7y ago
- mensetmanusman 7y agoHigh frequency noise pollution until they fly like owls.
- jaimex2 7y agoIs it illegal to shoot these down and take their contents?
- andrewksl 7y agoIANAL, but it is already illegal to: - Shoot guns within city limits - Damage property - Steal A more grey area might be what you're obligated to do if it lands/crashes in your back yard.
- jaimex2 7y agoYeah I should have been more specific. 1. Shoot down with a potato canon as it flies over your land. 2. Take items that are now in your backyard.
- icelancer 7y agoYou just named two things that are already illegal. Why would there need to be a new law?
- catalogia 7y agoTo make it legal.
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoRelated topic... Drones delivering blood in Rwanda -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnoUBfLxZz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnoUBfLxZz0
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI can see specialised sectors where this will, like emergency / rapid medical supply delivery. More difficult to see a regular urban / suburban application working.
- alister 7y agoSo we have FedEx, Walgreens, and Wing (a.k.a. Alphabet, a.k.a. Google) all collaborating on this. Any of these huge companies could have run a pilot project by themselves and had a head start over the competition. I wonder why they joined up? My theory #1 is that it's risk mitigation against inevitable public backlash. If and when something happens (drone crashes, a package falls, whatever) the media will be talking about the horrible thing that Google did, or whoever is the frontrunner in drone delivery. Just look at how critics gang up on Tesla when it comes to driverless cars. By combining forces, the media and critics cannot single out Google because it's FedEx and Walgreens and Google; it's everybody doing it. My more mundane theory #2 is that Wing got the federal certification first, so FedEx and Walgreens paid Wing to be involved for fear of missing out. Theory #3: It helps with lobbying the more partners you have. Lobbying at state or federal level I think will be super essential otherwise every city will be creating their own set of regulations and some may try to ban drone delivery.
- jacques_chester 7y agoCommercial joint ventures are common and often occur for prosaic reasons like "we think we'll make more money this way".
- nl 7y agoThe more normal reason is that each cares about different parts. Walgreens has something they need to deliver, and wants to be seen as innovative, but doesn't really want to do tech. FedEx wants to improve delivery options, cares about end users and doesn't really care about tech. Alphabet cares about technology, but doesn't really want to deal with end users.
- pininja 7y agoDesigning + building drones and airspace software aren’t in FexEx and Walgreens core business competencies. Wing has been working on this for many years, which makes them a good partner.
- Iv 7y agoI think the answer is simpler: they could not have run a pilot project by themselves. Logistics are complex businesses. Google does not have warehouses in enough places to cover an interesting area. FedEx has. And drone deliveries are going to be expensive and only for lightweight items first. That means medicine makes sense. Walgreens will bring the clients. And no, making reliable transport drones and the infrastructure to load them up, get a reliable GPS coordinate from your client, identifying drop-in zones is not easily done, and that's the value Google brings.
- ilaksh 7y agoThe article says that they actually only did exactly one delivery. And they don't mention any specific details about more deliveries.
- reilly3000 7y agoWe now live in a world with little capital constraints afforded to some entities. After a successful... pilot these drones could be rolled out as fast as the electric scooters appeared (barring local/state regs). Competition for the last-mile skies may become fierce as investors flock to own a piece of a brand new category. While I don't think it prudent to 'fly fast and break things' I can't help but think its inevitable that scale will happen quickly- and drone insurance along with it.
- oceanplexian 7y agoIt’s not about capital constraints, the issue is with regulatory constraints. As long as there is a 0.01% chance of an unmanned drone losing control and flying into the engine of an airliner on final approach, it will be heavily restricted.
- dbuder 7y agoI am very fearful of the surveillance capitalists taking to the sky, they have proven that they will suck up any and all data they can and use it without restriction and then lie about it.
- joering2 7y agoDuplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21295652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21295652
- paul7986 7y agoCool these can be shot down ... skeeting shooting now drone shooting/treasure hunting. Also, so the sky is going to be littered with drones delivering packages from cold syrup to condoms? Further, aren't these things noisy?
- daenz 7y agoHow much cost/effort would it be to string up safety nets in urban areas for drones? My biggest concern with drones is that they fail, and that means they're landing on someone's head. If a city invested in nets, maybe 100ft above the ground, I imagine you could have a much less anxious civilian population with drones flying overhead. Someone tell me why this is a silly idea.
- Zhenya 7y agoBirds
- aphroz 7y agoA pilot program to have pilot-free vehicles piloted by pilots
- tenryuu 7y agoTrust TC to put a 9MB file in their articles, ublock is quick to deny it
- legohead 7y agobuzzing to a house near you!
- PeterStuer 7y agoWhy are companies so intent on turning this planet into an auditory hell hole? I know happy people consume less than unhappy people, but it's probably just not giving a fuck about the negative externalities and having long since captured any public body that would interfere on behalf of sanity.
- dmix 7y agoAlphabet is claiming the sound is significantly lower in their drones than typical ones. I'm curious how this works in practice because this is the type of thing that quickly gets legislative push back from municipal governments. I'm also curious if drones can fly higher than usual or would that endanger planes...
- dzhiurgis 7y agoSorry what? This will be much quieter than roads and gas truck by like 100x?
- dannyr 7y agoDo you feel the same way about cars that are much bigger and consume more fossil fuels? Wing had to get approval from the FAA and the city to operate and noise level is regulated.
- fenwick67 7y agoI would be skeptical that an electric mail truck on a route is less fuel efficient than a hundred drone trips back and forth.
- Santosh83 7y agoOnce drones really take off, I'm concerned about their impact on birds, bats and other aerial animals. Will we see bird hits left, right and centre? Will these corporations petition to "cleanse" their airspace of all birds and bees so that their drones don't take a hit? Nobody seems to have thought of this angle...
- bboreham 7y agoBirds get out of the way of slow-moving aircraft that make a lot of noise.
- alkonaut 7y agoSo long as drones are reasonably slow (bird-like speed) birds will get out of the way. Now, animals might be stressed or displaced by this which could be a bad “impact”. But I doubt they’ll be falling out of the sky. You don’t see many birds colliding with bigger/faster birds.
- masonic 7y agobirds will get out of the way Windmills are completely stationary, yet birds collide with them all the time.
- alkonaut 7y agoWhen the windmills are stationary (the blades that is), birds very rarely collide with them. When the blades do move, they are often a lot faster than these drones (120-180mph is not uncommon).
- masonic 7y ago"Dr. Shawn Smallwood’s 2004 study, spanning four years, estimated that California’s Altamont Pass wind “farm” killed an average of 116 Golden Eagles annually... Smallwood also estimated that Altamont killed an average of 300 red-tailed hawks, 333 American kestrels and 380 burrowing owls annually – plus even more non-raptors, including 2,526 rock doves and 2,557 western meadowlarks" http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-...
- alkonaut 7y agoWe don’t have amazon so I’m not used to this extreme hurry this seems to be targeting. If I order something I usually go pick it up at the shop on the corner after 48-72h. In rare cases the day after or even delivery to my door (I prefer pickup tbh). I thought same-day or next-day delivery was already widespread in e.g the US. Is this a push to shorten delivery even more? Hours?
- allset_ 7y agoAmazon Prime Now (select locations only) already has delivery within a couple hours. This is about reducing costs of such services.
- alkonaut 7y agoAre people willing to pay for it? How much? I’d probably rather go for 5% cheaper and delivery within 48h, for example. Is there a big market for “stuff, now”? I realize once you get used to it, you get used to it. I used to live in a smaller town where normal delivery was a week, now I live in a big city and can usually get 1-2 days and I can imagine how I’d feel if I had to go back to a week.
- allset_ 7y ago1hr delivery is $10ish, 2hr is $5ish. It depends on what you order. Edit: To clarify, most people don't use this most of the time, because most of the time 24-48hour delivery is fine. That said, it is VERY convenient when you realize you need X today and cannot wait. Even with the shipping fee, an Amazon basics cables is often cheaper than a trip to Best Buy.
- alkonaut 7y agoYeah I think one of the reasons I don’t quite see the appeal is the lack of an Amazon (or equivalent). There is just no place that has everything and probably also has it cheaply. A cheap cable I’d need to chase online for an hour and then probably register at the obscure web shop where it was cheapest. It’s a hassle, but also I kind of enjoy the lack of the shopping monoculture Amazon brings.
- baron816 7y agoAnyone else worried about the noise pollution that will result from widespread drone delivery services and “flying cars”? I’m thinking the pushback won’t happen until there’s enough penetration that wealthy interest groups will make it impossible to rollback. I can envision a future where we’re all just stuck with a loud constant hum from drones overhead.
- fauigerzigerk 7y agoAre they louder than delivery vans? I never heard one from close distance so I really don't know.
- dcow 7y agoYes. They sound like weed whackers.
- bufferoverflow 7y agoThey are comparable to cars driving on a highway, 75-80 decibels. Though that's small consumer drones. Depending on the design, the delivery drones can be louder or quieter. We just don't know.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- CJefferson 7y agoWhat are the rules if a drone crashes in my garden. Is it mine? Do I have to spend time and energy giving it back?
- Dumblydorr 7y agoBy 2030, if GoogMazon's drone incidental landing feature is implemented, you will be required to put it into your house and rate it 5/5, lest your capital credit score is demoted for disrespecting our corporate overlord.
- nashashmi 7y agoAlphabet wing needs to be at the forefront for creating policy that's serves both customers and businesses yet still avoids the swarm of nuisance, noise pollution, privacy violation, and operational failure. The only way to avoid public backlash. Required are 1. Established routes 2. Operational failure protocols 3. Limits in Distance veering from established routes for deliveries 4. Collision avoidance 5. Noise to height ratio 6. Minimum and maximum speed requirements 7. Capability limits e.g. Video, audio, recording, delivery. 8. Color codes 9... What else. (inspired by hn comments)