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Rolling autonomous robots may make sense, but flying stuff around has always seemed pointless. There's just no reason to waste the energy, the coordination eff

by _jal 7y ago

Rolling autonomous robots may make sense, but flying stuff around has always seemed pointless. There's just no reason to waste the energy, the coordination effort or take on the risk.

justinmeiners 7y ago
No traffic and direct paths?
- taborj 7y ago
  Yeah, but there are big problems to solve that potentially offset those two benefits. Legality: how high above your property do you own? Would a drone flying at 50 feet be trespassing? 100? 200? Loss: how do you recover a crashed drone? Or one intentionally downed? Range: how much power can you pack onboard without compromising payload capacity? Payload capacity: how much can you reasonably lift? Cost: dollar for dollar, is it more cost effective than trucks (even robotic ones)? And so on.
  - justinmeiners 7y ago
    Probably. I don't necessarily believe it's around the corner or ever will be feasible. But the motivation is clear.
  - hermitdev 7y ago
    Another factor could be weather conditions. Heavy rain/snow/wind could all affect range or even accuracy (heavy precip can interfere with GPS to some degree). Drones also probably work better in a suburban environ, but less in a dense urban area or less dense rural area. Also, maps can be terribly slow to update. My home is in a Chicago suburb, about 8 years old now. Google maps still cannot accurately plot my address. Personally, I dont look forward to "we dropped off your package where we think your address is" and yet the package is a few hundred yards away. I'm also reminded of one of my favorite fuckups, this by USPS: my Mom misquote "street" instead of "drive" on my address, street number, name, city, state and zip otherwise being correct, and the overnight package landed in Florida instead of Illinois...
  - vkou 7y ago
    You forgot the most important thing - noise. Drones are loud. Incredibly loud.
    - taborj 7y ago
      Excellent point
jchrisa 7y ago
I expect the delivery fleet of the future to look like an Amazon Locker on a self-driving e-bike trailer frame. You get a ping when your package is on your block, and use your phone to open your locker.
- tylerrobinson 7y ago
  And when you’re not home?
  - kaibee 7y ago
    The relevant locker pops open and yeets your package into the neighbor's dog.
  - curryst 7y ago
    If costs get low enough, it might be possible to do multiple delivery attempts per day. Something like "your delivery device will be on your block at 7:00, 9:00, 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 8:00". Or, more optimally, you would configure delivery windows and tell it when someone will be available and they schedule one or two delivery times in that window.
  - jchrisa 7y ago
    If you are downtown at the pub, I expect it could ask you if prefer the delivery there.
dheera 7y ago
Unfortunately VCs were much less interested in funding R&D of rolling autonomous robots in the past few years, so they aren't going to happen all of a sudden when the world actually needs them. I do agree though that they make a lot more sense than drones, for several reasons: (a) power consumption / mileage per charge (b) carrying capacity (c) safety in populated areas (d) privacy when flying by buildings (e) lack of suitable landing areas in urban centers (f) noise in residential areas. Source: I am the co-founder of one and aware of internals of several others
- wolco 7y ago
  Safety I wonder. If they are only carrying 5lb packages having them fall from the sky sound bad but the frequency of rolling robots causing car accidents or running over people or getting smashed by locals might make it more safe.
  - dheera 7y ago
    Car accidents typically involve a car running into a robot, which might obliterate the robot but would seldom cause injuries to the driver. Delivery robots would almost exclusively operate on sidewalks of 25 mph, maybe 35mph roads. Running into someone is also unlikely to cause serious injury if the robot is kept to a reasonable size and weight limit. Obstacle avoidance and bump sensors are trivial to implement. Drones, on the other hand, can take out eyes and cause severe injury if they impact someone in the face with spinning blades, and crash avoidance mid-air involves an advanced control loop as opposed to just cutting power to motors.
    - Talanes 7y ago
      https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/11/autonomous-technology-ai-robot-delivery-disability-rights/602209/ https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/11/autonomous-techn... Putting robots directly where people are creates way more unknowns than having them operate outside of the normal human space.
      - 7y ago

by _jal 7y ago

Rolling autonomous robots may make sense, but flying stuff around has always seemed pointless. There's just no reason to waste the energy, the coordination effort or take on the risk.

justinmeiners 7y ago

No traffic and direct paths?

taborj 7y ago
Yeah, but there are big problems to solve that potentially offset those two benefits. Legality: how high above your property do you own? Would a drone flying at 50 feet be trespassing? 100? 200? Loss: how do you recover a crashed drone? Or one intentionally downed? Range: how much power can you pack onboard without compromising payload capacity? Payload capacity: how much can you reasonably lift? Cost: dollar for dollar, is it more cost effective than trucks (even robotic ones)? And so on.
- justinmeiners 7y ago
  Probably. I don't necessarily believe it's around the corner or ever will be feasible. But the motivation is clear.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  Another factor could be weather conditions. Heavy rain/snow/wind could all affect range or even accuracy (heavy precip can interfere with GPS to some degree). Drones also probably work better in a suburban environ, but less in a dense urban area or less dense rural area. Also, maps can be terribly slow to update. My home is in a Chicago suburb, about 8 years old now. Google maps still cannot accurately plot my address. Personally, I dont look forward to "we dropped off your package where we think your address is" and yet the package is a few hundred yards away. I'm also reminded of one of my favorite fuckups, this by USPS: my Mom misquote "street" instead of "drive" on my address, street number, name, city, state and zip otherwise being correct, and the overnight package landed in Florida instead of Illinois...
- vkou 7y ago
  You forgot the most important thing - noise. Drones are loud. Incredibly loud.
  - taborj 7y ago
    Excellent point

jchrisa 7y ago

I expect the delivery fleet of the future to look like an Amazon Locker on a self-driving e-bike trailer frame. You get a ping when your package is on your block, and use your phone to open your locker.

tylerrobinson 7y ago
And when you’re not home?
- kaibee 7y ago
  The relevant locker pops open and yeets your package into the neighbor's dog.
- curryst 7y ago
  If costs get low enough, it might be possible to do multiple delivery attempts per day. Something like "your delivery device will be on your block at 7:00, 9:00, 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 8:00". Or, more optimally, you would configure delivery windows and tell it when someone will be available and they schedule one or two delivery times in that window.
- jchrisa 7y ago
  If you are downtown at the pub, I expect it could ask you if prefer the delivery there.

dheera 7y ago

Unfortunately VCs were much less interested in funding R&D of rolling autonomous robots in the past few years, so they aren't going to happen all of a sudden when the world actually needs them. I do agree though that they make a lot more sense than drones, for several reasons: (a) power consumption / mileage per charge (b) carrying capacity (c) safety in populated areas (d) privacy when flying by buildings (e) lack of suitable landing areas in urban centers (f) noise in residential areas. Source: I am the co-founder of one and aware of internals of several others

wolco 7y ago
Safety I wonder. If they are only carrying 5lb packages having them fall from the sky sound bad but the frequency of rolling robots causing car accidents or running over people or getting smashed by locals might make it more safe.
- dheera 7y ago
  Car accidents typically involve a car running into a robot, which might obliterate the robot but would seldom cause injuries to the driver. Delivery robots would almost exclusively operate on sidewalks of 25 mph, maybe 35mph roads. Running into someone is also unlikely to cause serious injury if the robot is kept to a reasonable size and weight limit. Obstacle avoidance and bump sensors are trivial to implement. Drones, on the other hand, can take out eyes and cause severe injury if they impact someone in the face with spinning blades, and crash avoidance mid-air involves an advanced control loop as opposed to just cutting power to motors.
  - Talanes 7y ago
    https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/11/autonomous-technology-ai-robot-delivery-disability-rights/602209/ https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/11/autonomous-techn... Putting robots directly where people are creates way more unknowns than having them operate outside of the normal human space.
    - 7y ago