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This will revolutionize the delivery industry. I imagine trucks will become mobile drone carriers with drones landing and taking off with packages as they trave

This will revolutionize the delivery industry. I imagine trucks will become mobile drone carriers with drones landing and taking off with packages as they travel through the city.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
I have a lot of doubts on the cost/efficiency of this. Keeping things airborne will always cost a lot more energy than rolling things around. Ground-based delivery robots make some sense, air-based ones likely don't.
- lumost 6y ago
  It's likely that the energy cost of drone delivery is a small fraction of the cost a human delivery driver incurs walking to a stoop, particularly if one considers the not insignificant injury risk. flight is appealing over ground based drones as one delivery truck or base station could concurrently service multiple blocks with lower risk of someone abducting or damaging the drone. Although in all honesty I'm not sure if weight, range, carrying capacity, or speed would work out in a compelling form factor.
  - pc86 6y ago
    You're naive if you think a company is going to take on increases costs via drone-based deliveries to marginally decrease delivery driver injury risk.
    - dannyw 6y ago
      Even if you’re a “independent contractor” for Uber, if you get injured while working, their health insurance will kick in as a last resort.
    - chokeartist 6y ago
      Agreed that will never be the sole motivation. But faster delivery times is something that people will most definitely consider - I know I would. Want that ice cream in 2 hours? $3 delivery via car. Want that ice cream in 15 minutes? $10 delivery via drone.
- xnx 6y ago
  I had the crazy thought that drones ladden with deliveries could dispatch from the top of a central tall structure (like a skyscraper or antenna), take advantage of the height differential to efficiently glide toward their delivery destination, and then make their return with less weight to carry. Probably very few locales where this could make sense compared to automated sidewalk deliveries like Starship. The speed of the delivery could be astoundingly fast though.
  - pc86 6y ago
    There aren't many warehouses at the top of skyscrapers, though.
    - jdironman 6y ago
      And you have to move not only the drones, but also the packages to the top.
  - kreeben 6y ago
    >> drones ladden with deliveries could dispatch from the top of a central tall structure Wouldn't the cost of elevating the loaded drones to the rooftop of that tall structure negate any monetary gains? Wouldn't the cost be exactly that of simply using grounded vehicles that elevate themselves? (edited for clarity)
    - hatsunearu 6y ago
      lifting those payloads up the tower would just use the commerical power grid and not batteries that you also have to carry up. cables and motors are much more efficient than propellers.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - selectodude 6y ago
      An elevator?
- victorthehuman 6y ago
  If we're talking about fixed wing drones in rural environments then it does makes sense. A good example of that is this drone delivery service in Rwanda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEbRVNxL44c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEbRVNxL44c
- clort 6y ago
  Energy cost per time of use. drones might be a lot quicker to do the delivery job, particularly if the delivery point needs to be more secure than just tossing packages onto the front porch in plain sight as currently seems to be done.
brk 6y ago
I tend to doubt that happening soon. There are still a lot of logistical issues to drones flying around trying to deliver packages to the appropriate locations without a lot of live human supervision. IMO, this more opens up a potential market to justify investment in the space to create solutions.
mikequinlan 6y ago
This is what I have been thinking but I would personally prefer they use trebuchets and launch the packages onto your porch (instead of using drones). Not because it would be practical but because it would be cool.
powersnail 6y ago
I can understand it for some long-distanced batch delivery, by a giant drone. However, swarms of little drones flying in the sky of cities or private properties seems incredibly irritating, however efficiently they improve deliveries.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  I think about the truly massive # of packages delivered all over the place and think we'll need some significant routing protocols in place before we can easily get enough drones airborne without crashing into each other. Sort of a tcp/ip for millions of drones.
  - 7952 6y ago
    I don't think communication protocols are a good metaphor because they can be stateless. You can drop packets and it does matter! A better way to think about it is as a shared data structure. It is a 3d vector space with some attributes that help predict the future. Each drone has a different version of this data structure in memory. The data structure has an initial state at take-off and is updated using radio communication and sensor data. If the data structure is perfectly synchronised then planning is easy. There is plenty of sky and simple rules can be applied. But it never will be perfectly synchronised. in that sense it is like a globally distributed database. The data structure may have been edited by another drone and the change not communicated. You may have lost communication and not even realised. Local conditions may have reduced GPS quality giving you false location information. So perhaps an interesting metaphor is concurrency control. Do we lock airspace or can we have transactions? Can we partition or shard the airspace? When is consistent state required?
- cameronh90 6y ago
  Commercial delivery drones will likely be some form of VTOL fixed wing craft, which can be significantly quieter when cruising. Additionally they can usually fly higher which further reduces the noise pollution.
burade 6y ago
Is it really worth it to have your peace disturbed by hundreds of annoying little helicopters just so you can have a panini sandwich delivered in 2 minutes instead of 10?
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  What about all the paninis you can get if you can make the shot though? Think of it as urban duck hunting.
reaperducer 6y ago
I imagine trucks will become mobile drone carriers with drones landing and taking off with packages as they travel through the city. I saw a mockup video of this once. I think it was for UPS, but I might be remembering that part wrong. The upshot was that it's not useful in cities, but could be used to make exurban and rural deliveries much more efficient because the delivery truck doesn't have to trundle down a bunch of long driveways.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Without even drones, trucks could be motherships that dispatch deliverers on electric scooters for the last quarter mile. Scooters could catch up with the truck, dock to recharge and get new packages and then roll out again
scrose 6y ago
Cities feel like the last place that would be a good fit for airborne delivery, at least in the US. Take NYC for example: Delivery people on e-bikes are still harassed incessantly by the NYPD and community boards by people being scared of the possibility of being hit by them. Factor in our paranoia about terrorism and a single accidentally dropped package would likely result in counter terrorism and bomb squads being called in. I couldn’t imagine any proposal for giant flying robots with multi-pound payloads hovering overhead be taken seriously by even the most progressive leaders. In hard to reach / rural areas, I could see some benefits from drone technology though. Drone chainsaws, anyone?[0] [0] https://nypost.com/video/watch-this-helicopter-saw-blaze-through-the-treetops/ https://nypost.com/video/watch-this-helicopter-saw-blaze-thr...
- ghaff 6y ago
  And presumably, even with detached single family homes in more spread out cities, delivery people don't just drop a package on the sidewalk. I live in a fairly rural location and packages are mostly left in my mailbox or wherever against the house. But I assume in busier areas, delivery people actually make a minimal effort to not make packages completely obvious from the sidewalk.

This will revolutionize the delivery industry. I imagine trucks will become mobile drone carriers with drones landing and taking off with packages as they travel through the city.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

I have a lot of doubts on the cost/efficiency of this. Keeping things airborne will always cost a lot more energy than rolling things around. Ground-based delivery robots make some sense, air-based ones likely don't.

lumost 6y ago
It's likely that the energy cost of drone delivery is a small fraction of the cost a human delivery driver incurs walking to a stoop, particularly if one considers the not insignificant injury risk. flight is appealing over ground based drones as one delivery truck or base station could concurrently service multiple blocks with lower risk of someone abducting or damaging the drone. Although in all honesty I'm not sure if weight, range, carrying capacity, or speed would work out in a compelling form factor.
- pc86 6y ago
  You're naive if you think a company is going to take on increases costs via drone-based deliveries to marginally decrease delivery driver injury risk.
  - dannyw 6y ago
    Even if you’re a “independent contractor” for Uber, if you get injured while working, their health insurance will kick in as a last resort.
  - chokeartist 6y ago
    Agreed that will never be the sole motivation. But faster delivery times is something that people will most definitely consider - I know I would. Want that ice cream in 2 hours? $3 delivery via car. Want that ice cream in 15 minutes? $10 delivery via drone.
xnx 6y ago
I had the crazy thought that drones ladden with deliveries could dispatch from the top of a central tall structure (like a skyscraper or antenna), take advantage of the height differential to efficiently glide toward their delivery destination, and then make their return with less weight to carry. Probably very few locales where this could make sense compared to automated sidewalk deliveries like Starship. The speed of the delivery could be astoundingly fast though.
- pc86 6y ago
  There aren't many warehouses at the top of skyscrapers, though.
  - jdironman 6y ago
    And you have to move not only the drones, but also the packages to the top.
- kreeben 6y ago
  >> drones ladden with deliveries could dispatch from the top of a central tall structure Wouldn't the cost of elevating the loaded drones to the rooftop of that tall structure negate any monetary gains? Wouldn't the cost be exactly that of simply using grounded vehicles that elevate themselves? (edited for clarity)
  - hatsunearu 6y ago
    lifting those payloads up the tower would just use the commerical power grid and not batteries that you also have to carry up. cables and motors are much more efficient than propellers.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - selectodude 6y ago
    An elevator?
victorthehuman 6y ago
If we're talking about fixed wing drones in rural environments then it does makes sense. A good example of that is this drone delivery service in Rwanda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEbRVNxL44c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEbRVNxL44c
clort 6y ago
Energy cost per time of use. drones might be a lot quicker to do the delivery job, particularly if the delivery point needs to be more secure than just tossing packages onto the front porch in plain sight as currently seems to be done.

brk 6y ago

I tend to doubt that happening soon. There are still a lot of logistical issues to drones flying around trying to deliver packages to the appropriate locations without a lot of live human supervision. IMO, this more opens up a potential market to justify investment in the space to create solutions.

mikequinlan 6y ago

This is what I have been thinking but I would personally prefer they use trebuchets and launch the packages onto your porch (instead of using drones). Not because it would be practical but because it would be cool.

powersnail 6y ago

I can understand it for some long-distanced batch delivery, by a giant drone. However, swarms of little drones flying in the sky of cities or private properties seems incredibly irritating, however efficiently they improve deliveries.

ineedasername 6y ago
I think about the truly massive # of packages delivered all over the place and think we'll need some significant routing protocols in place before we can easily get enough drones airborne without crashing into each other. Sort of a tcp/ip for millions of drones.
- 7952 6y ago
  I don't think communication protocols are a good metaphor because they can be stateless. You can drop packets and it does matter! A better way to think about it is as a shared data structure. It is a 3d vector space with some attributes that help predict the future. Each drone has a different version of this data structure in memory. The data structure has an initial state at take-off and is updated using radio communication and sensor data. If the data structure is perfectly synchronised then planning is easy. There is plenty of sky and simple rules can be applied. But it never will be perfectly synchronised. in that sense it is like a globally distributed database. The data structure may have been edited by another drone and the change not communicated. You may have lost communication and not even realised. Local conditions may have reduced GPS quality giving you false location information. So perhaps an interesting metaphor is concurrency control. Do we lock airspace or can we have transactions? Can we partition or shard the airspace? When is consistent state required?
cameronh90 6y ago
Commercial delivery drones will likely be some form of VTOL fixed wing craft, which can be significantly quieter when cruising. Additionally they can usually fly higher which further reduces the noise pollution.

burade 6y ago

Is it really worth it to have your peace disturbed by hundreds of annoying little helicopters just so you can have a panini sandwich delivered in 2 minutes instead of 10?

jschwartzi 6y ago
What about all the paninis you can get if you can make the shot though? Think of it as urban duck hunting.

reaperducer 6y ago

I imagine trucks will become mobile drone carriers with drones landing and taking off with packages as they travel through the city. I saw a mockup video of this once. I think it was for UPS, but I might be remembering that part wrong. The upshot was that it's not useful in cities, but could be used to make exurban and rural deliveries much more efficient because the delivery truck doesn't have to trundle down a bunch of long driveways.

oh_sigh 6y ago

Without even drones, trucks could be motherships that dispatch deliverers on electric scooters for the last quarter mile. Scooters could catch up with the truck, dock to recharge and get new packages and then roll out again

scrose 6y ago

Cities feel like the last place that would be a good fit for airborne delivery, at least in the US. Take NYC for example: Delivery people on e-bikes are still harassed incessantly by the NYPD and community boards by people being scared of the possibility of being hit by them. Factor in our paranoia about terrorism and a single accidentally dropped package would likely result in counter terrorism and bomb squads being called in. I couldn’t imagine any proposal for giant flying robots with multi-pound payloads hovering overhead be taken seriously by even the most progressive leaders. In hard to reach / rural areas, I could see some benefits from drone technology though. Drone chainsaws, anyone?[0] [0] https://nypost.com/video/watch-this-helicopter-saw-blaze-through-the-treetops/ https://nypost.com/video/watch-this-helicopter-saw-blaze-thr...

ghaff 6y ago
And presumably, even with detached single family homes in more spread out cities, delivery people don't just drop a package on the sidewalk. I live in a fairly rural location and packages are mostly left in my mailbox or wherever against the house. But I assume in busier areas, delivery people actually make a minimal effort to not make packages completely obvious from the sidewalk.