5 ms·

This seems like a marketing stunt more than anything. Drones would be cost effective if they were at least somehow semi-automated, otherwise there is an endles

by recuter 13y ago

This seems like a marketing stunt more than anything. Drones would be cost effective if they were at least somehow semi-automated, otherwise there is an endless supply of teenagers and people willing to use scooters to do this at minimum wage. Drone pilots/operators are presumably more skilled and would have higher hourly wages. It seems like 'self piloting drones' > 'self driving cars' in complexity. So we aren't quite there yet. I would also imagine that once it becomes even remotely technologically viable it will be snuffed out by legislation. But perhaps one day.. :)

Zarathust 13y ago
I'm really not that sure that drones like the one in the video are more complicated than self driving cars. Self driving cars have to handle a lot of external stimulus, like other cars, road regulations and thrust/steering balances on the road. This helicopter is quite free to move and can be "easily" tracked by gps or such. Only the remote landing can be tricky depending on the situation.
- JanezStupar 13y ago
  You might be able to say that in ten years, but today self driving cars are far beyond trivial tech.
  - fryguy 13y ago
    Flying drones are easy. Driving cars is hard. Parent agrees, but the top-level post either disagrees, or has his less than backwards.
    - JanezStupar 13y ago
      What exactly is easy about flying drones? Hovering in place? Flying in a straight line for a mile? How about autonomously navigating air traffic? Navigating 3d space, full of unexpected obstacles? We don't even have sensory devices that would enable true autonomous drone flight of any complexity beyond trivial.
- yogo 13y ago
  Unless there is some great AI that can handle the landings I think that part can be left to a human. Each situation can be very unique with obstacles such as trees, power lines, other buildings in the way and a human can make better decisions about those on the fly. Plus if you are delivering to a business in a crowded downtown area you'll probably need to call the recipient while hovering then identifying and directing them to a safe drop off spot :)
- bri3d 13y ago
  I agree that a self-driving car is much harder on the basis that it has to handle other cars alone. With that being said, a small drone like this is harder than it looks for a couple reasons. First, there's not enough payload capacity for a good, accurate IMU. You're stuck using lightweight but awfully noisy MEMS gyros and accelerometers along with drifty barometers. Plus, there's not enough payload capacity for an off the shelf LIDAR or other long-range depth sensing. That means detecting obstacles needs to be delegated to 2D imagers plus CV algorithms, with some short-range depth sensing. IR ToF like a Kinect 2 or even a grid-based approach like a Kinect 1 might work in a favorable environment, but I wouldn't trust it outdoors even at close range. If I had to build a pizza-delivery drone, I'd use a bottom-facing camera like the AR.Drone does to try to provide a position reference independent of the bad MEMS gear, and I'd use CV algorithms combined with a last-ditch short-range obstacle sensor (like IR or ultrasound) to attempt to avoid obstacles. Once I got to the destination, I'd delegate landing to a pilot, since "finding the front door" is a surprisingly hard problem.
  - baddox 13y ago
    Multicopters like the one in the video have no trouble reaching much higher altitudes, where obstacles would likely be fewer and easier to detect. Given a specific delivery area, a reasonable cruising altitude could be preconfigured and the flight could probably be navigated by GPS with no CV whatsoever. Then, like you say, a human pilot could handle the landing and subsequent take-off. The location of the pizzeria could even be chosen such that take-offs and landings at that end of the trip could be entirely automated, by GPS or perhaps with some much more basic CV.
- recuter 13y ago
  As opposed to other drones (we are assuming a future where this isn't a novelty, so lots of air traffic) and regular aircraft, flight regulations, weather and birds.. and yes, the landing and obstacles at low altitude. Now maybe if they never had to go low but literally drop ship the packages..
- laumars 13y ago
  > Self driving cars have to handle a lot of external stimulus, like other cars, You say that, but you still have obstacles to avoid (trees, tall buildings and hills), "driving" conditions to contend with (high winds) and other "vehicles" (birds, other drones of such a scheme takes off). > ...road regulations and thrust/steering balances on the road. Thrust and steering is a great deal harder when you don't have a solid contact (ie movement in air vs wheels on a road). If these drones were to ever be a commercial tool, then they would be bound by regulations as well. Plus with helicopters you have additional complications that aren't an issue with self driving cars: three dimensions to worry about rather than just two (as you don't need to worry about altitude if your a car), regional air space limitations (eg are you near an air port?) and the obvious issue of somehow notifying the customer that the drone is outside their front door (assuming the AI is smart enough to determine what bit of the house is the front door). And to make matters worse, each drone would only be capable of one drop off at a time as you have space constraints and trust issues (you couldn't trust customers not to steal other peoples food so you'd need some kind of method to secure other customers food). Where as this wouldn't be a problem with a human delivery boy nor even an automated delivery car. But that all said, I wouldn't say that these things are more complicated either. I think they're both equally complicated but for different reasons. > This helicopter is quite free to move and can be "easily" tracked by gps or such. Cars can also be tracked by GPS. That's how self-driving cars work and what's used in SatNavs. Autonomous tracking is the easy bit as that's been available in consumer technology for the best part of a decade already.
  - Zarathust 13y ago
    Trees and buildings are static environment and can be mapped. I don't see how bird traffic can compete with road traffic, this comparison don't hold much to me. The third dimension is only an issue at takeoff and at landing which are by far the greatest show stoppers here. With maybe economic feasibility. Cars also have road navigation to handle with ugly stuff such as dynamic roadblocks and obsolete maps, all of which don't really apply to flying. Maybe in a mid/long-term future we'll see regulations for drones but it is very close to free for all as it stands right now
yogo 13y ago
I could see this being semi-automated to the point where the drones can travel between the home base (there can be special devices to assist the drone with automatically landing that you wouldn't have on a home or business) and some radius near the drop location by themselves then you have some human assistance with the final 100 feet or so. This would make it possible to need only 1 operator for a small city, I think. He'll only need to be concerned with landings/near-ground hovering then getting back in the air for the trip back home or to another drop. I'm sure there will be some kind of regulation/standard that will deal with the way drones avoid other drones (and other tall structures) while in the air.
cheald 13y ago
Given how good your average teenage layabout is at video games, I'm not sure that making the leap to drones would be all that hard! That's mostly tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely - the sorts of spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination skills that kids develop playing video games directly translate to fly-by-wire systems. (The downside, of course, is that teenagers are easily bored and easily amused, and may be prone to wrecking expensive company drones doing barrel rolls and buzzing their friends.)

by recuter 13y ago

Zarathust 13y ago

I'm really not that sure that drones like the one in the video are more complicated than self driving cars. Self driving cars have to handle a lot of external stimulus, like other cars, road regulations and thrust/steering balances on the road. This helicopter is quite free to move and can be "easily" tracked by gps or such. Only the remote landing can be tricky depending on the situation.

JanezStupar 13y ago
You might be able to say that in ten years, but today self driving cars are far beyond trivial tech.
- fryguy 13y ago
  Flying drones are easy. Driving cars is hard. Parent agrees, but the top-level post either disagrees, or has his less than backwards.
  - JanezStupar 13y ago
    What exactly is easy about flying drones? Hovering in place? Flying in a straight line for a mile? How about autonomously navigating air traffic? Navigating 3d space, full of unexpected obstacles? We don't even have sensory devices that would enable true autonomous drone flight of any complexity beyond trivial.
yogo 13y ago
Unless there is some great AI that can handle the landings I think that part can be left to a human. Each situation can be very unique with obstacles such as trees, power lines, other buildings in the way and a human can make better decisions about those on the fly. Plus if you are delivering to a business in a crowded downtown area you'll probably need to call the recipient while hovering then identifying and directing them to a safe drop off spot :)
bri3d 13y ago
I agree that a self-driving car is much harder on the basis that it has to handle other cars alone. With that being said, a small drone like this is harder than it looks for a couple reasons. First, there's not enough payload capacity for a good, accurate IMU. You're stuck using lightweight but awfully noisy MEMS gyros and accelerometers along with drifty barometers. Plus, there's not enough payload capacity for an off the shelf LIDAR or other long-range depth sensing. That means detecting obstacles needs to be delegated to 2D imagers plus CV algorithms, with some short-range depth sensing. IR ToF like a Kinect 2 or even a grid-based approach like a Kinect 1 might work in a favorable environment, but I wouldn't trust it outdoors even at close range. If I had to build a pizza-delivery drone, I'd use a bottom-facing camera like the AR.Drone does to try to provide a position reference independent of the bad MEMS gear, and I'd use CV algorithms combined with a last-ditch short-range obstacle sensor (like IR or ultrasound) to attempt to avoid obstacles. Once I got to the destination, I'd delegate landing to a pilot, since "finding the front door" is a surprisingly hard problem.
- baddox 13y ago
  Multicopters like the one in the video have no trouble reaching much higher altitudes, where obstacles would likely be fewer and easier to detect. Given a specific delivery area, a reasonable cruising altitude could be preconfigured and the flight could probably be navigated by GPS with no CV whatsoever. Then, like you say, a human pilot could handle the landing and subsequent take-off. The location of the pizzeria could even be chosen such that take-offs and landings at that end of the trip could be entirely automated, by GPS or perhaps with some much more basic CV.
recuter 13y ago
As opposed to other drones (we are assuming a future where this isn't a novelty, so lots of air traffic) and regular aircraft, flight regulations, weather and birds.. and yes, the landing and obstacles at low altitude. Now maybe if they never had to go low but literally drop ship the packages..
laumars 13y ago
> Self driving cars have to handle a lot of external stimulus, like other cars, You say that, but you still have obstacles to avoid (trees, tall buildings and hills), "driving" conditions to contend with (high winds) and other "vehicles" (birds, other drones of such a scheme takes off). > ...road regulations and thrust/steering balances on the road. Thrust and steering is a great deal harder when you don't have a solid contact (ie movement in air vs wheels on a road). If these drones were to ever be a commercial tool, then they would be bound by regulations as well. Plus with helicopters you have additional complications that aren't an issue with self driving cars: three dimensions to worry about rather than just two (as you don't need to worry about altitude if your a car), regional air space limitations (eg are you near an air port?) and the obvious issue of somehow notifying the customer that the drone is outside their front door (assuming the AI is smart enough to determine what bit of the house is the front door). And to make matters worse, each drone would only be capable of one drop off at a time as you have space constraints and trust issues (you couldn't trust customers not to steal other peoples food so you'd need some kind of method to secure other customers food). Where as this wouldn't be a problem with a human delivery boy nor even an automated delivery car. But that all said, I wouldn't say that these things are more complicated either. I think they're both equally complicated but for different reasons. > This helicopter is quite free to move and can be "easily" tracked by gps or such. Cars can also be tracked by GPS. That's how self-driving cars work and what's used in SatNavs. Autonomous tracking is the easy bit as that's been available in consumer technology for the best part of a decade already.
- Zarathust 13y ago
  Trees and buildings are static environment and can be mapped. I don't see how bird traffic can compete with road traffic, this comparison don't hold much to me. The third dimension is only an issue at takeoff and at landing which are by far the greatest show stoppers here. With maybe economic feasibility. Cars also have road navigation to handle with ugly stuff such as dynamic roadblocks and obsolete maps, all of which don't really apply to flying. Maybe in a mid/long-term future we'll see regulations for drones but it is very close to free for all as it stands right now

yogo 13y ago

I could see this being semi-automated to the point where the drones can travel between the home base (there can be special devices to assist the drone with automatically landing that you wouldn't have on a home or business) and some radius near the drop location by themselves then you have some human assistance with the final 100 feet or so. This would make it possible to need only 1 operator for a small city, I think. He'll only need to be concerned with landings/near-ground hovering then getting back in the air for the trip back home or to another drop. I'm sure there will be some kind of regulation/standard that will deal with the way drones avoid other drones (and other tall structures) while in the air.

cheald 13y ago

Given how good your average teenage layabout is at video games, I'm not sure that making the leap to drones would be all that hard! That's mostly tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely - the sorts of spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination skills that kids develop playing video games directly translate to fly-by-wire systems. (The downside, of course, is that teenagers are easily bored and easily amused, and may be prone to wrecking expensive company drones doing barrel rolls and buzzing their friends.)