3 ms·
Even if someone is flying it remotely, this would beat all the conventional delivery times hands down plus energy efficiency. Well worth pursuing in my opinion.
by neverminder 12y ago
Even if someone is flying it remotely, this would beat all the conventional delivery times hands down plus energy efficiency. Well worth pursuing in my opinion.
- oneeyedpigeon 12y agoNot necessarily. How fast does a drone fly - will it always be faster than a moped, especially on a short, direct route? Also, more significantly, what's the maximum weight a drone can realistically carry? A moped can carry several pizzas at once for delivery to multiple addresses. Plus 'awkward' orders (litre bottle of soda?) aren't really catered for by drone, as far as I can tell. Not totally dismissing the technology - drones obviously have great future potential and, hopefully, are ultimately far better for our environment - but not convinced that takeaway delivery is a suitable use case.
- yardie 12y agoIn an urban area? I doubt it. Sure, the pizza delivery guy has to deal with car traffic, obstacles, and pedestrians. But the last 100 meters s/he has to enter a PIN to get into my building. Then has to be buzzed in. Finally has to scale 4 floors. The UAV that can do all of that hasn't been engineered yet and won't be cheaper than a part-time college student. At this stage UAV propulsion is quite primitive. Their fixed-pitch blades don't compensate with changes in the environment well. While this is not a problem for small hobby/camera drones large, cargo carrying drones will have real problems compensating on a windy day. The collective-pitch mechanisms in modern helicopters and VTOL are marvels of engineering (read $$$). The reason they are used is to allow large lifting bodies to change thrust without changing rotational velocity.