2 ms·
In 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
by yardie 12y ago
In 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.