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No traffic? No stop signs? No pedestrians to run in front of you? No closed roads due to construction? There are dozens of reasons why an autonomous drone is g

by SEJeff 11y ago

No traffic? No stop signs? No pedestrians to run in front of you? No closed roads due to construction? There are dozens of reasons why an autonomous drone is greater than an autonomous car, use your imagination.

hn9780470248775 11y ago
> No traffic? Not for long, apparently.
- josu 11y ago
  We'll have to wear helmets while walking on the street.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Or start hanging nets above roads and sidewalks to catch things dropping from the sky.
    - SEJeff 11y ago
      like airplanes? Might be a bit large.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
No traffic until people actually start using drone delivery systems. It's like with planes, the air seem so big but in fact it's very crowded and you get mid-air collisions all the time (hell, one case was just being discussed on HN earlier today). Scale that up to account for more drones in smaller space. Apart from that, it still isn't obvious to me how this is better than an electric delivery truck. Cars are much more energy efficient than drones (especially helicopter-like ones), doubly so if you load the car to its capacity. Note that in case of drones, the mass of the package is only a small percentage of the overall mass of the vehicle, so most of the energy used will scale up with number of drone deliveries. I'm pretty sure taken altogether cars will win in terms of energy use.
- cpeterso 11y ago
  I think the traffic Amazon would be worried about is human drivers, not other drones. AFAIK, Google's driverless cars have been in 14 documented accidents and all 14 were the fault of human drivers (including one incident of a human driving the Google car). Machines may be better drivers than humans.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Sure, but cars don't fall out of the sky when they get into accidents, spraying metal and death to people below.
- Retra 11y ago
  Planes do not have the maneuverability of drones. Drones can hover in place. They can stop. They are small and light. Planes can't do this at all.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Depends on the type of drones you want to use and their range. Helicopter-like drones have very poor range and flight time, so this would limit your range considerably. And if you go to a plane-like drone, or even some kind of hybrid mode (eg. VTOL), suddenly you can't really do an emergency hover when cruising to destination. But even if they find a way to handle the traffic, I was just saying that there will be traffic and that this poses serious problems.

by SEJeff 11y ago

hn9780470248775 11y ago

> No traffic? Not for long, apparently.

josu 11y ago
We'll have to wear helmets while walking on the street.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Or start hanging nets above roads and sidewalks to catch things dropping from the sky.
  - SEJeff 11y ago
    like airplanes? Might be a bit large.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

No traffic until people actually start using drone delivery systems. It's like with planes, the air seem so big but in fact it's very crowded and you get mid-air collisions all the time (hell, one case was just being discussed on HN earlier today). Scale that up to account for more drones in smaller space. Apart from that, it still isn't obvious to me how this is better than an electric delivery truck. Cars are much more energy efficient than drones (especially helicopter-like ones), doubly so if you load the car to its capacity. Note that in case of drones, the mass of the package is only a small percentage of the overall mass of the vehicle, so most of the energy used will scale up with number of drone deliveries. I'm pretty sure taken altogether cars will win in terms of energy use.

cpeterso 11y ago
I think the traffic Amazon would be worried about is human drivers, not other drones. AFAIK, Google's driverless cars have been in 14 documented accidents and all 14 were the fault of human drivers (including one incident of a human driving the Google car). Machines may be better drivers than humans.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Sure, but cars don't fall out of the sky when they get into accidents, spraying metal and death to people below.
Retra 11y ago
Planes do not have the maneuverability of drones. Drones can hover in place. They can stop. They are small and light. Planes can't do this at all.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Depends on the type of drones you want to use and their range. Helicopter-like drones have very poor range and flight time, so this would limit your range considerably. And if you go to a plane-like drone, or even some kind of hybrid mode (eg. VTOL), suddenly you can't really do an emergency hover when cruising to destination. But even if they find a way to handle the traffic, I was just saying that there will be traffic and that this poses serious problems.