In general I like your posts. Not so much this one. Air Drones are absolutely great idea for essential services like medical situations you mentioned. Drones that deliver on the ground instead of drivers are a better concept (eg Waymu for packages at your curb or mini drone to door)...here's why:
Air drones are a terrible idea. Have you done the math on how many drones it will take to delivery everyone's orders? Roughly 30 Billion packages delivered...that's over 100 Million per DAY! That would mean roughly 2.5M drones in the air per hour...not even including food deliveries.
Could you imagine the issues with that...first of all...how about national security? We can't tell today what these drone flock spies are doing already...per our military we have no way to know or counter this today...without 2.5M of our own "friendly" drones in the air. We aren't going to be attacked by people in the future...it be by drone...just look what's happening in Ukraine...we would invite that here?
Other reasons: one drone is loud and annoying as heck...imagine millions. How about privacy...ha. Environmental: say goodbye to anything else that flies and they still consume lots of power (especially as they get smarter).
All the research I've read shows people like this in concept and even initially, but at scale people hate it and that's why it keeps getting canceled.
Seems like we are getting closer to a better solution as I do think it's out there...just not from the air. Hopefully you all can find one being smarter about it and leave the air deliveries to the most essential things.
I'm pretty much 100% in agreement with you regarding air drones - but even ground drones are pretty iffy in my opinion - Waymo cars - maybe - but in a metro inner city area? I've see videos of those ground robots simply getting kicked over on the streets - instant junk. There's a ton of assumptions about how humans will interact with this technology, and all of those assumptions are pretty mis-guided.
As far as privacy and national security go, people with a credit card can just buy a hobby drone if they want one. Not sure how to regulate their use as of now.
People in the US are supposed to register their drones on the FAADroneZone portal. However, they can just decide they don’t want to and fly it anyways.
Hobby drones have been commercially available in the US since the early 2010s. This is thankfully not a brand new technology to grapple with. (Edit: I just realized the FAA has had regulations in place since 2006, and that drones have been produced long before that.)
What can probably be done to reduce traffic of drones is limit the number that can be used in the air by delivery companies. They can also give regulatory priority to companies that deliver medical supplies, for example. Or to firefighters, construction workers, and EMS. Whatever is essential.
I think focusing on delivery of the most important supplies, such as medical, can be a realistic approach.
The payment model will probably eventually need to be set up so that small essential orders are what is focused on. Delivery trucks can take care of the bulky and mass delivery jobs. (Edit: also consider that commercial delivery drones can usually only deliver small orders right now).
Ideally, drones will be used for specific delivery jobs, and not for every job. I don’t think drones will be used for delivering everything. Trucks can still deliver a lot of things more effectively.
You might want to consider CBDC's (Central Bank Digital Currencies) more of a threat than drones delivering groceries and digital ID's. They can control what you do and where you go, down to regulating your daily beer intake.
If there are 30 Billion packages delivered per day in the US, then there are several million delivery vans on the road delivering them.
2.5 million drones across US airspace would barely be noticed. One of the principle problems in Ukraine is spotting them before they attack a target. One problem they do have, however, is they don't fly during inclement weather. I guess experience in Rwanda would give a better indication of how and if that's overcome.
The laws that need to be passed are to stop governments utilising drones rather than businesses. Governments are the ones who mount ordnance and surveillance equipment on drones, businesses don't usually resort to killing their customers.
Love this article. It is amazing to this 78 year old how technology is transforming the world. If we could just get the politics out of practical applications and availability to it all, what a world this would be for everyone.
As always, I love the informative articles sent each week. In my imagination I’m having a hard time feeling the anticipation of having drones crowd the airspace while I’m trying to have a reflective moment in my backyard. Emergency drones that save lives I would favor. Think of what the airspace would look like in high density populated areas.
Walmart doing drone delivery from their Supercenter hub sounds great. But like living near a major airport, all the activity will be annoying. In the longer run smaller "warehouses" closer to the customer will be necessary. These Dollar General sized buildings, well located (and designed for robotic pick and place), will accommodate neighborhood needs while maintaining the limitations of the technology. I could even see a strip mall sized area used as distribution centers - set up your pizza shop at the droneport - to better accommodate everyone.
Unfortunately most town planning commissions won't be nimble enough to designate a droneport, nor will they be cognizant enough to approach the FAA with an airmap of their town showing recommended drone corridors, zoned landing and operations areas, etc. But they will have to deal with the "Karens" of the world, who will only see the downside. So drone delivery becomes someone else's problem until proven useful.
I really don't understand the vitriol over small aircraft in the US. "They're noisy!" Early drones were noisy, but the last decade has seen the overall loudness drop due to better design and thanks to the Pentagon's requirements any drone that wants to be sold to the military must not exceed 85 dB at 10(?) meters. So most already are below that figure. Zipline reimagined propellers and came up with a prop that shifts almost all the noise to outside the range of human hearing. Problem solved. Unfortunately there will be something else brought up next, because Karen is never happy with change.
And I believe that's the root cause of drone hatred in the US. The reactionary left, who's always called themselves liberals, are actually extremely conservative when it comes to their own lives. Their approach to technology is like that of Dr. Sevrin, only useful if it directly benefits them in some superficial way, and illogically believing there's some inherent but unmeasurable harm being done to their body.
Now, the FAA could help by promoting drones and doing a much better job of integrating them into the airspace -and the aviation industry could be a lot more welcoming- but the fact is adding drones to the airspace didn't fit in with the FAA's long term plans known as NextGen (and by long term we're talking decades), to roll out minuscule incremental changes to get to the finish line of NextGen by 2030. And as we constantly are bombarded with bad news about the "ancient" ATC network, that's going to take priority over finding space for drones. Which is just fine to them, because they only ever hear the bad news about drones violating airspace, or flown in unlawful ways, or just causing a ruckus. Because most drone pilots aren't thinking like aviators, they're thinking like photographers, video gamers or fishermen. And the FAA doesn't know how to deal with them.
The tyranny of distance or customer density still limits this. Here in the “Red Neck” end of the suburbs we do not have FIOS. Not enough customers per mile to justify the capital cost. Same with drones. 2 miles barely clear the mall parking lot. Better batteries are coming. I will take a while.
The Cambrian explosion, a period of rapid evolutionary diversification, is estimated to have lasted approximately 13 to 25 million years. The drone innovation explosion is 13 to 25 months old. Human intelligence and creativity are the fastest innovators in the known galaxy.
Neat idea, but what about hacking? Was discussing robotaxis with my Millennial programmer son this week, and he was questioning their security / what if some terrorist hacked them and then caused mass destruction in a city. Same concerns here, whether these are remote piloted (hack the signal) or autonomous (hack the sw, inject a trojan on the next download to the fleet). I don't hear anyone talking about this vulnerability.
I'm a realist and I believe drone deliveries will take over for all the reasons stated in this post. But to give the NIMBYs a bit of credit, imagine replacing 1 Amazon delivery truck that delivers 50 packages in your neighborhood with a pigeon flock of 50 drones.
But we're not talking mass deliveries of everything, are we?
Drones can't deliver a new mattress to your home. What they can deliver, however, is that essential part to repair a car instead of waiting a couple of days for it, or making an hour round trip to your local store for something that cost's $5.
And I wouldn't mind a hot takeaway meal being delivered in ten minutes rather than wait an hour for it to be delivered cold.
As mentioned in the article, drones are used to great effect on the battlefields of Ukraine, but as I mentioned elsewhere, the problem the drones target has is spotting them. If you're not obsessively looking for them, they will mostly pass unnoticed.
Well, I consider myself a Rational Optimist, but maybe I'm a NIMBY, as well? Ugh. I agree with others in the comments, I'm not so excited for burrito drones. Yes, the Amazon trucks are on my street multiple times a day, but they are electric, silent. I don't know they are out there unless I happen to look outside. One of my neighbors continuously has food delivered. They are not busy over there, just lazy. The other day I went to the local park to go for a run. At one point, someone's drone followed me for maybe a minute or so. I suspect nothing mischievous, just someone playing with a hobby drone. But I don't want to be followed by a drone. I certainly don't one recording above my backyard. Love the idea of first responder drones. Love the idea of drones for military to keep service members safer. And love the idea of blood deliveries in Africa. I'm not smart enough to know where the line is, but burrito drones are on the other side of that line.
The drone industry has done a pretty lousy job of onboarding new pilots. Unfortunately anyone with a credit card can be flying in minutes, without any instruction, license or ethics training. Technology has always been used in ways that might not be completely above the board, but for the most part the tools used weren't seen. People with scanners used to be able to listen to your phone calls, baby monitors and intercoms. When smartphones began to include cameras no one really thought much about the downside of everyone having cameras in their pockets all the time. But you bet that someone is using them for spying on their neighbors. So there's a market for such devices. And unfortunately drones fit into that market niche, in a very visible and noisy way. But I would point out that aviation has always had the capability for "spying." Even the old 80s film Blue Thunder featured a scene where the pilot spied on some woman undressing.
It really comes down to the ethics of the pilot, something that really cannot really be legislated or wished away.
In general I like your posts. Not so much this one. Air Drones are absolutely great idea for essential services like medical situations you mentioned. Drones that deliver on the ground instead of drivers are a better concept (eg Waymu for packages at your curb or mini drone to door)...here's why:
Air drones are a terrible idea. Have you done the math on how many drones it will take to delivery everyone's orders? Roughly 30 Billion packages delivered...that's over 100 Million per DAY! That would mean roughly 2.5M drones in the air per hour...not even including food deliveries.
Could you imagine the issues with that...first of all...how about national security? We can't tell today what these drone flock spies are doing already...per our military we have no way to know or counter this today...without 2.5M of our own "friendly" drones in the air. We aren't going to be attacked by people in the future...it be by drone...just look what's happening in Ukraine...we would invite that here?
Other reasons: one drone is loud and annoying as heck...imagine millions. How about privacy...ha. Environmental: say goodbye to anything else that flies and they still consume lots of power (especially as they get smarter).
All the research I've read shows people like this in concept and even initially, but at scale people hate it and that's why it keeps getting canceled.
Seems like we are getting closer to a better solution as I do think it's out there...just not from the air. Hopefully you all can find one being smarter about it and leave the air deliveries to the most essential things.
I’m a retired firefighter. Fire departments are using this technology. What about congestion at Fire Scenes?
I'm pretty much 100% in agreement with you regarding air drones - but even ground drones are pretty iffy in my opinion - Waymo cars - maybe - but in a metro inner city area? I've see videos of those ground robots simply getting kicked over on the streets - instant junk. There's a ton of assumptions about how humans will interact with this technology, and all of those assumptions are pretty mis-guided.
You bring up some good questions.
As far as privacy and national security go, people with a credit card can just buy a hobby drone if they want one. Not sure how to regulate their use as of now.
People in the US are supposed to register their drones on the FAADroneZone portal. However, they can just decide they don’t want to and fly it anyways.
Hobby drones have been commercially available in the US since the early 2010s. This is thankfully not a brand new technology to grapple with. (Edit: I just realized the FAA has had regulations in place since 2006, and that drones have been produced long before that.)
What can probably be done to reduce traffic of drones is limit the number that can be used in the air by delivery companies. They can also give regulatory priority to companies that deliver medical supplies, for example. Or to firefighters, construction workers, and EMS. Whatever is essential.
I think focusing on delivery of the most important supplies, such as medical, can be a realistic approach.
The payment model will probably eventually need to be set up so that small essential orders are what is focused on. Delivery trucks can take care of the bulky and mass delivery jobs. (Edit: also consider that commercial delivery drones can usually only deliver small orders right now).
Ideally, drones will be used for specific delivery jobs, and not for every job. I don’t think drones will be used for delivering everything. Trucks can still deliver a lot of things more effectively.
You might want to consider CBDC's (Central Bank Digital Currencies) more of a threat than drones delivering groceries and digital ID's. They can control what you do and where you go, down to regulating your daily beer intake.
If there are 30 Billion packages delivered per day in the US, then there are several million delivery vans on the road delivering them.
2.5 million drones across US airspace would barely be noticed. One of the principle problems in Ukraine is spotting them before they attack a target. One problem they do have, however, is they don't fly during inclement weather. I guess experience in Rwanda would give a better indication of how and if that's overcome.
The laws that need to be passed are to stop governments utilising drones rather than businesses. Governments are the ones who mount ordnance and surveillance equipment on drones, businesses don't usually resort to killing their customers.
Love this article. It is amazing to this 78 year old how technology is transforming the world. If we could just get the politics out of practical applications and availability to it all, what a world this would be for everyone.
Enjoy shot of positivity every Sunday morning!
As always, I love the informative articles sent each week. In my imagination I’m having a hard time feeling the anticipation of having drones crowd the airspace while I’m trying to have a reflective moment in my backyard. Emergency drones that save lives I would favor. Think of what the airspace would look like in high density populated areas.
Walmart doing drone delivery from their Supercenter hub sounds great. But like living near a major airport, all the activity will be annoying. In the longer run smaller "warehouses" closer to the customer will be necessary. These Dollar General sized buildings, well located (and designed for robotic pick and place), will accommodate neighborhood needs while maintaining the limitations of the technology. I could even see a strip mall sized area used as distribution centers - set up your pizza shop at the droneport - to better accommodate everyone.
Unfortunately most town planning commissions won't be nimble enough to designate a droneport, nor will they be cognizant enough to approach the FAA with an airmap of their town showing recommended drone corridors, zoned landing and operations areas, etc. But they will have to deal with the "Karens" of the world, who will only see the downside. So drone delivery becomes someone else's problem until proven useful.
I really don't understand the vitriol over small aircraft in the US. "They're noisy!" Early drones were noisy, but the last decade has seen the overall loudness drop due to better design and thanks to the Pentagon's requirements any drone that wants to be sold to the military must not exceed 85 dB at 10(?) meters. So most already are below that figure. Zipline reimagined propellers and came up with a prop that shifts almost all the noise to outside the range of human hearing. Problem solved. Unfortunately there will be something else brought up next, because Karen is never happy with change.
And I believe that's the root cause of drone hatred in the US. The reactionary left, who's always called themselves liberals, are actually extremely conservative when it comes to their own lives. Their approach to technology is like that of Dr. Sevrin, only useful if it directly benefits them in some superficial way, and illogically believing there's some inherent but unmeasurable harm being done to their body.
Now, the FAA could help by promoting drones and doing a much better job of integrating them into the airspace -and the aviation industry could be a lot more welcoming- but the fact is adding drones to the airspace didn't fit in with the FAA's long term plans known as NextGen (and by long term we're talking decades), to roll out minuscule incremental changes to get to the finish line of NextGen by 2030. And as we constantly are bombarded with bad news about the "ancient" ATC network, that's going to take priority over finding space for drones. Which is just fine to them, because they only ever hear the bad news about drones violating airspace, or flown in unlawful ways, or just causing a ruckus. Because most drone pilots aren't thinking like aviators, they're thinking like photographers, video gamers or fishermen. And the FAA doesn't know how to deal with them.
The tyranny of distance or customer density still limits this. Here in the “Red Neck” end of the suburbs we do not have FIOS. Not enough customers per mile to justify the capital cost. Same with drones. 2 miles barely clear the mall parking lot. Better batteries are coming. I will take a while.
The Cambrian explosion, a period of rapid evolutionary diversification, is estimated to have lasted approximately 13 to 25 million years. The drone innovation explosion is 13 to 25 months old. Human intelligence and creativity are the fastest innovators in the known galaxy.
Neat idea, but what about hacking? Was discussing robotaxis with my Millennial programmer son this week, and he was questioning their security / what if some terrorist hacked them and then caused mass destruction in a city. Same concerns here, whether these are remote piloted (hack the signal) or autonomous (hack the sw, inject a trojan on the next download to the fleet). I don't hear anyone talking about this vulnerability.
I'm a realist and I believe drone deliveries will take over for all the reasons stated in this post. But to give the NIMBYs a bit of credit, imagine replacing 1 Amazon delivery truck that delivers 50 packages in your neighborhood with a pigeon flock of 50 drones.
But we're not talking mass deliveries of everything, are we?
Drones can't deliver a new mattress to your home. What they can deliver, however, is that essential part to repair a car instead of waiting a couple of days for it, or making an hour round trip to your local store for something that cost's $5.
And I wouldn't mind a hot takeaway meal being delivered in ten minutes rather than wait an hour for it to be delivered cold.
As mentioned in the article, drones are used to great effect on the battlefields of Ukraine, but as I mentioned elsewhere, the problem the drones target has is spotting them. If you're not obsessively looking for them, they will mostly pass unnoticed.
Well, I consider myself a Rational Optimist, but maybe I'm a NIMBY, as well? Ugh. I agree with others in the comments, I'm not so excited for burrito drones. Yes, the Amazon trucks are on my street multiple times a day, but they are electric, silent. I don't know they are out there unless I happen to look outside. One of my neighbors continuously has food delivered. They are not busy over there, just lazy. The other day I went to the local park to go for a run. At one point, someone's drone followed me for maybe a minute or so. I suspect nothing mischievous, just someone playing with a hobby drone. But I don't want to be followed by a drone. I certainly don't one recording above my backyard. Love the idea of first responder drones. Love the idea of drones for military to keep service members safer. And love the idea of blood deliveries in Africa. I'm not smart enough to know where the line is, but burrito drones are on the other side of that line.
The drone industry has done a pretty lousy job of onboarding new pilots. Unfortunately anyone with a credit card can be flying in minutes, without any instruction, license or ethics training. Technology has always been used in ways that might not be completely above the board, but for the most part the tools used weren't seen. People with scanners used to be able to listen to your phone calls, baby monitors and intercoms. When smartphones began to include cameras no one really thought much about the downside of everyone having cameras in their pockets all the time. But you bet that someone is using them for spying on their neighbors. So there's a market for such devices. And unfortunately drones fit into that market niche, in a very visible and noisy way. But I would point out that aviation has always had the capability for "spying." Even the old 80s film Blue Thunder featured a scene where the pilot spied on some woman undressing.
It really comes down to the ethics of the pilot, something that really cannot really be legislated or wished away.
Interesting and exciting!
Great that it was tried and tested in Africa
Great news!
Very well written description of the current state of delivery drones.
Excellent article, once again
Thanks, Chris!
great article. Loved the NIMBY part.
Great article, this is a game changer.