Uber says air transportation drones are closer than we think

https://dronelife.com/2018/11/27/uber-elevate-its-closer-than-you-think/

by raleighm • 8 years ago

29 41 8 years ago

sigi452• 8 years ago

I don't think so.

adrianmonk• 8 years ago

Uber is partnering with a variety of aerospace companies to develop a VTOL vehicle that can overcome the limitations of using helicopters for transportation at scale: noise and cost.

What about energy efficiency?

Perhaps that's covered under cost? But if not, this could be a step backward in a way.

lsc• 8 years ago

What about energy efficiency?

if that isn't covered in cost, then there are externalities that need to be rolled into the cost of fuel or the like.

sschueller• 8 years ago

Isn't the primary noise of a helicopter the airflow? Sure the engines make some noise which you could reduce but how do you remove airflow noise and generate enough lift?

taneq2• 8 years ago

Electric Osprey-esque coaxial bicopter tiltrotor with ridiculously high disc loading and unguarded props sharing ground-space with pedestrians and then flying over densely populated urban centers? At a communter-friendly price which will enable "transportation at scale"? Oh, it's exactly as close as I think it is.

fsloth4• 8 years ago

To my understanding the reason helicopters are expensive is the cost of acquiring and operating the airframe.

I would imagine a scaled up drone-like airframe would be a lot more cheaper than helicopter.

That's why I don't think "drones as flying taxis" is as silly as you make it sound. Helicopters are used in urban areas. I don't see any fundamental reason why drones would not work equally well but with more traffic since they would be cheaper.

Like you point out, the unguarded props and so on mean it wouldn't be sharing ground-space with pedestrians - not at least like cars do.

Unless..

I don't know if there any way to do an emergency stop to a large scale electric prop. At least power saws stop instantly to stop cutting limbs away. Maybe there could be a similar "proximity failsafe" in the props of urban taxi-drones.

supermatt• 8 years ago

Power saws don't stop instantly. There is a massive amount of energy in those spinning disks. There are some safety mechanisms available (atypically) that use explosive charges to move the blade away and/or physically destroy it (in the case of table saws), but you cant simply stop something with that much momentum.

nradov3• 8 years ago

Why would you imagine a scaled up drone-like airframe would be a lot cheaper than a conventional helicopter? Have you actually analyzed the costs and engineering trade-offs?

tomatotomato37• 8 years ago

What exactly do you think the differences are between a helicopter and drone airframe? They're both unibody constructs built for lightness that are designed to accommodate cargo/passengars via some active lift system; calling it a different name doesn't make it a disruptive technology

taneq2• 8 years ago

To be clear - I wasn't saying manned multirotors are an impossible dream. I'd love to someday build one myself. They're not practical transportation (yet!) though, for a bunch of reasons:

- Carrying capacity is very limited. The best current tech is at its limit getting one human off the ground for a few minutes, doing better will need magic batteries from the future

- Multirotors using fixed pitch rotors need to vary the rotor speed rapidly to control the thrust and torque of the rotors, and you can't do that fast with big rotors (the rotors on this thing are already too big to control efficiently like this)

- Variable pitch rotors add too much weight and complexity, if you're going variable pitch you might as well just build a helicopter (and if this thing's using variable pitch it still doesn't have enough rotors to survive a single failure unless it has well over 2:1 max lift to weight ratio so you've gone from one critical point of failure on a helicopter to 4+ just on the rotors for this thing)

- Rotorcraft efficiency (lift per kW of power) is determined by disc loading, which means you need a ton of small rotors for a useful amount of lift with non-bonkers power usage (this thing's dual coaxial rotors are way too small to be efficient)

- A rotorcraft with a ton of small rotors (https://www.volocopter.com/en/product/ say) is going to have a ton of complexity and a high failure rate, this is actually an advantage of multirotors since (with enough rotors and enough spare power) they can tolerate single failures so you won't crash but your rotorcraft is still going to need fixing regularly

Helicopters aren't as expensive as they are because the airframe is expensive (it's just fibreglass usually) or even because the powertrain is expensive (it is though). They're expensive because they're regulated to hell and back by the FAA or your local equivalent and require exhaustive certifications, maintenance etc. You could build a helicopter for $10k in your back shed but good luck getting permission to fly it at all, much less as a taxi service, MUCH less over people's houses.

(All this is just my understanding, I'm not an aeronautical engineer, just someone who loves rotorcraft. :P )

thereisnospork2• 8 years ago

I could see the business model working for short haul direct to destination flights, think Bay area -> Tahoe/Yosemite. where driving is slow and conventional airline infrastructure is ineffective. I am however quite doubtful of their ability to engineer a safe consumer-grade osprey at an appropriate cost-point.

sigi452• 8 years ago

Imagine it is easy. The downside of it as well.

Whatever capacity that drone will have, it will cost more than a taxi. Now you have already something with high risk and higher price. Who will use it? The avg John Doe? Nope.

It is only usefull for a handfull of people. Probably people who have enough money to use something quicker than a car on the road. Do i wanna have some rich ass idiot flying above me in a city legally?

No.

And for everyone asking why: Noise and Risk.

thereisnospork2• 8 years ago

It's a different use case than a taxi. Think 4-6hr drive times down to an hour or so by air - without the hub-to-hub / security restrictions of commercial jets.

whbk• 8 years ago

s/air transportation drones/their ipo

Expect all manner of Hot New Things coming from their PR dept over the next couple quarters.

lolc3• 8 years ago

Five years ago: We're in the best position to develop autonomous cars.

Now: Look we botched the cars but the airplanes are going to work on the first try!

In five years: Nevermind those crashes we'll be dominating the autonomous spaceship market!

ninedays• 8 years ago

Sounds the same than Samsung annoncing a foldable smartphone in 2012 and doing the same every year until it inevitably becomes true. I highly doubt we are that close to air transportation but I truly wish I were wrong.

amelius• 8 years ago

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that those drones would be bigger than what most people think of as drones.

The typical consumer drone is small, lightweight, but has a range of a few hundred meters even without payload.

The drone Uber is talking about is probably the size of a large suitcase with rotors the size of bicycle wheels; the size would allow it to have a bigger battery to carry some payload and to have a bigger range. I'm not sure if I'd like to see this type of drone flying around in swarms in my city.

uptown• 8 years ago

The article has a marketing video of their concept drone. It’s showing a drone that’s small-airplane sized, capable of transporting multiple passengers.

lolc3• 8 years ago

Military drones are comparable in size. And we don't like to see those flying around cities either.

adrianN• 8 years ago

Maybe if you lived in a city in a warzone you'd see more drones overhead?

londons_explore• 8 years ago

Uber's opinion might be distorted by the high importance of being first to autonomous drones / autonomous cars to keep their business model intect and justify their valuation.

deytempo• 8 years ago

What I distrust about a race is there is often the willingness to cut corners to be a winner. In the case of an automobile, as long as it doesn’t spontaneously explode, flip over when turning a corner at “moderate” speed, or fail to stop when you break, the corner cutting results mostly in annoyance and costly repairs. In the case of a flying vehicle, the list of potential ways to have a very bad day goes up very quickly. The main reason we don’t have it yet is because it isn’t necessary yet. It would require new dimensions of traffic laws and safety precautions.

_archon_• 8 years ago

Why is there no discussion of a this response: "Of course Uber says this; they're heavily invested in this tech and want it to succeed."

I don't understand how a tech company that's developing a thing saying the thing is being developed is relevant to bring to everyone's attention.

Why does this exist?

JustSomeNobody• 8 years ago

How is it not relevant? It's PR to keep excitement and anticipation growing so that they can continue to get investors putting money into it.

sbhn• 8 years ago

If you can pay the insurance, anything is possible

scirocco• 8 years ago

Airlines at LAX must love their LA plans...

james_pm• 8 years ago

A few "drones" flying through the air with 2-4 people aboard, looking down on a traffic jam with hundreds or thousands of cars and this is going to "solve" something?

dboreham• 8 years ago

Much closer than self-driving cars, I'd venture to suggest.

jostmey• 8 years ago

I'm worried about emissions from the aircraft, which I am guessing will probably be gas powered. Airplane emissions are not as tightly regulated as automobiles. In fact, airplanes are allowed to use leaded fuel [1]. Now imagine a fleet of uber planes flying around constantly over your city.

1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lead-in-aviation-...

nradov3• 8 years ago

Leaded avgas is going away, although slowly. No one is developing new piston engines or complete aircraft that use it. Any liquid fuels for new aircraft are going to be unleaded gasoline or (more likely) kerosene.

Uber says air transportation drones are closer than we think

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