Despite FAA Setbacks, Amazon Prime Air Makes Notable Hires

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/20/despite-faa-setbacks-amazon-prime-air-makes-notable-engineering-nasa-and-aerospace-hires/?utm_content=buffer15eaa&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

by eplanit • 12 years ago

66 51 12 years ago

techcrunch.com

mkl• 12 years ago

The FAA thing didn't actually affect Amazon or their plans for Prime Air: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2014/06/fa...

dmix• 12 years ago

Strange how this author mentions the FAA about ten times without researching Amazon's official statement on the matter.

downandout2• 12 years ago

If people want drone-based delivery, someone will make one that individuals can privately buy that will fly out to pick up packages. That's legal today. Any individual can do anything they want with a drone they own as long as it does not fly above 400 feet - it's the business owning it and using it for commercial purposes that makes it illegal under current rules.

furyofantares2• 12 years ago

Where is that legal today? Don't personal drones have to be manually operated by someone on the ground within line of sight among other restrictions in the US?

downandout2• 12 years ago

The phrase “visual line of sight” is sometimes distinguished from “line of sight,” which can refer to operation in which a radio signal can be transmitted directly from an operator to a UAS that may be beyond visual line of sight.

jahewson2• 12 years ago

An operator can't do anything they like, their UAS has further restrictions which would rule out automated parcel collection:

- flown a sufficient distance from populated areas

- should be kept within visual line of sight of the operator

Source: https://www.faa.gov/uas/faq/

baddox7• 12 years ago

And, like many rules the FAA makes, there is debate over whether they have the legal authority or physical power to enforce them. That's why they took Trappy to NTSB court rather than arresting him. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/04/12/faa-files-...

robbrown4514• 12 years ago

I'm sorry, but this is insane. No local government is going to allow these things to be buzzing around everywhere for no good reason.

People may like it for a about a week ("neato, I can get my package lickity-split!") and then will say screw this, those things are making a racket and driving me batty.

It's not like they can be used to deliver groceries. And they presumably have to return to the base after each delivery, because they can't carry that much. That's just crazy inefficient.

I could see small electric rolling vehicles that make automated deliveries. But noisy little helicopter drones? Not going to happen.

spydertennis2• 12 years ago

this is so logical that i cant believe amazon hasnt thought of it. they must know something we dont or its all just a joke.

spydertennis2• 12 years ago

instead of drones they should repurpose military aircraft to carpet bomb cities with peoples' packages.

robbrown4514• 12 years ago

My theory has been that it is a joke but I'm not sure anymore.

You'd think they would have thought this through, but ya know, I'm not sure they thought the Fire Phone through.

danshapiro• 12 years ago

You're forecasting the future based on the state of technology at the present. That is unlikely to point you in the right direction.

robbrown4514• 12 years ago

Well I predict flying cars won't happen anytime soon either. Pretty much the same reason.

jjoonathan• 12 years ago

On the contrary, it's quite possible for practical implementation details to hold back a field for hundreds of years. My favorite example is the hydrogen fuel cell. It was invented at a time when Abraham Lincoln was busy launching his first political career and still looked like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#mediaviewer/Fil...

yet 180 years later hydrogen fuel cells still aren't a competitive energy storage strategy. Less spectacular examples include flying cars and speech recognition / AI.

baddox7• 12 years ago

Actually, he's forecasting the future based on a misrepresentation of the present state of technology. Noise will not be a significant concern, which is obvious to anyone with any experience with larger multirotor aircraft.

icpmacdo3• 12 years ago

Same argument for delivery trucks, I think what is going to determine the future of drone delivery is if it's more efficient than traditional shipping.

notatoad• 12 years ago

What if the base were mobile? Instead of the UPS truck driving in to your neighborhood and stopping at each house on its route, a truck parks in an out of the way corner and releases a bunch of drones to take your package just the last block or two. After it releases its fleet, the base drives on to the next neighbourhood and the drones catch up after delivering their packages to get their batteries replaced and their next package. It would increase the efficiency of the truck, the truck would still be there as a failsafe and to deliver larger packages, and most of the drone's flight time it isn't carrying a load.

The biggest challenge i see is the annoyance factor, but people have proven willing to put up with a fair bit of annoyance if it provides them with enough utility.

lambda• 12 years ago

I'm sorry, but this is insane. No local government is going to allow these things to be buzzing around everywhere for no good reason.

You mean like all of the cars and trucks that are rumbling around everywhere for no good reason? They roar around everywhere, are incredibly dangerous, require billions of dollars of government funded infrastructure, and destroy the environment. No one would ever allow them to become common, when we have such alternatives as walking, bikes, trains, and the like, right? They're just crazy inefficient; a bike is so much more energy efficient for a single person, and a train is faster, safer, and more efficient for moving large numbers around.

ObviousScience2• 12 years ago

The rise of the personal car involved a huge amount of corruption to accomplish, with municipalities basically gutting the better alternatives you propose on behalf of the emerging auto-industry.

So yes, I think sans massive government corruption, we don't see these kinds of technologies that are intrusive and inefficient rising to prominence.

Also, trucks hit a technological sweet spot that I don't think drones sit in. They have predictable and easily controllable failure modes; they're always traveling at eye level where they're relatively (easier) to spot; they have relatively high transport capacity, enabling multiple visits; etc.

The problem with drones that replace trucks is that I'm not sure we've actually gained much by having flying trucks all over the place - the increase in delivery time (which I'm not sure would actually be very high in the average case) would easily be offset by the danger of many low flying trucks.

kenrikm3• 12 years ago

A lot of the problems you bring up can be solved and will be, I've been working on long range multicopters so trust me I speak from experience.

At 200ft with low KV motors and big props they are nearly silent or at least quiet enough that they blend into the background. If you fly following surface streets you remove a lot of the "drone falling on someone possibility" and insurance can handle damage to cars if something were to go wrong. Keep in mind they can also be fitted with parachutes and airbags that can be deployed for safety.

Right now the biggest holdbacks are losing GPS lock (flyaways are not fun) sense and avoid (don't hit stuff) and battery life.

You can easily build a multicopter with current tech able to fly 5km+ and back in under 10min (I've done it) the issue is that due to the weight of the batteries you don't end up with much payload left to speak of. As better battery tech is rolled out and other stated problems are solved drone based logistics will be viable, I give it 5 maybe 10 years max and am very bullish on it.

ObviousScience2• 12 years ago

Is there a reason that these use batteries rather than combustion engines?

Are you expecting the drones to use hardened GPS modules resistant to hijacking and not get DDoS'd by someone broadcasting fake GPS at their take off area?

gravity132• 12 years ago

Interesting. But the real question we need to ask ourselves right now is: are these drones capable of delivering burritos? Because if so, imagine the possibilities...

gravity132• 12 years ago

Well, shit, my HDMI cable just broke. I need a new one. Like, right now. I don't want to wait two days for it.

Hold on, let me (get in my car/wait for the bus/walk a few miles/order it with my phone, take a nap, and wake up with it at my door).

baddox7• 12 years ago

Have you had any experience with or exposure to larger multirotor aircraft or any model aircraft? Noise will not be a significant concern. Carrying capacity, flight endurance, and cost are already more than adequate to make deliveries practical in an urban environment even with hobby level gear. The key missing piece right now is robust navigation software, and considering the insane pace of improvement I have witnessed just in the last two years, I am extremely optimistic.

icpmacdo3• 12 years ago

I think that the US may legislate it's self out of a really interesting industry, I would think it could be possible some smaller country with a good population density could become industry leaders here.

jamornh• 12 years ago

That sounds a lot like it will do very very well in Singapore especially if Singapore Post depots act as the hub for these drones. The entire country could be completely served by them.

Although there's no front lawn to speak of, so they will have to be able to slot things into mailboxes.

icpmacdo3• 12 years ago

That is the area of the world I was thinking about.

jahewson2• 12 years ago

A tropical coastal city with high winds, heavy rainfall and multiple monsoon seasons doesn't seem ideal, despite the small area.

robbrown4514• 12 years ago

I hope to live in a country that legislates away all the noisy little delivery mosquitos.

baddox7• 12 years ago

Do you have any experience with the kind of multirotor aircraft that would likely be used for short to medium distance package delivery? They are not particularly noisy, and at the distances from humans they would spend most of their time in, they probably would not be audible at all.

sidcool• 12 years ago

I would rather change that URL, the url_source points to linkedIn.com. Just saying.

sschueller• 12 years ago

A much more likely delivery path will be something like Uber + Amazon.

mcintyre1994• 12 years ago

I suspect this is a big part of why Google invested in Uber.

potatolicious2• 12 years ago

Probably, though also probably a more depressing/less glamorous version of Uber + Amazon. Having people run around in cars is going to be horrifically non-economical, and at a commodity level delivering packages is going to be far less profitable than driving people around.

More likely we'll see companies hire scores of underemployed former-members-of-the-middle class and put them on mopeds/bicycles (as density dictates). They are cheaper, and unlike machines scale up/down as seasonality requires. They are also highly flexible and capable of things like ringing doorbells, opening doors, climbing stairs, following notes on doors, and all the other details around delivery that "drones for everything!" acolytes tend to gloss over.

This is already the reality in places like New York - you can already get a huge array of things delivered within minutes by people zipping around on e-bikes.

rjsw• 12 years ago

You could get them to make multiple deliveries in one trip, maybe call them something like "postman".

kyro• 12 years ago

I love the idea of Amazon Prime Air, but there's one concern I have. I know next to nothing about the FAA and airspace regulation, so I'd like to hear from someone who does.

The common argument to raised concerns of drones buzzing about is "well, we have cars and delivery trucks!" That doesn't quite sit well with me because we have designated specific areas to the use of automobiles. It's easy to stay off the road. We can consciously stay out of harm's way, even if it's an asshole driving recklessly.

How is this accomplished with drones? How is the airspace structured in a way where drones are in designated areas that either avoid or are avoided by humans? How do you prevent an asshole piloting a rogue drone from dropping a heavy item on someone in a balcony? One can make the argument that these concerns also apply to planes, but I'm assuming both the airspace and ownership of planes are heavily regulated and monitored. Will we need a similar system to manage drone use?

kenrikm3• 12 years ago

Under 500 feet is unregulated, (FAA claims 400) the FAA is trying to regulate it since a reform law that was passed in 2012. Under 83 Feet is owned by the property owner due to some lawsuit back around WW2 involving some chickens.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/30/317074394/drone-wa...

baddox7• 12 years ago

I see two main options: designated virtual lanes that are programmed into drone navigational systems, and robust sense and avoid systems that allow seemingly chaotic pathing to remain reasonably safe. In practice there will probably be a combination of the two.

As for who decides what the rules are, well, in the US it's pretty easy to predict that the FAA or perhaps some yet-unconceived federal agency will try its best to strictly regulate commercial drones, and will probably largely succeed at least in crowded areas. I have my doubts that it's the best possible way to organize the activity, but it's the most likely.

newaccountfool2• 12 years ago

I'm wondering what the hell happens when the drone gets shot down...I know if there is 100$ of good AND a multirotor then these things will get shot from the sky. No matter if they have GPS or not.

Schwolop• 12 years ago

You can avoid this and all the quasi-legal unregulated airspace drama by... wait for it... just being regulated and flying higher up in regulated airspace! Sure, meeting FAA regulation is hard, but it's necessary and I'd be very confident that's the right route for a service like this. If they fly high enough the only point it can be shot down is over Amazon's depots when they pick up goods, and over the house of the recipient when it drops them off. The former is well isolated, and the latter is unpredictable from the point of view of the hypothetical shooter.

potrebitel• 12 years ago

What if Amazon are building delivery AI not only for drones, but something else (cars?) Yeah, they say drones, but it's way too expensive project (people involved, locations, offices, etc ) to be for single purpose. Maybe they're just building something bigger.

Despite FAA Setbacks, Amazon Prime Air Makes Notable Hires

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