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Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

> "stay 100m away from tall structures"

But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings? That must be half the near-term market for these kinds of drones: people in dense, urban areas well-served by local droneports, who are looking for convenience above all else.

If you can't safely manage urban canyons—you can't manage. It'd be like selling self-driving cars that are only approved for private racetracks.

Here's a curious article I read the other day, that underscores the market factor:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45445406 ("What It Takes to Get Lunch Delivered to the 70th Floor in a Shenzhen Skyscraper (nytimes.com)" / "An informal network of last-mile runners close the gap between harried delivery drivers and hungry office workers in a Shenzhen skyscraper")

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> But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings?

Elevators, dumbwaiters, baskets and pulleys, or just go downstairs and get it yourself.

Also, how tall are we talking? Where have you been where the upper floor windows actually open?

edit: the more that I think about this, the more it bothers me. Getting close enough to a building to deliver a package through a window with a drone sounds incredibly improbable and dangerous. A small gust of wind and the drone crashes into the building. You'd need some kind of pad at a distance from the building, or use the roof. Looks like there's a design for that[1].

And what if a package or drone falls from such a height?

I think the concept on its face is flawed, but then again, this exists[2].

[1] https://pejaver.com/DronePort/DronePort.htm

[2] https://jedsy.com/

>or just go downstairs and get it yourself.

Entirely defeats the purpose of ordering food.

> But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings?

Maybe asking the obvious, do you need to? Why not drop the package downstairs, people can use the elevator like normal people? Assuming there is some sort of hand-off with identification.

Many parts of Europe solved it in a more low-tech way: street-side parcel lockers unlocked with your phone. Massively reduces delivery cost (i.e., one driver can deliver far more packages per hour), is pretty convenient and safe (no packages left unattended), and best of all, doesn't require a fleet of UAVs.

You can pretty naturally extend this once you have self-driving vans.

I think Amazon has a proprietary version of this in some parts of the US, but at least where I live, the lockers are a car drive away, which defeats the purpose.

The chinese too, afaik, in shanghai drones deliver parcels in specific parcel stations. Flying drones delivering stuff (through the windows?) to upper floors of buildings sounds like sth between scifi and madness right now. Having specific pickup locations solves a lot of problems like the ones here, as drones can just have to follow specific, predetermined routes that can be more easily monitored, instead of having to go to some random, different address.

The last tower I worked in wasn't some really big tower (only about 16 stories) but in the lobby near the security booth there was a set of shelves operated by a food delivery company. Every day there would be a few restaurants listed, you'd place your order, and they'd deliver everyone's food around noon to the shelves. You'd just go down and grab your meal.

Seemed to work well enough for the times I used it. Honestly though I really valued the time to take a break and go for a walk and have lunch away from sitting at my desk.

Japan too, convenience stores are everywhere, packages go to lockers in the convenience store, unlock with phone app.

(Of course you can still choose to have them delivered to your door, but I find the delivery people don't ring the doorbell and then mark the delivery as missed, even with instructions to leave the package in front of the door. But that's a separate issue.)

Have you ever been inside a tall building? How are you thinking a drone would deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings? The windows don’t open. There are occasional balconies or terraces, but these are more the exception than the rule, especially for “hungry office workers in a Shenzhen skyscraper.”

Residential buildings usually have operable windows (and often balconies). My condo building is only 17 stories tall, but my windows open all the way. On the other hand, it's an old building and there might be new rules for new buildings, since for those I usually only see the windows open a little.

Still it would be silly to deliver through the window. The rooftop might make more sense (can just drop off package and not accessible to random people on the street).

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