Drone Developers Consider Obstacles That Cannot Be Flown Around | Hacker News Reader

Drone Developers Consider Obstacles That Cannot Be Flown Around

nytimes.com

26 pointsevilsimon12 comments

"Drone technology has not been thoroughly tested in populated areas" - Except by tens of thousands of hobbyists over many decades, with apparently nobody in the press really noticing until recently when cameras got added to the RC loop, which surely makes it less risky as it is much easier to fly, so I am sure it can't be that bad.

"and commercial use of drones is not allowed in the United States." - Although the only legal ruling so far for the first person taken to court by the FAA says that commercial drones are completely legal and that the FAA is talking crap. FAA has asked for an appeal and the NTSB has kicked it into the long grass since March. - http://blogs.findlaw.com/decided/2014/03/faas-commercial-dro...

This is really shitty journalism.

I have read a few cases of drones killing people so it's not exactly unnoticed. The difference is their calling it a model aircraft or Toy vs drone.

EX: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-177139/Teenager-kill...

http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr...

What is the proposed usage for these drones if I may ask? I don't want to be a pessimist but if these drones are supposed to be transporting anything of value wouldn't that encourage shooting these things out of the sky?

Delivery, monitoring, search and rescue, emergency radio relay etc... the possibilities are many and expanding.

RE Shoot downs : Retrieval becomes difficult if the product is fragile as well. I imagine these devices will contain some sort of distress beacon and/or continuous transmission of its coordinates to a base station.

400 Feet (approx. 122 meters) is the current altitude limit in the US, I think. Birdshot is inaccurate at that distance and it's quite a height to try and shoot at relatively fast drone with a rifle. This is in addition to the fact firing recklessly into the air carries hefty penalties alone.

Untrained thiefs can shoot down drones with smart rifles that have aim assist/lock on features. The only problem is that they are very expensive, so if a thief could afford one they probably wouldn't need to shoot down drones to steal packages in the first place (that is, unless they stole the rifle as well).

I've seen those Linux powered rifles lately and I wonder if recent drone developments may lead to more accurate tracking and targeting mechanisms.

I recently saw this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTSWjkXBHOs While it's very primitive and inspired by a video game, future developments may lead to water canons and so on that may do the same. A DIY anti-drone turret if you will.

Untrained thieves can also shoplift, which is a far easier and less risky way for thieves to steal goods.

Considering these drones have GPS and Celular connectivity built-in, shooting them down would not be a very good idea, since the owners would quickly take notice. The built-in video camera can also be used to record and transmit images of the robber.

I can see this being used for items with value high enough to justify the drone delivery costs (say, > $20) but not too high to the point where having a drone deliver it would be too risky.

The exact values are certainly being worked out by actuarial scientists. There will be some sort of insurance involved, inside the delivery cost.

Even if the urban delivery application doesn't materialize in the near future, I see this being very useful in a rural setting. Or to deliver emergency supplies to hard to reach locations.

What if mischief makers start shooting them down just for the thrills ? Since drones are unmanned there is no equivalent situation we can compare it to.

Maybe drone delivery will be a bigger success in countries where people don't have guns and some start shooting things in the sky for fun.

At least, over here in Norway, I don't see how this could be a problem, unless drones can be shot down by BB-guns.

Of course it can be done, but I think you fail to realize that something the size of a dinner plate travelling upwards of 50mph in the sky is going to be a whole hell of a lot harder to shoot than say a clay pigeon. I say this as someone who built and flies a quad-rotor UAV (look up the QAV400 frame for an idea) and used to fly the Shadow 200 in the military (with 480 combat flight hours over Iraq).

I'm not saying you can't shoot these things down, but people that think it will be easy have a lot to learn about this technology. Also, when people shoot up in the air, there are often unintended victims when the bullets come down.

> I can see this being used for items with value high enough to justify the drone delivery costs (say, > $20) but not too high to the point where having a drone deliver it would be too risky.

Like pizza?

Pizza delivery drivers are regularly robbed, not for any cash they may be carrying but for the pizza.

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