I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never work"

[MadMitch88]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Drone delivery will be a novelty for years to come.

It's not a novelty if it's already happening in other parts of the world.

Remember, the FAA only controls airspace above U.S. land. There's a big world out there that doesnt give a **** about the FAA's ideology.


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PICTaPggjH4[/youtube]

 

[N017RW]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Not disagreeing completely but we do have influence:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense ... world.html

There are other similar articles which can be easily searched for.

 

[Buckaye]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

A drone flight is not pennies.
We know that Phantom batteries don't last very long, but even if they lasted 100 cycles, the price per flight just for the battery is $1.29. Not taking motors, maintenance, etc. into account.
They would need very good condition batteries to fly the longest distance. An 80% capacity battery is useless since 20% is a couple miles on a flight. Current LiPo technology does not provide any long life batteries, their cycle count is in the few hundreds, 80% usually way under 100 cycles.
I do not know what cycling the battery multiple times per day would do to it, never tried.

You're not thinking about this in a large scale industrial application.

Large businesses pay wholesale rates on electricity, unlike much higher retail prices that the average consumer uses. So Amazon charging up thousands of drones every day for delivery missions will only cost around 25 cents max. per flight. Do the math and you will see I am right. Amazon might even copy the Oracle model and build their own power generation stations, perhaps solar or wind in appropriate locations.

Stop thinking a $150 billion company like Amazon will be using dinkly little Phantoms to deliver products. They will be using the biggest, most powerful drones that current technology can create, and they will do it all with economy of scale in production and maintenance of those drones.

I think you make a lot of interesting and good point Mitch - but I feel like you also only read portions of people's responses and then fire off another response. Fyod wasn't just talking about the cost of electricity - he was talking about the cost of degeneration of the tech as a single example of costs that will compound the per delivery price of doing business.

You can't just keep saying the cost of a flight will be 25 cents - A). Where did you get that number? and B) What does it include?

I'll say again... I think there's a market for drone deliveries... so this is not naysaying.. but I have a lot of questions.

The real cost of delivering anything is a combination of a huge set of factors. Cost of the vehicle depreciated over years, cost of maintenance, cost of fuel, cost of driver - on and on... all of those costs are divided by the number of deliveries to provide an average per item delivery cost.

The reason amazonn with the help of UPS, Fedex and the USPSn - can send us stuff cheaply is due in great part to the scale of the organization and the economy that is created by using the same transportation to ship as much as physically possible... quite simply - the more that goes out on a UPS truck for deliveries... the better the per delivery cost is.

The drone totally adds the capability of "get it now" - and that's cool and exciting and is something truck delivery can't do... but the other thing the drone does is limits the economy of scale... depreciation, maintenance costs, insurance etc etc are suddenly being calculated by a very different denominator.

It's that denominator that I think gives a lot of us who are thinking about how you get to a compelling business model pause. I think you agreed, in the short term, it would be limited... but can all the costs associated with flying drones to individual delivery locations really get to a cost that will make consumers choose to pay for a drone delivery vs. waiting one more day for fedex? That's a big question in the success of this model... it's also the question that will determine whether this is a niche service or if it becomes a big booming success.

I would not say it's a novelty - I do think that there will be good business cases developed that make drone delivery make total sense. I even think Amazon and DHL will be the likely winners in this race. But I would be willing to bet it will be YEARS before amazon or DHL see this get efficient enough to see real savings. I don't think that should stop them (by the way) - because everything good takes investment.

 

[Meta4]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

The major use for drone delivery is as a viral publicity stunt that appeals to the gullible.
It's a great way to draw attention to a business and raise awareness among customers that would be hard to reach with conventional advertising.
Get an ordinary drone to carry your product, make a youtube video, sit back and collect the dollars as new customers flock to your business.
No need to bother with finding solutions to the multiple major obstacles to drone delivery or its (lack of) economy.
None of that matters because it's just for viral marketing.
Francesco's Pizzeria in Mumbai isn't using drones for delivery. They just made one video as a stunt.
Google isn't delivering a thing to customers via drone because it is nowhere near possible. But it made a fabulous and very cheap viral marketing campaign.
Here's the earliest example I can find.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-te ... 2vixx.html
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business ... 6740011043
An Australian company came up with this a month before Amazon's 60 Minutes piece (which appears to have been a copy of the idea). The ignorant journalists get completely sucked in and spread the word.
They love the gee-wizzery of it. Enough of the public believe it completely and the myth develops a life of its own.
Drone delivery is total pseudo-reality for marketing to the gullible.

 

[N017RW]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

You think we have it bad.

NO civilian drones allowed in India until future notice:

http://dronecenter.bard.edu/drones-in-india/

From the article:
"Following Amazon’s announcement, this past October the Directorate General of Civil Aviation announced that until proper rules and regulations are formulated, the use of drones by civilians will be illegal. The DGCA made an announcement on October 7th 2014: “Till such regulations are issued, no non government agency, organization, or an individual will launch a UAS in Indian Civil Airspace for any purpose whatsoever.” No date has been given for these regulations. (This announcement likely explains Amazon’s failure to begin testing Prime Air.)"

 

[MadMitch88]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

The reason amazonn with the help of UPS, Fedex and the USPSn - can send us stuff cheaply is due in great part to the scale of the organization and the economy that is created by using the same transportation to ship as much as physically possible... quite simply - the more that goes out on a UPS truck for deliveries... the better the per delivery cost is.

Economy of scale will affect commercial drone delivery just like it affects every other growing industry. Drones will become cheaper as production ramps up. The components involved to make a drone are not revolutionary or exotic. The only major barrier is getting enough drone manufacturers into the market place to drive competition and lower costs. We've seen this happen many times before. I saw the first plasma screen in my area in 1999 and it was a Sony 42-inch plasma that retailed for $14,000. Guess how much a similar flat screen costs now? Probably $200 + tax.

However, like I've already stated numerous times, drones will not compete with a FedEx truck when it comes to large and bulky items. Any basic knowledge of physics will tell you that. But the whole world of commerce doesn't revolve around retail products that weigh over 50 pounds. Billions of items are delivered every week that are less than 5 lbs. in weight.

The drone totally adds the capability of "get it now" - and that's cool and exciting and is something truck delivery can't do... but the other thing the drone does is limits the economy of scale... depreciation, maintenance costs, insurance etc etc are suddenly being calculated by a very different denominator.

The idea of "get it now" is a very compelling human need. How many retail stores or fast food chains operated on a 24-hour basis in the 1980's? I dont know of any, perhaps McDonald's but that is the only one I can think of. Now look around --- McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wal-Marts, Walgreen's, and Rite Aid open 24 hours a day for that "get it now" impulse buying that many people thought wasn't necessary 25 years ago. Last time I checked, FedEx and UPS arent delivering products to customer's homes at 2am at night, correct? Where's the economy of scale helping in that endeavor? It's because humans need sleep, and drones don't! LOL, those little buggers work non-stop and never complain!

Besides, I could name hundreds of examples of why "get it now" will drive demand through the roof for drone delivery. The OP made a good example about getting much-needed prescriptions after hours. Those of us who have sick kids realize how valuable this drone delivery would be when we got a little one with a fever and diarrhea and don't feel like driving through a snowstorm to get to Walgreen's for Pedialyte and Children's Tylenol at midnight. How about when a new iPhone is released? Do you not think thousands of people would love to log into Amazon and order up drone delivery of their new Apple gadget within 30 minutes? I'm not an Apple fan but I seen the frenzy these people get when a new product is released and they would easily pay a $25 same-day delivery charge for a drone to bring it FAST.

I'm just trying to open people's eyes about this idea of drone delivery. I've said many times it won't put FedEx and UPS out of business, and if they're innovative then I bet UPS and FedEx are already developing commercial drones as we speak. But I am saying with full conviction and knowledge of business operations and financial viability that drones WILL happen in the next few years, although not necessarily in the USA. There is just too many compelling uses for these little flying machines, and the cost model is very attractive in many situations compared to massive infrastructure of FedEx and UPS. We need to start thinking outside the box here, instead of assuming that gas-guzzling trucks will be the only delivery option for retail products for the next 100 years.

What's going to happen to FedEx and UPS surcharges when gasoline hits $4.00 + in a year or two? DISASTER for the consumer, that's what. Coal-fired electricity will be cheap for many decades to come. America has trillions of tons of coal to mine.

 

[Meta4]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

How about when a new iPhone is released? Do you not think thousands of people would love to log into Amazon and order up drone delivery of their new Apple gadget within 30 minutes? I'm not an Apple fan but I seen the frenzy these people get when a new product is released and they would easily pay a $25 same-day delivery charge for a drone to bring it FAST.

And for something like that to be possible, Amazon would have to have hundreds of drones available at each delivery centre. These centres are only going to service a small area, something like a 5 mile radius so to service the market they wll have to build hundreds of drone delivery centres. And to supply all these centres they are going to have to drive lots of stock in lots of trucks all over the countryside and keep stock of lots of items on hand to ensure that Mr "I Want It Now" can get what he wants when he wants. The cost to build such a system would be incredible and the likelihood that delivery costs would be affordable are looking slim.

 

[Buckaye]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

How about when a new iPhone is released? Do you not think thousands of people would love to log into Amazon and order up drone delivery of their new Apple gadget within 30 minutes? I'm not an Apple fan but I seen the frenzy these people get when a new product is released and they would easily pay a $25 same-day delivery charge for a drone to bring it FAST.

And for something like that to be possible, Amazon would have to have hundreds of drones available at each delivery centre. These centres are only going to service a small area, something like a 5 mile radius so to service the market they wll have to build hundreds of drone delivery centres. And to supply all these centres they are going to have to drive lots of stock in lots of trucks all over the countryside and keep stock of lots of items on hand to ensure that Mr "I Want It Now" can get what he wants when he wants. The cost to build such a system would be incredible and the likelihood that delivery costs would be affordable are looking slim.

Not to mention... the way the i-phone releases work is that apple/AT&T ship them (the night or two nights before) so that they get to the person's home on the same day that they could get it in the store... so no need for a Drone to get it on release day.

 

[MadMitch88]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

And to supply all these centres they are going to have to drive lots of stock in lots of trucks all over the countryside and keep stock of lots of items on hand to ensure that Mr "I Want It Now" can get what he wants when he wants. The cost to build such a system would be incredible and the likelihood that delivery costs would be affordable are looking slim.

They said that exact same thing 25 years ago when McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Walmart contemplated how to keep items stocked for 24-hour service.

They found a way to make it work within their budgets. Drones will be no different. We arent re-inventing the wheel here, just giving the wheel shiny new rims!

 

[Meta4]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Drones will be no different. We arent re-inventing the wheel here, just giving the wheel shiny new rims!

Not like re-inventing the wheel. It's more like buying a whole fleet of 2025 model Ferraris.

 

[Fyod]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Apple may be a bad example because they will not let go of those people standing in line to get their products first.
Then there's usually a shortage of stock so same-day delivery isn't possible anyways.

I'm glad that the discussion took a civilized turn and both pros and cons are explained without emotion.

 

[RichWest]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Meta, I agree with your replies. I want to enter into the conversation, but time restraints limit's my ability for the level of involvement i would have.

Economy of scale, works for a lot of businesses that have been discussed. However the one package, one vehicle, one goal; is not economy of scale. The RC business is owned by the Chinese market at present. That is already an economy of scale. If UAV's were to go commercial, respective of the conversation for delivery, the cost just per unit would be 10X (wild guess) during the first few years. This is just to amortize the technology/infrastructure developed to offer a semi-autonomous delivery system. And were not talking a $1300 UAV, think $20K based on present hardware as today's referenced cost.

Further, we are talking Artificial Intelligences, not just autonomous flight abilities. The best offer for mass market quasi AI, is Siri and Google Now, how's that working for you? It still does not have the ability to anticipate my next action.... I'm fairly sure IBM's Watson lacks the ability to offer any more help to the equation and that is the best AI system available, publicly.

For the foreseeable future, UAV's will be 100% controlled/monitored by humans. There is no future work-around to the issues until AI becomes more human like. Again in the context of a mass delivery system within the present application conditions.

Regarding other autonomous application for UAV's, then yes there are several niche markets they can fulfill today with very little development cost when compared to above conversation. Think mapping as the present autonomous application offering. That is where the conversation should be. But who wants to give up their multi-million dollar idea on an open forum?

Anyone with 10+ million dollars interested in investing for a 5% stake, I have an idea to revolutionize a niche market world wide....just need 10+ engineers/programmers to work with for about a year. Currently a $100 Million market in the US alone....

 

[Fyod]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Weather also hasn't been mentioned much. Fog, wind, rain, snow, storms, tornadoes in some parts, low temps. An autonomous system would have to have some kind of weather radar incorporated in the software to be able to shut down operations at least an hour before expected bad weather and be able to relaunch after.

 

[GoodnNuff]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Weather also hasn't been mentioned much. Fog, wind, rain, snow, storms, tornadoes in some parts, low temps. An autonomous system would have to have some kind of weather radar incorporated in the software to be able to shut down operations at least an hour before expected bad weather and be able to relaunch after.

Again...Amazon's business plan calls for 30 minute deliveries within a 10 mile radius (I misquoted at 5 miles in a previous post).
I don't think adverse weather will take them by surprise nor hamper deliveries much. You order an item for 30 minute delivery during a blizzard and I bet it will elicit a response much like you'd get from a bicycle courier service; "Services have been suspended until further notice due to inclement weather."

 

[MadMitch88]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Further, we are talking Artificial Intelligences, not just autonomous flight abilities. The best offer for mass market quasi AI, is Siri and Google Now, how's that working for you? It still does not have the ability to anticipate my next action.... I'm fairly sure IBM's Watson lacks the ability to offer any more help to the equation and that is the best AI system available, publicly.

For the foreseeable future, UAV's will be 100% controlled/monitored by humans. There is no future work-around to the issues until AI becomes more human like. Again in the context of a mass delivery system within the present application conditions.

Absolutely DISAGREE 100% with your assessment.

Artificial intelligence will NOT be a requirement for commercial drones. Flying autonomously via GPS waypoints is already happening, and if a drone gets off course it can either correct itself or notify a human of a problem and the human will take control if necessary. There is absolutely no need for "100% control by human" for a routine drone delivery. Google already proved they have a system where a car can drive autonomously across a large city in heavy traffic without getting into an accident.

There's already thousands of commercial jetliners flying every day with auto-pilot using GPS waypoints. There is no artifical intelligence piloting these planes, but there is a computer chip, compass and gyros just like you find on a $1,000 Phantom.

25 years from now when AI becomes more viable and drones are loaded with incredible amounts of technology and there's all kinds of delivery options, then I see no reason why AI can't be controlling drones in some capacity. But that's too far into the future to really worry about all how it will work.

 

[Meta4]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

There's already thousands of commercial jetliners flying every day with auto-pilot using GPS waypoints. There is no artifical intelligence piloting these planes, but there is a computer chip, compass and gyros just like you find on a $1,000 Phantom.

Airliners also have the luxury of flying in the uncluttered airspace at 40000 ft with air traffic controllers to assign clear paths for them.
Delivery drones would have to deal with rather cluttered airspace down low where trees, powerlines, buildings etc are either trying to snag them or blanket their GPS horizon. Without artificial intelligence a drone will be using 100% real stupidity in that environment.

 

[Khudson7]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Absolutely DISAGREE 100% with your assessment.

Artificial intelligence will NOT be a requirement for commercial drones. Flying autonomously via GPS waypoints is already happening, and if a drone gets off course it can either correct itself or notify a human of a problem and the human will take control if necessary. There is absolutely no need for "100% control by human" for a routine drone delivery. Google already proved they have a system where a car can drive autonomously across a large city in heavy traffic without getting into an accident.

There's already thousands of commercial jetliners flying every day with auto-pilot using GPS waypoints. There is no artifical intelligence piloting these planes, but there is a computer chip, compass and gyros just like you find on a $1,000 Phantom.

25 years from now when AI becomes more viable and drones are loaded with incredible amounts of technology and there's all kinds of delivery options, then I see no reason why AI can't be controlling drones in some capacity. But that's too far into the future to really worry about all how it will work.

+1 have to agree with MadMitch on that one...

Drones will just need more detect and avoid sensors and autonomous flying like what is being developed at MIT in this video:
http://youtu.be/kYs215TgI7c

 

[MadMitch88]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Airliners als0 have the liberty of flying in the uncluttered airspace at 40000 ft and having air traffic controllers assign clear paths for them.
Delivery drones would have to deal with rather cluttered airspace down low where trees, powerlines, buildings etc are either trying to snag them or blanket their GPS horizon. Without artificial intelligence a drone will be using 100% real stupidity in that environment.

Stuff like power lines and tall buildings and cell towers are already mapped and can be factored into any GPS waypoint mission. I already do this using Coffee's Ground Station app when I fly a long distance mission with my Vision+. Google Maps satellite view and Bing Maps bird's-eye view have become some of my best friends in recent years.

I think the term "artificial intelligence" is being somewhat abused in this thread. AI is sort of a catch-all phrase that can mean anything from a simple obstacle-avoidance system all the way up to a drone having "consciousness" and making ethical decisions in milliseconds -- such as aborting an Amazon delivery mission and instead following and snapping photos of a car license plate that may be involved in a child-abduction case after it received an Amber Alert mid-flight (a reasonable requirement that Congress could impose on commercial drones since they are readily-available "eyes in the sky").

 

[GoodnNuff]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

I have to agree MadMitch, AI is not needed to implement a delivery service. But in the future it will play a large part in the drone industry as some applications become fully autonomous.
I've used this analogy before, so my apologies... My car can park itself, it alerts me if there is a car in my blind spots or an obstacle in my way when changing lanes or backing up. If I stray out of my lane, audible alarms alert me. It has adaptive cruise control and will adjust its speed to match a slower car ahead of us. This amazes me. 5 years ago I would have said such technology was decades away.

I have an Iris+ by 3D Robotics, I can "fly" it without ever touching the radio. I can program a flight on an app on my tablet, download it to the Iris+, hit launch and watch the drone's progress on my tablet until it returns to my preprogrammed landing point. It lands and shuts itself down. I have a Phantom 1, and a 2 non vision - so I'm not sure if you can do the same with the Vision app or Lightbridge? Anyway, a pretty boring way to fly, but I would imagine Amazon's technology to be a bit more sophisticated.

 

[MadMitch88]

Re: I laugh when I hear people say "Amazon Air will never wo

Drones will just need more detect and avoid sensors and autonomous flying like what is being developed at MIT in this video:
http://youtu.be/kYs215TgI7c

That video link will anger a lot of people in here, especially the ones who insist all commercial drones will need to be $50,000+ machines with massively complex collision-avoidance systems in order to be viable.

And yet MIT demonstrated a little foam flyer that can perform very accurate autonomous missions with cheap parts you'd find in a $200 Netbook.