I dabble in drones, and can say the tech to do this is EASILY here now and it's not even hard to do. I could build one that could land your pizza in your front yard or sidewalk from 20 miles away no problem. Building one that can analyse the surrounding area and not land on top the family cat is a bit harder, but still easily do-able, tho not with my primitive skills. I could build one that uses a 4G link to steam view and request confirmation to land from an operator though, thus manually avoiding chopping fluffy. If I can do that with no engineering experience, imagine what a team of skilled people could put together in no time.
Anyway, the problem is FAA regulation. They've been saying for several years they're going to introduce new regulation supporting drone use. They need to get on this, as it's the future. Hell Iceland has a dedicated drone airport. Japan uses them for ag mainstream, even places in Africa have a drone framework. We're stuck in the stone age because of a government basically says "anything we don't specifically say is legal is thus automatically illegal." (USSA anyone?) Then drags their feet to do anything at all.
I've spent several months this year in Japan and I can't say that I've seen any drones in the skies... but maybe I'm not looking in the right places. It's a cool idea, but surely there would be many accidents, no? Aside from kids and pets being chopped up by the propellers, won't they have mechanical issues or collisions midair with birds and such and occasionally fall to the ground? It probably would suck to have a 200 pound drone fall on you while mowing the lawn.
"A dog has been killed today from an amazon drone" and voila. The technology is over. The problem is that since they want to use them for home delivery they can't use lets say specific air corridors for example.
I recognize the risks to which you are referring. However, I don't think people get it. This is going to happen, as much as or more so than bitcoin. It will revolutionize everything. Before there can be millions of drones everywhere, there will have to be "rules of the sky" set forth. While they're human built, and mechanical problems can occur, I don't see them falling from the sky as being a big danger - they're pretty reliable and the technology will continue to improve. One could say the same thing about a helicopter, a mechanically much more complex device.
I don't know what the future holds, but I imagine there will be some type of transponder system per FAA regulations which specify the drones must be able to communicate with digitally with an air traffic control system (this is in the works now, it's very nice compared to what we have now) as well as specific altitudes dedicated for drone use, to keep regular air traffic clear. Home delivery could achieved in the same way as freeways vs residential streets, with some altitude or airspace class requirements.
I'm really hoping the beginning of this will be present in FAA Regulations coming in 2015 (Hopefully). But rest assured, eventually, it's going to happen. The technology may experience setbacks but will not be "over."
As for Japan, I don't know about them flying around everywhere, but I know they use them for chemical application on small farms and such. I imagine for use in cities/mainstream they have the same issues we do here, the tech is not quite mature enough for mainstream use, and lack of framework for air traffic separation etc.
I dabble in drones, and can say the tech to do this is EASILY here now and it's not even hard to do. I could build one that could land your pizza in your front yard or sidewalk from 20 miles away no problem. Building one that can analyse the surrounding area and not land on top the family cat is a bit harder, but still easily do-able, tho not with my primitive skills. I could build one that uses a 4G link to steam view and request confirmation to land from an operator though, thus manually avoiding chopping fluffy. If I can do that with no engineering experience, imagine what a team of skilled people could put together in no time.
Anyway, the problem is FAA regulation. They've been saying for several years they're going to introduce new regulation supporting drone use. They need to get on this, as it's the future. Hell Iceland has a dedicated drone airport. Japan uses them for ag mainstream, even places in Africa have a drone framework. We're stuck in the stone age because of a government basically says "anything we don't specifically say is legal is thus automatically illegal." (USSA anyone?) Then drags their feet to do anything at all.
I've spent several months this year in Japan and I can't say that I've seen any drones in the skies... but maybe I'm not looking in the right places. It's a cool idea, but surely there would be many accidents, no? Aside from kids and pets being chopped up by the propellers, won't they have mechanical issues or collisions midair with birds and such and occasionally fall to the ground? It probably would suck to have a 200 pound drone fall on you while mowing the lawn.
Also don't forget Libertarians and Anarchists shooting them down cuz it's flying over "their property"
Yes, and I am semi "one of those people." I don't appreciate the idea of government seeing into my house with a constant stream of thermal cameras. That said, technology is a double edged sword. Hopefully we can get some legislation pushed through that require warrants to deploy a thermal drone. In anycase, the commercial applications (Delivery, photography, search and rescue, agricultural etc) are game changing.
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