[HN Gopher] UK set to have automated drone superhighway
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UK set to have automated drone superhighway
Author : hanoz
Score : 64 points
Date : 2022-07-18 08:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| gumby wrote:
| This is a really good idea and I'm eager to see how it works out.
| Quadcopters can't fly that high and I think if they flew willy-
| nilly all over the place it would be a noise/privacy issue.
|
| Requiring "highways", say over the access roads of actual
| highways, would be a big win on many fronts.
| mr_gibbins wrote:
| I think that would be problematic - there would be a
| significant proportion of downed drones, whether by mechanical
| failure, bird strike, overhead cables, bridges, battery
| outages, etc.
|
| It would be particularly dangerous for drivers to have random
| drone drops over highways.
|
| If we tried to site the highways elsewhere, how many people
| would complain about noise over their gardens or houses? How
| many enterprising people with slingshots would make a sport out
| of downing drones? In the UK we have NIMBYs (Not In My Back
| Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near
| Anybody) who would besiege the local councils with objections
| and cause havoc for planners.
|
| I agree with the top comment, this is spurious vaporware that's
| been ejaculated out of some government-affiliated think tank
| with no actual plan for feasibility, delivery or value.
| globular-toast wrote:
| The trouble with the NIMBY/BANANA labels is it basically
| amounts to saying "you care about something I don't care
| about". I know it's hard to believe, but other people do have
| different interests than you.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > In the UK we have NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs
| (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody) who would
| besiege the local councils with objections and cause havoc
| for planners.
|
| I immediately had to think of Minions and their
| characteristic of well intentions disrupting their boss's
| plans when reading BANANAs...
|
| To get back to topic - here in Germany, we have introduced a
| special law, the "Massnahmengesetz" [1], to bypass the usual
| permit processes and NIMBY/BANANA bullshit for twelve major
| infrastructure process. Basically, the law is explicitly
| saying that the projects in its scope are of major
| national/european importance, have been decided upon
| democratically and so do not need additional layers of checks
| and balances. Unfortunately, the EU Commission decided in all
| its glory that this idea of short-cutting the NIMBYs is a
| violation of EU law and so everything is under question again
| [2]
|
| [1] https://www.gesetze-im-
| internet.de/magvg/BJNR064000020.html
|
| [2] https://www.eurailpress.de/nachrichten/politik/detail/new
| s/i...
| 7952 wrote:
| The UK has a special arrangement for nationally significant
| infrastructure projects. They are decided by a public
| enquiry rather than local authorities and can use powers
| like compulsory purchase.
| ghaff wrote:
| If they're too dangerous to fly over public roads all the
| time it's problematic to put them over people and houses on
| private property instead. (Leaving aside noise issues.) I
| imagine drones will have their place to do urgent deliveries
| especially where there aren't roads. But they suffer from the
| same problem that other heavier than air craft do (e.g.
| flying cars), their failure mode is falling out of sky on top
| of things--even with safety systems like parachutes.
| dan_pixelflow wrote:
| The UK loves the word 'superhighway'. They usually fail. We had
| 'cycle superhighways' in London, started while Livingstone was
| Mayor and then left to basically rot under Johnson's term.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cycle_routes_in_London
| peanut_worm wrote:
| I wonder what effects this would have on the local bird
| populations
| rwmj wrote:
| Nothing because it's a nonsense government press release
| "project" that will likely never happen, and if it does happen
| it won't be because politicians helped in any way.
| dazc wrote:
| Not a good one, I imagine.
|
| My drive to work each morning involves travelling on a stretch
| of rural road which is about 6 miles long with no boundaries
| stopping animals such as cows, horses and donkeys wandering
| into the path of speeding cars. The limit is 40mph but it's
| mostly ignored.
|
| As a consequence, around 40 such beasts are killed each year
| because the majority of people believe their need to drive at
| 20% above any given limit (for no other reason than satisfying
| their fragile egos) outweighs the lives and welfare of innocent
| animals.
|
| So who's going to care less for the lives of a few birds when
| delivery of random crap from amazon is given priority?
| 7952 wrote:
| People will selectively care a lot about animals. Just look
| at how may people become bird lovers when they want to stop a
| wind turbine.
| bowsamic wrote:
| > majority of people believe their need to drive at 20% above
| any given limit
|
| It's almost endorsed legally afaik. We were even taught this
| "rule" at school
|
| The insane speeding on tight country roads in the UK is
| absolutely bizarre. It's in no way safe but everyone does it.
| My friends dad died on a motorcycle by riding around country
| roads too fast. It should really be a 30 limit, even 20
| considering the visibility, but people drive at 60, even
| along single file roads that require you to reverse if you
| come across an oncoming car
| julian_t wrote:
| And at this time of year you're quite likely to meet a
| house-sized tractor or combine coming round the bend. Those
| don't hang around either! I'm amazed there aren't a lot
| more fatal accidents on country roads.
| 7952 wrote:
| Most roads in the UK were co-opted from farm tracks and
| never really designed for cars. A lot of the grading of
| roads is just wishful thinking and not linked to the
| engineering specification of the road. And people are
| constantly surprised that the road they have spent the last
| ten years driving to work on is not an eight lane freeway.
| will0 wrote:
| gadders wrote:
| This is in the UK?
| dazc wrote:
| Yes
|
| https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/19642710.speed-camera-
| campa...
| gadders wrote:
| Ah - slightly more rural than my part of the south east.
| I guess I see one deer every two years run over. The rest
| of the time it is mostly rabbits and badgers with the
| occasional fox. Hedgehogs not so much now they are rarer
| in the UK.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Never before has such a small amount of infrastructure come at
| such a high price.
|
| Or perhaps they are building a big tube in the sky for the drones
| to fly through?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I suppose this is an extension of air space zoning, which is a
| thing already. The 3D space above our head is carved up into
| different bits, with different rules, optimised for the principal
| user. Rules around major airports are optimised for big airline
| jets, whereas rules around small rural airstrips are optimised
| for hobbyists.
|
| It makes sense to create more zones if there is a new use-case.
| Designated corridors for drones is basically sandboxing.
|
| That said, as a sibling comment says, this is coming from a
| government under liquidation, staffed by a party behind in polls
| - their objective probably isn't Making Airspace Great Again.
| mothsonasloth wrote:
| The Royal Mail drone scheme to the Western Isles of Scotland is
| much needed. Currently we depend on Loganair and other chartered
| flights to carry mail to remote islands in Scotland.
|
| This will enable deliveries more frequently and less dependant on
| the human factor, although weather will still be a limiting one.
|
| As a developer living on a remote island currently, its been
| amazing to see technology even as ubiquitous as 4G help fish
| farms, wind turbines and other communications work much better.
| callamdelaney wrote:
| What if a drone crashes into the sea and loses all your mail,
| and say it was important?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Then the mail is in the sea.
| neilalexander wrote:
| The same thing that happens if a Loganair plane crashes into
| the sea.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Floating waterproof delivery drones should be fairly simple
| to design, so I assume they already exist?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Still a better delivery service than Hermes.
| jackdh wrote:
| Likely the same as currently established means of delivery.
| Insurance.
| shapefrog wrote:
| If you watch the radar you notice patterns with helicopters over
| London - there are vary distinct routes in the sky that they
| follow. Along the thames, and along the M3 / M40.
|
| So seems an obvious extension of this sort of thing really.
|
| https://www.caa.co.uk/media/wppncpam/london-heli-route-chart...
| alexpotato wrote:
| This is also true in Manhattan post 9/11.
| globular-toast wrote:
| No mention of how any lorries this will take off the roads. So
| what's this for? To make buying unnecessary shit from Amazon even
| cheaper? This just seems like a way to squeeze this small island
| even more. There's already barely anywhere you can go outside
| without any noise pollution. I guess we can say good bye to those
| places too.
| 7952 wrote:
| A lot of the UK is actually pretty empty. You can often go a
| couple miles of the main road and you barely see anyone for
| hours. Obviously that tranquillity is something that should be
| protected. But I don't think a few drones will change that. The
| big problem is that people are stuck in the busy areas and
| don't have good access to the empty bits.
| ghaff wrote:
| >But I don't think a few drones will change that.
|
| I don't expect many people will begrudge the occasional
| urgent medical delivery. What a lot of people don't want is
| the sky full of buzzing hardware delivering takeout burgers.
| corobo wrote:
| > There's already barely anywhere you can go outside without
| any noise pollution
|
| Found the Londoner haha. 2 minutes from me is a walk where I
| can do an easy 6 miles without seeing or hearing anything but
| nature (maybe a few dog walkers). Even at that 6 mile mark it's
| just a lil village then more nature.
|
| Come up north if you're starving for silence! A lot of villages
| are connected by old railway lines (rails removed), they make
| for great peaceful walks.
|
| In any case I don't disagree with you. I do hope there's no
| stream of drones one day buzzing along, I might have to get
| into slingshottery.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I live in a small, boring town and regularly walk in the
| countryside. I think our definition of silence is different.
| Even in the north of the Peak District you'll get planes from
| Manchester airport. Everywhere else you'll hear loud
| cars/motorbikes from every direction. There are pockets of
| quiet, but it's very difficult to find true silence in
| Britain now. In any case, my point was really that these last
| few pockets are now at risk.
| wikfwikf wrote:
| This is vaporware. It's being announced by a lame duck government
| who want to point at something in the future and say the
| equivalent of 'I took steps to ... invent the internet'.
|
| If this actually consists of anything at all it is funding for a
| research project without commercial demand. Just announcing "we
| are giving free money to the arms industry so they don't have to
| pay for their own R&D" doesn't play well any more so it gets spun
| as part of The Future.
| moomin wrote:
| Given the current U.K. government's penchant for announcing and
| re-announcing major projects that turn out to be less than
| nothing, you'd have hoped that journalists would have got a bit
| more sceptical. But no.
| jollybean wrote:
| If by 'vaporware' you mean decent chance that it happens, then
| yes.
|
| It's a legit thing that's happening here. It may or may not
| come to fruition.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| Drone delivery itself isn't vaporware, and will almost
| certainly happen. However, the title referring to "the
| biggest drone superhighway" is the kind of BS the current UK
| government likes to put out. I am surprised it isn't sold as
| some kind of direct benefit of Brexit. If you read the
| article, it is about a small amount of funding to scale up
| trial drone delivery. As the article implies a lot more
| research and investment is needed to scale up drone
| deliveries to an industrial scale, beyond isolated success
| stories.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| It will be delivered right after the bridge to ireland, or
| the garden in the middle of the thames or the oven ready
| brexit deal we are all waiting for...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| My ex-boss is involved in the project to get organs delivered
| fast via drones that were basically just flying minifridges.
| This might be pretty useful for that.
| amelius wrote:
| Organ transport might be a good application. That doesn't
| mean that we should allow drones for any other types of
| application without thinking it over very thoroughly.
|
| And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of
| pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy
| than moving them over land. And there are other negative
| externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical
| danger (these things might crash or collide).
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in
| terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way
| more energy than moving them over land.
|
| What are you comparing this to? Does this include the
| energy and pollution needed to move a human, and a vehicle
| to safely accommodate that human?
|
| > And there are other negative externalities (noise and
| visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things
| might crash or collide).
|
| Are these not also the case for human-driven vehicles,
| which endanger more people (if a motorbike crashes then the
| rider has low odds), and create noise and visual pollution?
| I assume the latter means "I don't like how it looks"; if
| so then does a road look nicer than a drone your eye can't
| resolve unless you're fairly close to it?
| amelius wrote:
| Air transportation can only compete with cars in terms of
| pollution when a lot of mass is transported (e.g. for an
| aircraft with 300 passengers versus a 4-person car,
| pollution per passenger is about equal). For small
| transport, cars win by a large margin.
| stuaxo wrote:
| I think bikes might be better, than an organ stranded god
| knows where when a drone has fallen out the sky.
| bamboozled wrote:
| People will just steal the drones, I'm sure there's huge
| demand for organs.
| martin_a wrote:
| Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that some
| kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it.
| [deleted]
| EUROCARE wrote:
| If you think transporting organs by car is a solution, then
| yeah, very much solved. But organs degrade every minute, so
| even a little speed up is very much worth it.
| martin_a wrote:
| Then get a helicopter. ;-)
| konschubert wrote:
| Or just get an FTP account, mount it locally with
| curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted
| filesystem.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| I have a medical helicopter flying over my house roughly
| every second day and that's more than enough. If all the
| cars marked as "organ transport" that I see around here
| went by helicopter instead I wouldn't be able to hear my
| GF talking at home... And of course - the cost and
| emissions, and the inability to land at small fields...
|
| I don't see how a big, bulky, human-piloted helicopter
| could be in _any way_ better than a specialized,
| lightweight unmanned vehicle.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I bet the money that will be wasted on this project
| (before it inevitable get shelved) will be way more than
| the costs of just buying out the land affected by the
| noise from helicopter organ transport so people that are
| bothered by it can move (and maybe resell the land at a
| discount to those who don't mind the noise, whether it's
| due to better soundproofing or converting it to office
| space that wouldn't mind it).
|
| Yes, in the _very long_ run, drone transport for these
| things would be better due to emissions /etc, but IMO the
| country has more pressing problems at the moment.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| I live in the centre of a capital city. Not even the
| state could get enough money to buy the affected land
| here.
|
| > Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these
| things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the
| country has more pressing problems at the moment.
|
| A country always has thousands of more pressing problems,
| the issue is that nobody orders them the same way. The
| best you can do is to solve more than one problem at a
| time.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I think in the here and now, autonomous drones sharing
| airspace with other aircraft is not really a solved
| problems. Otherwise agreed.
| vidarh wrote:
| Hence the "superhighway" to ensure the drones sticks to a
| pre-defined volume which other aircraft won't be straying
| into.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| > inability to land at small fields...
|
| Helicopters can operate with VTOL.
| prvit wrote:
| For what it's worth, a lot of vehicles marked "organ
| transport" are just people trying to avoid speeding
| tickets and aggressive behavior from other drivers.
| [deleted]
| saiya-jin wrote:
| At current situation, reliability of transport. Drones
| may be 99% reliable (making up the number), but thats not
| enough when that 1% means somebody on waiting list is
| going to die due to failed transport.
|
| Costs benefits are obvious but there are always
| drawbacks, especially when every fail may mean 1 dead
| person.
|
| And that you bought your property so badly placed is
| unfortunate, but the result of your own choices (or more
| like lack of thorough research). If you bought it next to
| highway so should all car traffic in the area be banned?
| [deleted]
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Helicopter pads are not available everywhere.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I suppose helicopter pilots are a bit hard to come by
| also
| martin_a wrote:
| Where do you think an organ transport helicopter would
| need to land? In a larger hospital or next to your local
| butcher?
|
| Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does
| transplants, will have a landing pad.
| EUROCARE wrote:
| But that's the point - this would enable new use cases,
| like for example performing emergency organ replacement
| at a smaller hospital, when transport is too dangerous
| for the person, or when a helicopter is not available.
|
| Also, you might be transporting organs _from_ a smaller
| place to a big hospital - donors that got into an
| accident probably didn 't take care to have it near a
| helipad.
| Closi wrote:
| They transport them by motorbike at the moment, just
| because they can skip traffic much better.
|
| But yes, quick delivery for organs is great - if this is
| enough commercial demand to make a drone superhighway
| worthwile/viable though is another question. Also these
| drone superhighways drop at a specific point at the end
| of the highway - so you still need to pick it up from the
| superhighway 'Skyway hub' and get it to the end customer.
|
| When I looked at the Coventry Skyway project last it
| looked like it was started by a team who had nearly no
| experience in aviation or logistics so it did make me a
| bit sus.
| noir_lord wrote:
| Same with blood, when you need it you _really need it_.
|
| There is an awesome (volunteer) organisation in the UK
| called Blood Bikes[1] that operate all over the UK.
|
| The training is pretty intensive, it's something I'm
| considering doing after I get a full license (and 2 years
| and advanced) because it's an amazing thing to do.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_bike
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that
| some kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it.
|
| I didn't say it would solve it.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| It is a race against time, with a life at risk, in adverse
| traffic.
|
| Watch an actual organ being transported through London [1],
| back in the mid-1980s. Situation is worse today, if you
| talk to EMR drivers.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU
| jacquesm wrote:
| What a riveting 30 minutes that was.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| A substance-free eye-catching gimmick? from this UK government?
| /s
|
| It's not quite as stupid as this gimmick (
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnso...
| ) but there's no surprise here.
| heurisko wrote:
| There is a demand for fast transportation of medical supplies.
|
| A company has already provided services to the NHS, during the
| pandemic.
|
| https://skyportsdroneservices.com/nhs-launches-uks-first-cov...
|
| Not really vaporware.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| In addition to my previous comments, if there's actual demand
| this means that the NHS is currently paying a higher fee per
| delivery which should allow a private competitor to step in,
| undercut the current system (whether via drone deliveries or
| otherwise) and make a profit. It doesn't have to be limited
| to the NHS even - there are plenty of other applications that
| would benefit from faster & more flexible logistics powered
| by drones. Yet it isn't happening, suggesting the current
| system is already in its optimal state.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Yet it isn 't happening, suggesting the current system
| is already in its optimal state._
|
| I don't follow. A gap not filled is not evidence of no gap.
|
| I can think of several companies/industries/products where
| people said "It's as optimal as it gets!" and then
| Netflix/Dropbox/Uber/Pick-X-Tech-Company gets invented and
| makes things more optimal or changes the game completely.
| They also make all the people who say "our current system
| is in it's optimal state" look silly.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| Not vaporware, however, not ready for scaling up on to an
| industrial scale. The main concern remains safety in case of
| a malfunction. Until that has been addressed, the main
| benefit seems to be delivery of essentials (e.g. cancer
| medications) to remote areas where the drone can fly mostly
| over uninhabited areas.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > There is a demand for fast transportation of medical
| _supplies_ [emphasis mine]
|
| Is there really?
|
| I understand that for non-fungible, perishable goods such as
| organs or test samples there might be a need (though a
| helicopter would do just as well), but when it comes to
| supplies, it will be significantly cheaper to just make more
| of them and stock up on them at each hospital rather than
| moving them back & forth (not to mention that this particular
| trial only ranged for 40 miles - this is something a _car_
| can easily do).
|
| It won't work unless it's cheaper than the alternatives, and
| I can't see it being cheaper than just optimizing logistics
| elsewhere to ensure you have a big enough stock of medical
| supplies to not need regular drone deliveries (and when you
| do, a helicopter is an adequate backup plan).
| l1n wrote:
| Zipline (https://www.flyzipline.com/) seems to be doing
| this well in their specific market niche.
| imtringued wrote:
| In an area with unpaved dirt roads.
| timomax2 wrote:
| Indeed. Seems little sense for this in mainland England.
| The sensible applications are Highlands and Islands.
| bioemerl wrote:
| > though a helicopter would do just as well
|
| It's very very easy to be cheaper than a helicopter. Drones
| can require zero or minimal labor, move fast, and run on
| electricity.
|
| If we can have them carry a decent weight and have good
| reliable ways to get them from and to where they need to
| go, they will revolutionize delivery. Door dash will be
| obsolete.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Ad-hoc drones being able to take off, fly and land
| anywhere? Sure, at least in theory. In practice, even
| Amazon and various well-funded, profit-driven players
| couldn't make it work (drone delivery was very hyped up
| ~5 years ago) so I have no expectation that an
| incompetent government will achieve anything other than
| getting fleeced by consultancies.
|
| In addition, the Amazon/DoorDash model isn't even what
| we're talking about here - this is a predefined, specific
| route with the last mile still handled by conventional
| vehicles, so it is even worse.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| What if my house is inside restricted airspace (like most
| of the urban population)?
| bioemerl wrote:
| That's where predefined corridors are important. Let
| drones fly over restricted airspace with some
| registration and along "air roads".
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Sure, but I'm referring to the notion of last mile
| delivery. It won't work except in rural areas.
| bioemerl wrote:
| Why wouldn't it work? A drone can just fly right up to
| your doorstep. Getting it right is a tough job, but
| nothing about it is impractical.
| OJFord wrote:
| So your 'predefined corridors' up-thread are going to
| lead to every doorstep?
| bioemerl wrote:
| Over every home enough that the only worry of the drone
| is dodging yard stuff (trees, and buildings, mostly?), at
| least.
|
| If we could all have landing pads like we have mail
| boxes, something with a fence, it would be much better.
| OJFord wrote:
| So major cities are just one big pre-defined 'corridor'?
| What's the point, may as well just un-restrict it at that
| point?
| mbg721 wrote:
| Maybe the drones operate along aerial highways, and use a
| Wile E. Coyote-esque claw to release their payload on a
| parachute?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Vapourware is when someone promises to meet a need with no
| intention of doing so. The fact there might be at least some
| need for this doesn't mean it isn't vapourware.
| dboreham wrote:
| I'm not sure about that definition. I think it includes
| people who genuinely believe they will meet the need, but
| it's obvious to a knowledgeable observer that they won't
| succeed. E.g. Elisabeth Holmes, Elon Musk (self driving and
| mars colonization, not landing rockets).
| ellieh wrote:
| we already have motorcyclists for this - there are Blood Bike
| volunteers in most counties. They carry blood, organs,
| samples, supplies, etc much faster than even a car on blue
| lights. And it's cheap :)
| bsenftner wrote:
| Monumentally stupid idea: as our "civilized world" devolves,
| these will be bored moron target practice, as well as perfect
| targets for commercial disruption. The short sightedness and
| immaturity of human society knows no bounds, it's a black hole.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > bored moron target practice
|
| With what? Remember this is the UK.
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