[HN Gopher] Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in comme...
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Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of
Tolleson, AZ
https://www.theverge.com/news/790636/amazon-prime-mk30-drone...
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 206 points
Date : 2025-10-02 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.abc15.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.abc15.com)
| neom wrote:
| Little after 10am, pure speculation but wonder if the angle of
| the sun overwhelmed the dynamic range of the image sensor over a
| particularly inopportune area of the frame. Guessing no LiDAR on
| drones like this.
| oofbey wrote:
| Fine speculation. But they should be smart enough not to fly
| into their own blind spots e.g. the sun. They would tack back
| and forth I bet. They have a lot of tricks like this.
|
| I bet it has to be a confluence of factors. I hope Amazon
| reports openly what went wrong. FAA should demand it. Will be a
| very interesting report if we ever get to read it.
| testplzignore wrote:
| They should learn to shield their sensors with their hand and
| squint. Humans perfected this millions of years ago :)
| JCM9 wrote:
| Given the severity of this it's likely the NTSB will get
| involved, and Amazon's ability to operate would likely be
| suspended pending a review of their operation.
| jampa wrote:
| I wonder if they do a routine map of the delivery area (with a
| Lidar plane) so they have a high-resolution scan of the city
| for better pathing. But they didn't expect something like a
| crane that could be assembled so high and fast to be in the
| way.
| ooterness wrote:
| Who could have predicted that drones flying outside during the
| day might have to deal with direct sunlight?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| No one could have known. And in Phoenix, no less, where it's
| famously overcast most of the time? Next you're going to tell
| me that a component overheated or clocked down for thermal
| throttling - preposterous, Phoenix is great for passive
| cooling! /s
| Zigurd wrote:
| Based on the descriptions I've read so far, it sounds like the
| drones didn't give enough space around the crane boom, which it
| seems like they avoided. That's not to make an excuse. But it's
| a different defect than failing to detect the crane boom.
| neom wrote:
| My theory could in theory hold if a specular highlight off
| the boom arm created some type of confusion I suppose,
| however, I posted it as just thinking aloud, I don't have
| much faith in my own theory at large.
|
| (my degree is in digital imaging technology so, fun thinking
| problems for me :)
| ajcp wrote:
| I'm currently in Phoenix and it's a little after 10am and the
| sun is almost directly overhead at this time of day. Would they
| need sensors pointing directly overhead in-flight?
| neom wrote:
| If that's the case my little theory makes no sense. Thanks!
| ajcp wrote:
| Of course!
| neom wrote:
| btw, the animation on your website is absolutely
| beautiful. It's both haunting and pretty at the same
| time, really cool.
| bri3d wrote:
| mmWave is the usual solution for this; I know that Amazon were
| at least testing using mmWave but I'm not sure if it made it to
| their production drones.
| oofbey wrote:
| Would that act like radar in mmWave? Send out pulses and see
| where they come back and time difference to estimate range?
| addaon wrote:
| Yep. See eg the TI AWR1843 and related AWR parts.
| ge96 wrote:
| The crash site is intriguing, want to see what tech they're using
| prein wrote:
| I didn't even know they were using delivery drones yet. Why did
| they both crash, were they working in tandem carrying one payload
| or something?
| deadbabe wrote:
| Been using them for years, I got a package by drone the other
| day.
| Insanity wrote:
| Yeah but it's in a pretty limited zone IIRC. Just some states
| and areas have it, and it's definitely not yet a common
| practice.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| I was thinking maybe they used the same route planning system,
| so their routes were identical.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If an amazon delivery drone uses the same route as a truck,
| what's the point of the drone? As a crow flies would be the
| point to be as direct as possible.
|
| Edit: Nevermind. I'm not awake yet. this logic does not
| compute. please ignore
| skygazer wrote:
| Without knowing anything about their routing, I think
| grandparent is saying they likely were on the same vector,
| perhaps same destination.
| dylan604 wrote:
| wow, your interpretation is much better than whatever
| went through my head. i'm going with too early in the
| morning. not enough coffee.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd laugh pretty hard if the second one was an automatic
| redelivery attempt.
|
| "Something went wrong with the drone. Send another!"
| dylan604 wrote:
| The local Walmart nearest me has also started using drone
| delivery using Zipline drones. It's not a store I frequent, but
| recently drove past and the landing/launching site has a very
| unique look to it. At first thought, I thought it was a small
| carnival type of set up, but realized the rides looked really
| weird. There's large towers that remind me of the sculptures in
| Singapore near the ship on stilts building. I just perused
| Zipline's website hoping to find some imagery, but the site is
| clearly focused on promotional aspects with happy people
| receiving packages. zzzzzz.
|
| https://www.zipline.com/
| olex wrote:
| Zipline drones fly quite high, and instead of descending and
| landing to deliver their payload, they hover at altitude and
| lower a "delivery pod" down on a wire. The pod also has
| maneuvering capabilities, but all of its thrusters are fully
| enclosed, and it's designed to not cause any damage even it
| if collides with something during descent or ascent. Overall,
| a very clever design that should be safer, create no noise on
| ground level, and be able to deliver into much smaller and
| more confined landing zones.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sure, but it's the launch/landing site that is in question.
| It's not just a helipad set up. It's very sci-fi looking
| and looks very complicated. I'm wondering if the drone
| itself lands at the top and then lowers the pod for loading
| to keep them out of reach of the employees. Probably even
| touted as a safety feature. I just haven't seen the system
| in operation, and their website just ignores this part as
| it's not something necessary for marketing.
| olex wrote:
| There is a bunch of videos on Youtube on Zipline, some of
| them from the company itself (this one showing
| specifically the "platform":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=airEzThGlx8), and some
| from various tech people looking into the whole thing
| (like Markus Brownlee:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88yQTzlmsiA). Probably a
| better overall source of into than their website.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That first video you linked confirmed my suspicions.
| thanks
| fxtentacle wrote:
| That is so cool :)
|
| And it looks much safer than Amazon's approach of
| directly landing the heavy drone in your garden.
| nuggetzs wrote:
| Oh man that Amazon paycheck gonna be huge.
| zenmac wrote:
| Well thanks to tort reform likely not:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_(film)
| tamimio wrote:
| There were plenty of proposals back in 2021 about having highways
| in the sky for drone delivery operations, at least in Canada, so
| such incidents are avoided, as relying on technology alone isn't
| enough and the risk plans are only to mitigate rather than
| eliminate the risks.
|
| That being said, drone delivery will not really become a thing
| unless the endurance issue is resolved, like a new breakthrough
| battery technology that gives you at least 4 hours flight time
| (hybrid drones are noisy), as for any drone to have a proper
| impact, it should have three items checked: endurance, payload,
| and range. The last two are pretty much resolved by having
| modular payloads and flying over the internet, the first one is
| still pending.
| ge96 wrote:
| I thought this is a thing for autonomous vehicles carrying
| people at least I remembering seeing something with Honda
| tamimio wrote:
| It is for both, manned and unmanned, providing also a map of
| the network coverage in these "highways" and other active
| drones as well. I remember seeing a proof of concept platform
| that provided such functionality in Singapore, I am not sure
| if it became a reality later though.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Why is 4 hours a limit?
| tamimio wrote:
| It's not a limit, just from my personal exposure in the
| overall drone delivery, 3-4hrs would provide enough time with
| margin for any safe delivery, beyond that is definitely
| better but probably is too hard to achieve. Keep in mind the
| actual flight time will be less than that, accounting for
| payload weight and environment like wind and temperature. In
| cold weather like Canada, the batteries will consume some of
| their energy to heat themselves before taking off.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| What's the math that gets to 3-4 hours? Do the drones
| usually multiple deliveries in a flight? In my metro I
| would have assumes that any place is less than 30 minutes
| flight time from a Whole Foods or Walmart for example. How
| long does the actual safe delivery take? I assume it just
| lowers the goods and doesn't wait for the customer, right?
|
| Edit: The Internet tells me that delivery drones fly at
| 40-60mp/h which is much faster than I assumed and makes the
| 3-4 hour window even more surprising to me.
| jon-wood wrote:
| I'm not sure they need endurance, if they're cheap enough
| companies can just buy a fleet n times larger than the number
| they need in the air at any given moment and have the others
| charging at base. Or more likely buy some extra batteries and
| have someone employed to swap them out when they're getting
| low.
| oofbey wrote:
| Why do you think there is any problem with battery endurance?
| I'm quite sure Amazon has run the numbers on battery life for
| individual flights and for the lifetime of battery packs many
| many times. It's just economics. And has basically nothing to
| do with safety. Unless a battery fails suddenly and
| spectacularly, which is rare and probably isn't what caused it
| to crash into a crane.
| pixel_popping wrote:
| Alternative working link:
| https://www.theverge.com/news/790636/amazon-prime-mk30-drone...
|
| 403 ERROR The request could not be satisfied. Request blocked. We
| can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time.
| There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try
| again later, or contact the app or website owner. If you provide
| content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to
| troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the
| CloudFront documentation.
|
| Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront) Request ID:
| 4nJBA53JFbgAlMjIy7AGSr8vdQd0NdIQCoCFvK67Mr-9yFUHlDpFJQ==
| dang wrote:
| Thanks, I've added that link to the toptext.
| mothballed wrote:
| "Crane" is a highly optimistic word for what looks like a
| telescoping boom lift.
|
| Edit: per below was actually a crane
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Nah - at 0:35 into the video on the news page, you can see the
| crane they actually crashed into. There are boom lifts around,
| but they hit a proper crane. Pulled this link from the video
| but no clue how direct linking works with some of these weird
| sites;
|
| https://cf.cdn.uplynk.com/ause1/slices/14f/5c3d34b8b29a45469...
| mothballed wrote:
| Thanks! I took a quick look at the image in the article, and
| wrongly assumed they pictured the thing that it hit.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| It's a local news station who's targeting the lowest common
| denominator, so it's an acceptable usage in this case.
|
| EDIT: NM, it was a crane after all.
| jfengel wrote:
| Today I learned:
|
| Boom lifts, available in various models such as mini scissor
| lifts for sale, spider lifts, and tracked scissor lifts, offer
| excellent mobility, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness for
| many tasks. Cranes, on the other hand, are essential for heavy
| lifting and large-scale projects.
|
| I also learned that "spider lifts" look like something a bad
| guy drives in a sci-fi movie.
| bilekas wrote:
| From their brief on the drones themselves:
| https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/amazon-drone...
|
| > Our approval includes the ability to fly Beyond Visual Line of
| Sight, using our sophisticated on-board detect and avoid system.
| This is an historic, first-of-its-kind approval for a new drone
| system and a new operating location following a rigorous FAA
| evaluation of the safety of our systems and processes.
|
| It's true the FAA would have had to have signed off on these so
| that will be interesting.
| trollbridge wrote:
| The NTSB should be investigating, then.
| fakedang wrote:
| Maybe the FAA let Amazon self-approve them. Business as usual.
| mattas wrote:
| Interesting to me that _two_ managed to hit a boom lift.
| antonvs wrote:
| Begun, the drone wars have
| jollyllama wrote:
| Terrifying. Imagine being a roofer or other worker when a
| delivery drone knocks your ass off the n-th floor surface that
| you're working on. It wouldn't take much to get somebody killed
| in such a precarious situation.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Any modern roofer or other worker that could fall far is
| wearing a safety harness (with some exceptions for flat roofs
| that have railing set up).
| jollyllama wrote:
| _laughs in independent subcontractor_
| infecto wrote:
| I am going to wager that 90% of resi roofers are not using
| harnesses unless the pitch of the roof is extreme. It's all
| about the couch cushion.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Generally speaking you start doing that stuff once you get
| to 3 or more storeys, which is why residential mass builds
| are typically 2 or less. Workers' compensation will
| specifically have job categories for work done on buildings
| 2 storeys or less, and it goes way up once you get to 3
| (and even more for 4+).
|
| Even with all the gear, an unpredictable 80 lb object
| hurtling towards you is a major problem. Not to mention
| becoming a problem for any standing below.
| ghaff wrote:
| I had a chimney inspection and cap on my pretty steep
| pitched residential roof last year in MA on 2 story house.
| No harnesses that I saw. Wouldn't be for me.
|
| Certainly harnesses and other safety gear are much more
| common in many situations.
| toss1 wrote:
| YUP
|
| Was working for a construction guy I overall respected, and
| he had us going up on a 3-story barn roof without any kind
| of roped-in protection. Although I was a fairly experienced
| rock climber (or perhaps because of it), I quit at lunch.
|
| I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to have the
| backup finances to be able to afford to quit.
| tlavoie wrote:
| A coworker (also works from home) had some commotion across
| the street, when one of the roofers on his neighbour's
| place went off the second-story roof. All these guys were
| wearing harnesses, but not clipped in. The one who fell was
| luck in that he hit a garden shed roof rather than another
| 8' to the concrete, but was definitely hurt. Fire
| department came, yelled at these guys for being idiots.
| Roofers said they'd comply, and once the FD left, went back
| to what they were doing. This is _right after_ losing a guy
| to a fall.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| I've never seen residential house roofers wearing a safety
| harness, even on 2-story jobs. There's generally nowhere to
| clip the harness to on such buildings, so it wouldn't help
| anyway.
| bradfa wrote:
| There's roof safety anchor systems which are designed for
| residential roofs. Look for something like the Ridgepro
| anchor: https://www.theridgepro.com/
|
| It does seem best when using lag bolts to secure such an
| anchor to the roof but even when not screwed to the roof
| should provide some level of fall safety.
| ozten wrote:
| Are these used in practice? In what regions? In Seattle
| suburbs, I've never seen a crew wearing any kind of
| attached harness.
| RankingMember wrote:
| They _should_ be, but I also rarely see roofers in
| harnesses around here on the other side of the country.
| It 's one thing when it's a roofer himself making the
| (stupid) decision, but a lot of the guys I see actually
| on the roofs are non-English-speaking laborers basically
| told to get the job done and not ask questions.
| trollbridge wrote:
| You don't wear a harness when framing and roofing 1 and 2
| storey buildings. What would you even attach yourself to?
|
| "I will not be hit by an 80 pound flying missile" is a
| reasonable expectation for construction workers
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >You don't wear a harness when framing and roofing 1 and 2
| storey buildings. What would you even attach yourself to?
|
| You also don't have the sort of "n-th floor" fall that
| provides good fodder for a good drive by appeal to emotion
| internet comment from a 2-story building hence the relaxed
| requirements.
|
| Anyway, punch in "roof anchor" on Amazon (kinda funny how
| we've almost come full circle to AOL keywords isn't it).
| There's a whole ecosystem of products for attaching to
| residential roofs.
|
| >"I will not be hit by an 80 pound flying missile" is a
| reasonable expectation for construction workers
|
| Seems like a pretty reasonable expectation for them to have
| today considering the number of things that have been hit
| by drones so far. N=1 isn't a trend. Acting every one off
| event is something needs to be done to mitigate (that the
| responsible parties have plenty of incentive to solve) is
| beyond counterproductive on a societal level. The people
| who peddle that may as well be peddling the geocentric
| solar system model.
|
| Edit: On second thought peddling the geocentric model is
| probably a better use for those people since at least that
| way they'll be laughed at rather than have their ideas
| seriously considered.
| rascul wrote:
| The framers have nothing to attach to until there's
| structure, and they don't really need to get up there much
| until they do the decking. They can attach lines to the
| ridge then. So can the roofers when it's their turn.
|
| When I was a roofer, I think we might have used safety
| lines and harnesses twice, when the pitch was too steep.
| Polizeiposaune wrote:
| Years ago I heard a comment from someone in the trades that
| (in his opinion) harnesses are a net negative on typical
| single-family-houses - the presence of the rigging
| (particularly when there are multiple workers on the roof)
| creates trip hazards that make falls and injuries more
| likely.
|
| Whether or not it's true, if significant numbers of crews
| believe this they won't be wearing harnesses on low roofs.
| Timshel wrote:
| And the not much here is an 80 pounds drone (Mk30).
| jollyllama wrote:
| Thank you, I stand corrected!
| imglorp wrote:
| Impact aside, really, any contact to a soft meat bag by an 80lb
| machine surrounded by whirling propellers at high rpm will
| result in an unpleasant outcome.
| nkrisc wrote:
| An 80lb mass moving at any appreciable speed hitting you is
| going to suck regardless of what it is.
|
| At a leisurely 3 mi/h, wolfram alpha gives this amusing
| comparison: about 0.36 times the momentum of an American
| football player moving at a speed of 1 m/s.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| With the information we have about the actual incident, it
| seems you'd only be at risk of that happening if you were as
| thin as a cable.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| If it runs into the cable and tumbles down on you, it's a
| very real risk.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Or if you're being suspended by the cable of a crane.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It seems like getting hit by a falling drone would be very
| dangerous if you are a roofer or not.
| 14 wrote:
| Literally everything around us has the same dangers. Like
| getting into a car and doing 70mph in the opposite direction of
| some stranger doing the same speed possibly drunk or high. This
| tech will be completely standard and everywhere eventually and
| no one will pay attention to it. Benefits will outweigh any
| risks and just like cars people won't be going around fearing
| them.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| Shotguns are now standard issue, Foreman finally gets to work
| JCM9 wrote:
| Flying in uncontrolled airspace in VMC is a "see and avoid"
| environment, meaning this looks like a pretty bad screw up by
| Amazon.
|
| The fact that two different drones crashed into the same object
| raises even more serious questions on the quality of Amazon's
| tech and their ability to safely monitor it.
| arbll wrote:
| well at least it's consistent
| qafy wrote:
| this is actually hilarious because now they can't call it a
| fluke or an act of god
| fakedang wrote:
| Crashing it a second time is, in my books, an act of God. I
| guess God isn't really that fond of Amazon.
| brewdad wrote:
| News Media: "Bezos has more money than God"
|
| God: "Hold my staff"
| fusslo wrote:
| second time was because dev rejected bug report without QA
| replicating it
| djtriptych wrote:
| Two drones doesn't really mean anything if they were following
| a similar flight plan to make a delivery at the same location
| right?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| It means it wasn't a fluke or a bug specific to one drone,
| but something wrong in the overall software approach.
| oofbey wrote:
| The repetition strongly indicates it's a bug. No reason to
| think it points to a fundamental flaw in the approach.
| JCM9 wrote:
| It means Amazon's approach to its "see and avoid"
| responsibility is fundamentally flawed in some way vs this
| being a one-off fluke with a broken sensor or other anomaly.
| OJFord wrote:
| > It's unclear if anyone was injured during the incident.
|
| 'It's unclear if' is a phrase that paints a brilliant picture of
| an organ's journalistic standing.
|
| It means there's no information either way, what follows is pure
| speculation, probably false, but the author can put whatever idea
| they want in our heads, since they've prefaced that it 'may or
| may not be the case'.
|
| It's unclear if the drones had malicious intent. It's unclear if
| the author was sober while writing and free of criminal record.
| sejje wrote:
| I think they're just trying to get ahead of the question
| everyone wants answered, and they're saying they don't know
| yet.
| slashdave wrote:
| How about "there are no reports of injuries"?
| rtkwe wrote:
| That could be misread too though depending on when you're
| reading it and when you think the article was written in
| relation to the events. If it's a quick article right after
| it reads like the original verbiage but if you think it
| happened a while before the article was written it sounds
| more authoritative that there were no injuries. The "it is
| unclear" phrasing makes the ambiguity clear that the author
| doesn't know if there were any at the time of writing.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| And if injuries are later reported people will sneer that
| 'media always gets it wrong/lies'. If they use plain
| language and say 'we don't know if anyone was injured yet'
| then people will sneer that 'I could have wirtten that,
| they're trying to sensationalize a nothingburger.'
| energy123 wrote:
| Virtually all journalism is this bad though.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| It's unclear if this commenter has read more than just the
| headlines. Maybe they try to argue for the sake of controversy
| and outrage culture. Maybe they just don't have a brain.
|
| But seriously, the article text doesn't follow up with any
| speculation and highlights it is a developing story. According
| to the latest news on TV, someone actually was insured and is
| now at the hospital. The details are still unclear however.
| This is very based reporting for the world we currently live in
| and I would like to see more news stations follow this style
| instead of jumping to conclusions.
| OJFord wrote:
| The sentence I quoted is not in the headline.
| drcongo wrote:
| It's actually the second to last paragraph of the "article"
| so proves that you made it at least most of the way
| through.
| 85392_school wrote:
| It was added as a subheading.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Per the video report, someone went to the hospital with
| difficulties breathing from fumes.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Oh come on. This is just a stub article, saying two drones had
| crashed and police are investigating. It's clearly going to be
| a story of strong local and general interest, and they have
| limited information and a couple of photographs so the story is
| only a few sentences long for now.
|
| Ranting about deeper meaning of the words in such a minimal
| bulletin is nonsensical.
| amelius wrote:
| By the way, I see very little discussion on the drones used in
| the UA-RU war, which should be quite interesting from a hacker's
| perspective. Technology is going very fast there.
|
| Seriously, why is this downvoted?
| Etheryte wrote:
| Probably because this thread is only remotely related to that?
| There's been countless discussions on the topic, doesn't mean
| every thread has to be about that.
| amelius wrote:
| I mean on Hacker News in general.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I don't really see what you mean, if you use the HN search
| Algolia provides, you can see people talking about it from
| different angles pretty much every day.
| amelius wrote:
| Strange, because I never see it on the front page.
|
| Perhaps I should change the way I read HN.
|
| PS: I just searched, and indeed there is a lot of talk
| about incidents around drones. But what I mean is talk
| about the technology used in these drones. For example,
| how do you send a video feed through a kilometers long
| fiber optic cable that is cheap to produce and
| lightweight? These are the kind of questions I'm
| interested in.
| le-mark wrote:
| I am personally working on intellectual property related to
| that. IMO this topic is impossible to discuss online, it's
| a magnet for bots and troll farms.
| slashdave wrote:
| Amazon engineer this morning to colleague: "Hey! Maybe we should
| include some cranes in our training data."
| blaufuchs wrote:
| As someone who has worked in AV perception this is
| unfortunately way too accurate lol, so much training set whack-
| a-mole
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| Like, they may have trained on power lines, catenaries above
| rail tracks, network cables, etc. but all of them are
| horizontal. And the software couldn't recognize vertical
| cables or cables at an angle.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _cables at an angle._
|
| With tens of thousands of guyed towers in the United
| States, that's a bad omission.
| johntb86 wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/news/790636/amazon-prime-mk30-drone...
| gives more information, including that
|
| * No one was injured directly, but someone was treated for smoke
| inhalation
|
| * The drones "were flying back to back"
|
| * They hit the cable of a crane (including a link to a video
| showing the crane). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ZpY6qHcTk
| cherioo wrote:
| The video also includes a video clip of package delivery, where
| drone would drop package to the ground, which worked. But then
| propeller blew the package right into the bush was lmao.
| perihelions wrote:
| Timestamp for the ADHD's,
|
| https://youtu.be/E_ZpY6qHcTk?t=134
| toast0 wrote:
| Drop and tumble helps reduce impact energy, might manage to
| keep the goods intact.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Gad. Zoox. I hope it's not the same team doing both.
| wavemode wrote:
| Sir, a second drone has hit the crane on 96th Avenue.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| Household ownership of cars hit 50% by 1930 but there was no
| federal seatbelt mandate unitl 1968 or regulation of intoxicated
| driving until the 1980s.
|
| Don't hold your breath waiting on the US government to give a
| shit about death and destruction of its people. Let the industry
| discover the tech and capitalist forces dictate safety, around
| 2060 we can start having serious conversations about drone
| safety.
|
| To any of the aspiring Ralph Nader's of the drone industry out
| there, thank you for your service in advance.
| oofbey wrote:
| The facts don't line up with your concerns. Amazon announced
| prime air in what 2013 IIRC. Now 12 years later they have FAA
| approval for a small number of test flights. Exactly so they
| can slowly discover problems like this and fix them. Every
| safety critical system in the world is iteratively refined
| based on real world learnings about mistakes - mistakes made
| after careful design to avoid them. It's just really really
| hard.
| crazygringo wrote:
| To be clear, they crashed into the _vertical cable_ hanging down
| from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane
| itself.
|
| So it's not as bad as "they don't see cranes". But it absolutely
| raises the question of whether they can see _cables_ , whether
| hanging from cranes or spanning telephone poles.
|
| And honestly, cables are really hard to see in the air. That's
| literally why high-voltage power lines hang those big red-orange
| marker balls on them for pilots to see.
|
| Genuinely curious what the solution here is. Hard-code some logic
| to identify cranes and always assume there's a cable dangling
| from the end? Never fly underneath anything? Implement some kind
| of specialized detection for thin cables if that's possible?
| delfinom wrote:
| Amazon uses its lobbying powers to make it illegal to operate a
| crane without submitting an approval request to Amazon and
| paying a fee.
| JCM9 wrote:
| That doesn't make it better. The cable hangs down from the
| crane and thus the rest of the structure is still nearby. The
| drone should be well clear of any obstructions precisely to
| avoid this sort of thing from happening with hard-to-see
| ancillary obstructions. Something went really wrong here with
| the tech.
| jahsome wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious what you'd define "nearby" and "well
| clear" as in concrete numbers.
|
| For the sake of clarity: I am not arguing against your point,
| nor am I defending Amazon or the tech in any way shape or
| form.
| lawlessone wrote:
| not under it at a minimum lol
| burkaman wrote:
| A human operator would see a moving crane and say "that's a
| construction site, I'm going to go around". They would not
| fly directly under a crane even if it visually looked
| clear. In this case the crane was actively lowering
| something, so the drone not only missed the cable but it
| flew directly in between the crane and a visible object
| hanging in the air below the crane.
|
| For concrete numbers, I would say stay 50 yards away from
| construction equipment, and always laterally or above, not
| below. Honestly these drones are enormous so I think "don't
| go under" can just be a blanket rule. They can't be going
| under trees or bridges or overpasses either, they're too
| big.
|
| Edit: Also, the drones themselves should be far enough
| apart that if one crashes the other has time to react and
| stop or change course. I don't have a concrete number
| there, it depends on their speed and acceleration, but they
| shouldn't be flying so close that if one crashes they all
| will.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| In non-drone aviation, we require vehicles to be separated
| from each other by 5 nautical miles horizontally and 2,000
| feet vertically. Additionally every area of the planet they
| fly over has an MSA figure - Minimum Safe Altitude - which
| is supposed to guarantee 1000 feet clearance over any
| obstacles or terrain.
|
| Both of these allow healthy margins of error, whether that
| error is from a human pilot or ATC, or from computer
| systems - either in the vehicle or the ground.
|
| I'd argue these would be a great place to start for drone
| aviation.
|
| If such limits make drone burrito or toilet paper delivery
| expensive, that seems fine.
| jahsome wrote:
| Just what I was looking for. Thanks for the context!
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| 5 miles sounds pretty ridiculous, TBH. These things
| aren't moving at Mach 3.
| bell-cot wrote:
| At a mere (say) 240mph, 5 miles is 75 seconds. Talk to an
| experienced pilot about how short a time that is, when a
| bottom-10% pilot is trying to figure out some problem
| with his instrumentation, or has set his radio to the
| wrong frequency, or whatever.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > At a mere (say) 240mph, 5 miles is 75 seconds.
|
| The world record holder for a quadcopter drone is 224
| mph. Not many drones can beat 100 mph.
|
| According to one article I found Amazons drones can
| manage 50mph.
| bell-cot wrote:
| 5 miles at 50mph would give only Amazon 360 seconds to
| fix the bug that caused the first drone to crash. Or
| figure things out enough to get the second drone into
| manual override mode.
| oofbey wrote:
| Thanks for the context! Makes sense for traditional
| aircraft to be super conservative like this, especially
| given they tend to travel very long routes and sometimes
| have nothing more than a pair of human eyes paying
| attention to obstacles.
|
| Do you know what are the rules for helicopters in a city?
| That seems like a closer analogue.
| wat10000 wrote:
| At least in the US, minimum separation is for when you're
| talking to air traffic control, and MSA is for flying on
| instruments. Minimum separation when you can see outside
| and aren't talking to ATC is "don't hit other planes."
| Minimum altitude is 500ft, or 1000ft over "congested
| areas," plus 500ft distance from any obstacle. _Unless_
| you 're flying a helicopter (or powered parachute or hang
| glider) in which case the only requirement is "the
| operation is conducted without hazard to persons or
| property on the surface."
|
| It would make sense for a quadcopter to follow helicopter
| rules. Obviously it does not follow the "without hazard"
| requirement if you crash into cables, though.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| Fair enough, I am not a pilot, just a nerd so I wasn't
| aware of this!
|
| I'd agree the helicopter rules seem most appropriate,
| though I guess I'd still feel like that would still rule
| out operating anywhere near a building under
| construction.
|
| That said, a regular helicopter that suffers a loss of
| power or other fault, still has options like autorotation
| to at least attempt a landing without killing anyone on
| the ground. Do drones have any equivalent ? I.e. if
| battery is below x% it returns to safe landing spot?
| wat10000 wrote:
| "Without hazard" is pretty subjective, but I agree that
| it probably shouldn't include casually flying around
| cranes.
|
| I don't know how drones are programmed, but landing
| immediately if the battery gets low certainly sounds like
| a sensible precaution. Electric motors might be reliable
| enough that you don't have to worry about gracefully
| handling failure of those. I hope so, because I don't
| think a quadcopter has much hope if any motor fails.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Why do people always get a hard on for bizarre drone
| rules? Some amateur pilot goes up in a fireball every
| other week, I think we put up their safety record to that
| of drones and there are going to be some hard choices to
| make - I think it's over for our amateur pilots out
| there.
| JCM9 wrote:
| For manned flight instrument approaches the FAA has very
| nuanced math that defines this which typically comes down to
| a few hundred feet. That translates pretty well here too.
| Amazon will need to explain to the FAA why they were flying
| anywhere near this crane let alone that close and below the
| hight of its support structure. There's no real defense for
| doing something that stupid.
| dheera wrote:
| "The Tolleson Police Department is investigating"
|
| The police is not qualified to investigate this. The only
| people that should be investigating is people who understand
| the code that the drones run.
|
| Accidents will happen as long as we, as a society, agree and
| desire to have new tech. The investigations and bug fixes
| should be left to people who understand the tech.
| JCM9 wrote:
| The Feds will quickly arrive and take over. Aviation issues
| are Federal matters. The only role of local law enforcement
| and emergency response is to provide any first aid and then
| secure the scene for the Feds. Unless lives are at risk local
| police shouldn't even touch anything. They put up yellow tape
| around the scene and keep it secure until the FAA and/or NTSB
| arrive.
| atm3ga wrote:
| I'm not sure why this is getting down voted. Indeed, the FAA
| is the correct investigating body here as the local police
| department has no jurisdiction over aviation accidents. They
| should have immediately called in the FAA to investigate.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not:
|
| "The NTSB will retain far more employees than during prior
| shutdowns when it had to furlough 90% or more of its
| workers. In 2019, the agency did not send investigators to
| 22 accidents because of the funding lapse. But it made the
| case to White House budget officials that it needed more
| personnel for critical functions."
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/faa-would-
| fur...
| dheera wrote:
| They should call in a bunch of robotics and PyTorch experts
| to investigate the code, actually, and preferably also
| submit a pull request to Amazon. Amazon should be required
| to pay this "squat team".
|
| The FAA does not have the expertise to diagnose this.
| djtriptych wrote:
| For commercial deliveries I would expect them to designate a
| landing zone guaranteed to be free of obstacles vertically. I'm
| guessing that installing radar detailed enough to see swinging
| cables is nearly impossible.
| bri3d wrote:
| mmWave radar is commonly used for detecting (horizontal)
| cables of similar thickness in a very common use of
| enterprise drones: power line inspection.
| gpm wrote:
| > Never fly underneath anything?
|
| This honestly seems like the obvious approach. Even if we
| suppose you have perfect sensors flying underneath something
| still means something might be dropped on you... why risk it
| when you can just fly above it?
| fallingmeat wrote:
| guy wires
| idontwantthis wrote:
| The fact that these things are flying without rock solid "avoid
| this giant fucking thing" logic is asinine. The solution is
| don't fly like a child playing a flight sim for the first time.
| Don't zip around anything let alone construction cranes. Use
| common sense flight paths, decks and ceilings like everything
| else in the air.
| m-schuetz wrote:
| Aerial Lidar is pretty good at detecting power line cables.
| Power line mapping is a major use case for it. However, that's
| in large part because at the scan distance, the beam already
| has quite a big diameter that is likely to hit the cable. Maybe
| a higher beam radius scanner could work out for close-distance
| cable detection
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| You may have a tall mas or an antenna and massive cables
| stretching at angles around it for support. The distance
| between the base of the mast and the base of supporting cables
| can be quite large, so even a simple logic like "stay 100m away
| from tall structures" can be insufficient.
|
| It would be interesting to see what comes out of this
| investigation. Hopefully the injured person will be alright.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| >so even a simple logic like "stay 100m away from tall
| structures" can be insufficient.
|
| Wasn't this problem solved thousands of years ago by euclid?
| hulitu wrote:
| Yes, but this was thousands of years ago. /s
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" 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"_)
| diggan wrote:
| > 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.
| MountDoom wrote:
| 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.
| freehorse wrote:
| 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.
| vel0city wrote:
| 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.
| dhosek wrote:
| 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."
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _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/
| sva_ wrote:
| I suppose recognizing that there is a cable even when we don't
| clearly see it, but we know it is there because we know the
| concept of a crane, is exactly the amodal completion of our
| brain's top-down perceptual inference that CNNs and whatever
| else those drones use are currently still lacking?
|
| It shouldn't be necessary to hardcore such things if the goal
| is to build something resembling intelligence.
|
| Of course for a drone it might be more feasible to do so
| though.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Neural nets in drones are only used for object recognition.
| Beyond that, drones (and other autonomous vehicles) aren't
| doing any sort of reasoning or decision making, they follow
| rules, they're just robots.
|
| Although I hear that Tesla is thinking about using AI for
| decision making as well, which I find quite scary. Frankly I
| think it's safer if vehicles don't have concepts and
| intelligence, and just follow the rules.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The easy answer is to follow the same rule that you have for
| every other certificated aircraft and operator: _Never_ fly
| _under_ a structure. When humans do stupid shit like this, we
| take away their license.
|
| I don't think they will take away their license, but AMZN
| should have to explain exactly how their drones managed to
| crash by flying themselves under an obstruction twice in a
| row.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I had a look at the video... if that's the crane that was in
| the incident then the drone was simply way too low for
| cruising. This isn't a tower crane with a flight restriction.
| They were moving equipment on the roof of a single story
| building.
| codedokode wrote:
| Cables are not hard to see with eyes.
| tifik wrote:
| If this were true, aviation cable markers would not be a
| thing. Also:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash
| numpad0 wrote:
| Not at a distance. They're basically transparent even to our
| naked eyes at aircraft speed and distance scales. Let alone
| to digital cameras on flying robots. They'll probably have to
| either use really good active sensors(ITAR), or infer
| possible areas of danger from visually cable-end-like
| features.
| codedokode wrote:
| Yes human also cannot see them from far away and flying at
| high speed but what I wanted to point out is that robots
| usually get the cheapest and lowest quality sensors.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Flying machines are never to be flown near cables. It's not
| like human pilots on a helicopter can detect and avoid the
| cables in the first place.
|
| Long-distance transmission wires are sometimes inspected with
| helicopters, so I guess there are exceptions and protocols, but
| outside those, flying machines just aren't supposed to fly near
| cables except for explicit intent to catch them. Especially
| across or under. You may only approach in slow parallel motions
| and/or back off.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Yeah. Friend of mine was a news helicopter pilot and he had
| one of these systems that will cut a cable if you hit one by
| accident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6CsNqhAeeQ .
| Better than getting tangled, I guess.
| bb611 wrote:
| On the other hand, sometimes cutting the cable is at least
| as dangerous as causing the aircraft to crash, for instance
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash
|
| The only safe system is for aircraft to avoid wires.
| FpUser wrote:
| What they show on video does not protect props. Dumbest
| invention ever. Never mind that the idea of cutting cable
| is even worse.
| EA wrote:
| Multiple cable cutters are installed on every military
| helicopter
| FpUser wrote:
| Interesting. Did not think of military, those might have
| "special needs"
| deepsun wrote:
| It does protect, and is already certified and installed
| on many copters. Still, it's an emergency device, last
| resort, like parachutes on some small airplanes.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The guy who invented it tested it at various speeds and
| angles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_strike_protect
| ion_system. There are also numerous documented cases of
| these working as intended in the NTSB database. The FAA
| did a study and found that wire strike cutters
| significantly reduced fatalities https://skybrary.aero/si
| tes/default/files/bookshelf/3288.pdf
|
| So no, not a dumb idea according to the FAA's data backed
| study, the US military, and the people that operate
| helicopters.
| WrongOnInternet wrote:
| Some crop dusters fly under telephone wires. Not that its a
| good idea, but some do.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"Long-distance transmission wires are sometimes inspected
| with helicopters"_
|
| In recent years they've been moving to drones for this job.
| Besides improving safety, drones allow increased inspection
| frequency and reduce costs.
| scottbez1 wrote:
| Here's an excellent video from Juan Browne around the
| challenges that wires present to aircraft operations [1].
| Some of these are human factors for manned aircraft, like
| seeing a wire but then forgetting it's there, but one of his
| points is that it's simply safest to avoid flying below
| 1000ft AGL. That's not an option for drones today, and they
| presumably don't (yet) have the ability of humans to make
| inferences about the likelihood of cables near cranes and
| transmission line towers, making them particularly
| vulnerable.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/jjV_k4-DstQ
| bri3d wrote:
| Contra this assertion, drones are already frequently used
| around power lines, and as such, "finding hanging wires with
| a drone" is actually a very active field with fairly robust
| solutions. Not only are drones used for power line
| inspections (which are actually a somewhat easier variant of
| this problem, because the drone usually flies above or
| adjacent to the power lines in this scenario), but also for
| infrastructure inspections in direct adjacency to power
| lines. Power line detect-and-avoid is a headlining feature in
| one of DJI's newer enterprise platforms, the M400 (where it's
| based on LIDAR + mmWave Radar fusion).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HFzRTRcjiqg
|
| Also of note, this isn't the first double-failure issue for
| the MK30 - they had an issue last year at their test facility
| where their LIDAR malfunctioned in the same way on two drones
| in the same weather condition (misting), the drones believed
| they were at 0.0AGL and powered down in flight.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/amazon-
| re...
| hinkley wrote:
| If you've ever driven through Seattle, as you come past
| Boeing Field on I5 there are red spheres on the power lines.
| These lines are on a hill across the highway from the
| airport, so there's no way any plane should be there except
| during an emergency landing due to power loss.
|
| There are situations where aircraft and wires might come in
| close proximity. It's more accurate to say that be default we
| keep them way the hell away from each other, we make
| exceptions for special circumstances, and the exceptions tend
| to seem far more conservative than you would guess.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| The solution is don't use delivery drones.
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| Or cranes, right?
| willmadden wrote:
| Correct, never fly underneath anything. Telephone poles? Trees?
| Assume there is a solid wall between the highest point on any
| two objects except within a few yards of the delivery spot.
| thebigman433 wrote:
| Drones that can dodge thin wires already exist, seems more like
| their perception algorithms/onboard vision hardware just arent
| up to the task
| TheSoftwareGuy wrote:
| >Hard-code some logic to identify cranes and always assume
| there's a cable dangling from the end.
|
| Probably this one. Even if the drone sees the crane, there's no
| guarantee the cable won't move faster than the drone can react.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| just... don't fly near active construction sites?
| notatoad wrote:
| >Genuinely curious what the solution here is.
|
| no fly zones around construction sites?
| spaceywilly wrote:
| The same problem actually already exists for non-drone
| planes, because they must be able to operate in poor
| visibility conditions. FAA issues notams for construction
| cranes if they pose a risk to nearby airports. One solution
| for drones would be to extend these notams to all
| cranes/other obstacles, and the drones must subscribe to
| these notams to operate in the airspace.
| _grilled_cheese wrote:
| The company that I work for builds power line detectors for
| helicopters. They sense the electromagnetic fields generated by
| the lines and alert the pilot when the field strength exceeds a
| threshold. I would imagine this tech could be easily adapted
| for a drone.
|
| Obviously that wouldn't work for a crane though...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| What happens when they aren't live or is that just a thing
| that doesn't happen? I know nothing about this topic.
| squigz wrote:
| Why is "don't use autonomous drones for such things" not in
| that list?
| 0x0203 wrote:
| > Genuinely curious what the solution here is.
|
| At the risk of stating the obvious, the drone shouldn't be
| flying anywhere near the crane. It's an active construction
| zone with a structure that moves and swings about in
| unpredictable ways with people and equipment moving about
| below. It shouldn't be delivering to the construction zone, and
| if it can't figure out how to stay out of the area, it doesn't
| belong in the sky.
|
| There are some FAA requirements about cranes/temporary
| structures that would give pilots an appropriate NOTAM, but I
| don't know if all cranes require this. That said, I'd argue
| that if it isn't tall enough to require notifying the FAA, the
| drone is flying too low.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| A human is smart enough to know how cranes work and not to fly
| into/under them.
|
| Maybe the solution is not to cheap out by trying to squeeze
| every possible cent out of package delivery and pay to keep
| humans in the loop.
| gnulinux996 wrote:
| > raises the question of whether they can see cables
|
| Should the drone's vision be comparable to a humans though? I
| feel like drones can either see or don't. If we go and try to
| tackle every corner case then nothing would come of it.
|
| Also, do I - as a citizen - have to bear the externalities of
| Amazon's beta testing?
|
| > Genuinely curious what the solution here is
|
| Walk to the store to get your package.
| tantalor wrote:
| Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy
| action.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area
| of Tolleson, AZ
|
| What stupid crane flies into the path of delivery drones ? /s
| rkomorn wrote:
| Commercial cranes, no less. They think they can compete with
| storks? Come on.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Trying too hard to push a Jetson's future on us that no one
| wants...
|
| I feel like soon kids will order the cheapest thing on Amazon for
| the free drone it comes with.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Speak for yourself. I want drones to deliver stuff directly to
| me.
| asdff wrote:
| Would be nice to have a sort of assistant drone. Pop open the
| sunroof "check how far up the road the traffic jam lasts".
| AfterHIA wrote:
| If these things start hurting human workers I reserve the right
| to shoot them out of the sky.
| bronco21016 wrote:
| I spent some time searching the FAA NOTAM database...
| https://notams.aim.faa.gov/notamSearch/nsapp.html#/
|
| I can't seem to locate any NOTAMs indicating the presence of the
| crane. There are NOTAMs for a crane to the NNW of KGRY (Phoenix
| Goodyear Airport) but Tolleson is to the east of that airport.
|
| Is there a hole in how we're doing NOTAMs if we're expecting to
| have UAS operating at low altitude away from airports?
|
| Also, what other obstacle data is available? I know the US Gov't
| aviation maps depict significant man made structures that stick
| up like towers, windmills, and larger buildings. However, when
| you look at the NY Heli map, it's clear that not every building
| in Manhattan is depicted. These are generally low enough that a
| helo would be operating in see-and-avoid (VFR).
|
| Perhaps there is a new market available for this navigation
| data...
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I looked at the NOTAM guidance and they are simply not required
| if the crane's boom is lowered at night. Actually this pattern
| appears in a lot of NOTAM requirements. The FAA is permissive
| by default and they seem to think you don't need to report
| things that are 'visible'.
|
| Also, I dont think any of the equipment in this scene needs to
| be advertised to aircraft. None of this stuff is taller than a
| normal tree and we aren't filing NOTAMs for the presence of
| every public park, right?
|
| https://i.imgur.com/fmxVXQz.png
| lamontcg wrote:
| We could have universal health care, but I guess we're going to
| get delivery drones instead...
| Animats wrote:
| China is way ahead here. There's now a Ministry of the Low
| Altitude Economy.[1] There's a Low Altitude Flight Service
| System, which is air traffic control for drones and flying cars.
| There are licenses for drone operators, categories of license,
| (advanced licenses require a flight exam), etc.
|
| China hasn't had much general aviation. There are very few
| private aircraft. So there was nothing like the US's FAA Flight
| Service Stations. Plans to change that started in 2018, as a new
| design, mostly automated. That system also handles drones above
| 120 meters, or is supposed to.
|
| [1] https://businessaviation.aero/evtol-news-and-electric-
| aircra...
| rektomatic wrote:
| China is way ahead on what exactly? Regulation?
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| An alternative way to look at this is they are (trying to)
| build the institutions that will pave the way for the success
| of the technology.
| Animats wrote:
| Fast food delivery in Shenzhen:
|
| Shipping end: [1]
|
| Receiving end: [2]
|
| Delivery is to a box like an Amazon delivery box. Here's the
| current list of delivery locations and how to use the app to
| order.[3] Weight limit 2.3kg. Delivery time 15 minutes.
|
| It's still rather limited. You can't have a delivery platform
| on your balcony yet. Mostly they deliver to parks and big
| open plazas.
|
| The Shenzhen city administration seems to be very drone-
| friendly. There are delivery drones. Advertising drones.
| Light show drones. Police drones.
|
| [1] https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/05/R...
|
| [2] https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/05/m...
|
| [3] https://shenzhentimes.com/how-to-order-takeout-by-drone-
| in-s...
| serf wrote:
| nice pictures. that fire proofing around all of the wires is
| neat, as is that bldc design with the integrated heat-sinks and
| the huge compute unit with the copper piping to external heat-
| sinks.
|
| very nice equipment before it was smashed to smithereens.
|
| it's rare to get a glimpse into this stuff internally. Similarly
| I wish Doordash would show what the Dot looks like under the
| bonnet so I don't need to wait for the inevitable collision
| pictures.
|
| The technical side of this emerging consumer-facing robotics
| thing just fascinates the hell out of me.
| bcrl wrote:
| Move fast and break things doesn't work when safety is involved.
| Did a properly trained and licensed Professional Engineer review
| the design of Amazon's drones, their safety features and
| protocols before they got approval to fly outside of private
| testing facilities? If not, who would insure that hot mess?
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