this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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The program itself isn't absurd, but Amazon is a bunch of fucking clowns. I only expect them to fail in the world of logistics. But they're so big & everybody keeps giving them their money, they can do whatever they want, poorly, forever. They fail 'up'.
Drone delivery is indeed part of the future of logistics. They just need to make the drones more robust to handle slightly bigger, heavier loads, like at least 10# would be great & a reasonable goal. Arm it with AI so it knows where to drop the payload. Etc etc. There are indeed a number of kinks to be worked out....and who better to crash & burn, learn on than Amazon? 🤡
I live on the 10th story of an apartment building. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?
I live in a duplex with a front yard that's about two square feet between the front stoop and the sidewalk. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?
I live in a house surrounded by a lot of trees. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?
I have an enclosed front porch, inside of which deliveries can safely be left without worrying about them being stolen. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?
Drone delivery to someone's home might be useful for a small number of people in specific circumstances. Most circumstances would be far more efficient if done by a human.
What does this actually solve?
In Germany we have a trial run of food delivery. A drone will bring a package with up to 4.5 kg to a "remote" village, then some students on e-bikes will bring it to the houses. Why they are using drones instead of one lorry a day is unknown.
Having students bike the final mile sounds a lot like Theranos saying they could do all these amazing blood tests on their new, futuristic machine, only to find out that they're still doing most of them the way all labs did them
I've seen videos of a firm doing interesting stuff with bigger "mothership" drones that hover much higher and then lower a much smaller drone like thing on a cable to place the parcel on the ground. They can hit pretty precise targets and can maneuver around more obstacles than bigger drones can.
All that needs to happen is for the tech to advance to the point where it's cheaper to do x% of their deliveries via automated drones than it would cost to have delivery drivers do it and they'll start doing it. Saving millions(billions?) by say halving the number of human operated delivery trucks will make it a no brainer for them.
Are the mothership drones blimp types?
Oh they weren't that big, though maybe you could have a super mothership carrier style thing one day lol.
Turns out it was on a Mark Rober video where I saw the drones. Made by zipline who've been doing interesting things with emergency drone deliveries in Rwanda for years and have a lot of backing.
https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU?si=pe3Cp5uW7wWqOT7T
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/DOWDNBu9DkU?si=pe3Cp5uW7wWqOT7T
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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In all of the above, where either the landlord or the recipient specifies (and when it's decided by the landlord, the buyer gets precise location info to pass to Amazon when buying stuff, which would include instructions for how to retrieve it after delivery)
In all cases the property owner would be responsible for ensuring there's a suitable landing location. Preferably combined with lockboxes which drones can directly deposit packages to.
I agree with the others that aerial drones is usually not the most efficient. But in some cases the destination is complicated to reach by foot and then they're useful. Otherwise land based drones could easily be used (imagine a Segway style delivery bot!)
What problem does a drone delivering a package to a lockbox instead of a person doing it solve? Other than Amazon's problem of spending money to pay human beings wages?
If it's a box/home easily reachable from the road, not much. In places with bad road infrastructure, it can save a fair amount of time
Ok, but that's not where they're testing it or what they appear to be trying to achieve. So that doesn't really apply to this specific program.