Micro Drones: The Sky Is Almost The Limit

[Barry Schechter]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/micro-drones-sky-almostthelimit-barry-schechter?trk=prof-post

The recent shooting out of the sky of a small drone by a Kentucky father who observed the object hovering near his two teenage daughters sunbathing in his backyard shows how pervasive and intrusive the technology is becoming. But aerial vehicles or "micro drones" easily fitted with a camera and weighing under 5 pounds are quickly becoming a new tech platform for many commercial applications...

 

[Buckaye]

Meh.... nothing much new in this article.... just more fearmongering

 

[Barry Schechter]

Meh.... nothing much new in this article.... just more fearmongering

Hey, this is a very exciting industry with a huge upside and I do not believe the FAA is going to stand in the way, but still unknown how they will respond to the rapid growth.

 

[Ezookiel]

I didn't see too much fearmongering, and did see a list of just some of the positive uses these things have.
I personally doubt the delivery idea myself. Thousands of dollars of drone to deliver a package, sounds like inviting theft, and they'll need a hell of a lot better collision avoidance before Amazon can send one off blindly to deliver a package only to have it meet a package going a different direction from UPS or FEDEX or whoever. I think genuine deliveries are a long way off. Even just having it know to not land in the tree in the yard, but to find the clear patch to land on, means some kind of intelligence has to be designed into them that goes way beyond the current - 'Go to this GPS location and land' that they currently have.
Accuracy of GPS down to almost inches would potentially be needed in some locations. To land at my house would take a degree of skill. I have lots of trees, with few patches of clear skies between them, and those bits have powerlines above them to navigate as well. There isn't a single straight down descent anywhere on my property. They'd have to come down over the trees to avoid the higher powerlines, then move away from the trees and in under the powerlines to find the grassed area, and then that has garden chairs, a fire brazier, and a dog kennel, so they'd probably have to navigate up onto the verandah avoiding the high hedges. I don't even try to fly at my own place, and I'm relatively skilled, and know where all the obstacles are. A human flying with just FPV would potentially struggle a lot, and then take out the human and have a computer navigate it???? Still a lot of challenges to overcome unfortunately.

 

[Barry Schechter]

I didn't see too much fearmongering, and did see a list of just some of the positive uses these things have.
I personally doubt the delivery idea myself. Thousands of dollars of drone to deliver a package, sounds like inviting theft, and they'll need a hell of a lot better collision avoidance before Amazon can send one off blindly to deliver a package only to have it meet a package going a different direction from UPS or FEDEX or whoever. I think genuine deliveries are a long way off. Even just having it know to not land in the tree in the yard, but to find the clear patch to land on, means some kind of intelligence has to be designed into them that goes way beyond the current - 'Go to this GPS location and land' that they currently have.
Accuracy of GPS down to almost inches would potentially be needed in some locations. To land at my house would take a degree of skill. I have lots of trees, with few patches of clear skies between them, and those bits have powerlines above them to navigate as well. There isn't a single straight down descent anywhere on my property. They'd have to come down over the trees to avoid the higher powerlines, then move away from the trees and in under the powerlines to find the grassed area, and then that has garden chairs, a fire brazier, and a dog kennel, so they'd probably have to navigate up onto the verandah avoiding the high hedges. I don't even try to fly at my own place, and I'm relatively skilled, and know where all the obstacles are. A human flying with just FPV would potentially struggle a lot, and then take out the human and have a computer navigate it???? Still a lot of challenges to overcome unfortunately.

 

[Barry Schechter]

Your points are well taken and are being addressed with the integration of "sense and avoid" technology into drones. See this YouTube for more on this topic: