Amazon’s devices will be used for a single purpose they will be optimized in ways we have never seen in the multicopter industry. Their delivery scheme will be completely computer controlled, and will account for weather, airspeed, air density, and flight path, because they will have to.
Octocopters have demonstrated their amazing flight stability and capability in the hands of tinkerers and hobbyist, and there is some question of whether a billion dollar corporation can achieve this? As soon as Amazon mentioned this, FedEx, UPS, and USPS started forming their R&D for the exact same programs.
This is one of the largest, most high-tech, most optimized and automated companies in the world, and some of us are doubtful? Amazon will do this because humans are the problem. With robots, you eliminate the most irrational, chaotic, unreliable and expensive element from the equation.
Hasn't amazon been the one to only slowly adopt warehouse automation because it is cheaper to hire humans at $10 an hour?
They did buy this company that makes little robots to move shelves around but it is nothing compared to a real system like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DeT-Hj2DXk
warehouses are different. It's very costly to send a guy to people's houses. They're simply limited by the walking/running rate of the human body, and traffic.
First off, if package handling is more efficient using quad copters than wheeled robots, why doesn't Amazon use them inside their warehouse? It is a controlled environment (no weather, no wind, can have localizing beacons all over, fixed map, etc etc) and doesn't require FAA approval. Not to mention products in the warehouse are lighter weight and smaller because they haven't been packed for shipping yet.
I would argue that is at least a first step on this road if they ever intend to actually deliver packages by drones. The fact that they haven't done even that simple step before announcing it publicly makes me believe it was pure PR.
I'm not convinced myself that it wasn't just pure PR, but wanted to point out:
> why doesn't Amazon use them inside their warehouse? It is a controlled environment
The fact that it's a controlled environment is precisely why they're unnecessary in their warehouses -- the flying robot delivery method would theoretically allow them to bypass the uncontrolled variables in the real world: road traffic, pedestrians, etc.
Amazon’s devices will be used for a single purpose they will be optimized in ways we have never seen in the multicopter industry. Their delivery scheme will be completely computer controlled, and will account for weather, airspeed, air density, and flight path, because they will have to.
Octocopters have demonstrated their amazing flight stability and capability in the hands of tinkerers and hobbyist, and there is some question of whether a billion dollar corporation can achieve this? As soon as Amazon mentioned this, FedEx, UPS, and USPS started forming their R&D for the exact same programs.
This is one of the largest, most high-tech, most optimized and automated companies in the world, and some of us are doubtful? Amazon will do this because humans are the problem. With robots, you eliminate the most irrational, chaotic, unreliable and expensive element from the equation.