Amazon planning on doing things Uber-style

[Simon_Jester]

I can't shake the feeling that drone delivery is going to start running into problems once we realize just how many little tiny aircraft are going to be buzzing around over our heads (and occasionally crashing on our roofs, or falling on our dogs, or getting shot down by random trolls with birdshot).

[salm]

Well, traffic causes problems but we still keep increasing traffic all the time.
I think a lot of these concerns can be solved with safety mechanism. That doesn´t mean that nobody will ever be injured or killed by a stray drone but considering how dangerous traffic is this doesn´t matter all that much.

Drones buzzing around might be annoying. But traffic is annyoing if you live next to a busy street as well.

What I want to say is that whatever trouble drones will bring they have a lot of leeway if they are compared to regular traffic.

[Jub]

I can't shake the feeling that drone delivery is going to start running into problems once we realize just how many little tiny aircraft are going to be buzzing around over our heads (and occasionally crashing on our roofs, or falling on our dogs, or getting shot down by random trolls with birdshot).

Accidents will happen, but if we make the drones relatively hearty and use them within their limitations they shouldn't cause undue harm. For example, if you keep drones high enough you can equip them with parachutes rated for some amount over their maximum loaded weight. Put it on its own circuit so that if the drone starts to spin, roll, or fall above some set rate the chute(s) pop and the drone floats down safely. If the drone has downwards facing cameras and GPS them getting shot down should result in the police knocking on the shooters door in short enough order to give people the idea that shooting at delivery drones isn't a hobby worth getting into.

If we truly hit a point where drones become a menace then cities and states will almost certainly start to legislate restrictions on drones.

[Borgholio]

Drones could simply be legislated to fly certain flight paths, similar to air travel. If these paths are over roadways, then the odds of them flying over someone's house would be minimal.

[Purple]

The odds of them crashing into a car and causing a 50 vehicle pileup to result, not so much.

[General Zod]

How vulnerable are these drones to lasers? If it's a problem for commercial aircraft I can just imagine the havoc some high powered lasers would cause on delivery drones.

[salm]

Aren´t the lasers mainly a problem because they blind and bother pilots?

Anyway, not matter what the safety mechanism is - parachutes, airbags, very improbable to fail - to me it seams like a solvable engineering problem if you throw enough political will and money at it.

[General Zod]

Aren´t the lasers mainly a problem because they blind and bother pilots?

Anyway, not matter what the safety mechanism is - parachutes, airbags, very improbable to fail - to me it seams like a solvable engineering problem if you throw enough political will and money at it.

I'm just thinking they could interfere with the sensors the drones use.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but drones would have an easier time shifting to backups like radio transponders. Plus, if you blind one with a laser all you've damaged is the camera, which is pretty easy to replace assuming the thing has a backup means of navigation to permit it to land safely.