Drones

[Architect]

Anybody into drones? The personal kind, not the military. They keep popping up, I think it's something I should be interested in, but when I look into them there's really no energy or interest.

Is it just flying around taking pictures? I guess you can race too.

 

[Rook]

Cars with an extra dimension, their broader usage will most likely develop in a similar vein. More versatile incarnation of RC planes


One extra use, I recall your amazon corp saying they will use drones for delivery... searching... might have been denied/approved by some or other FAA or whatnot.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/02/15/amazon-cool-to-drone-rules/23473791/


On a more predicationary level, the greater prevalence and availability of drones will lead to various systems as well as scandals.

Thinking of paparazzi spying on them famous folks, perhaps leading to the famously rich employing defense systems to deter drones, perhaps nets, early warning systems or whatnot.

Lunabomber: With enough willpower, terrorists or just good old rampagers would be able to rig up drones with bombs/bio weapons, striking their targets with far lessened risk to themselves. Can see how church/school/club/human hovel killings could be done in this manner in future times.

Public vs state/others: Civilian drones used to monitor the police or their own neighbourhoods for shady looking miscreants.

Drone tourism: Pay to fly a drone or log into a drone livefeed, with the drone roaming some forest, savannah or other attraction (Daily routes through palaces, ruins, wildlife preserves etc.)

Drones at concerts, gatherings: Both for security and entertainment, find troublemakers or watch people get piss drunk while listening to ordered soundwaves.

Music drones: Beatboxesque flying machine blaring out da tunes.

Pesticide drones: Instead of a crop duster, use one or more to apply chemicals. Less waste, lower cost(?).

Cat-in-tree rescue drones.

Hunting drones: instead of shooting birds, zap them with a tazer on yer drone.


So yes, I can think of various uses if drones are allowed onto the mass market. Perhaps more stable and affluent countries like switzerland will allow such usage first.

(Ofc this is only on a short timescale. Jump forward a 100 or so years, you get fruit-picking drones, baby-carrying drones, drones that care for pets/feed livestock, drones that work in factories/fast food joints {stationary technology limited here, so in a factory or in the feeding pens you may still need a mobile entity, if only to unload goods, prod cattle into gangways or bring burgers to the awaiting consumer's maw}


Hordes of drones putting out fires, laying bricks, tending hedges, cutting lawns, advertisement drones roaming the halls of malls, packing shelves....

If robotic development and AI progress at a steady pace, drones can become quite economically versatile further lessening the need for physical exertion by we apes)

 

[Architect]

Sure there are a million application ideas, I've been on a committee at work investigating an application of them for a customer request. The problem is the energy budget. Without a fundamental breakthrough in electrical storage their use is going to remain niche. All the talk of Amazon is dubious in my opinion because you're fighting physics here - in addition to the low energy density of having to use batteries (four rotors) you're also stuck with vertical propulsion instead of horizontal.

Planes have it easier which is why all military drones are planes, not four rotor contraptions. You can just have one energy dense motor which provides lift and forward thrust in one package (you get more travel per erg). With a 4 rotor drone you have to supply a lot of energy and it's all just to keep the thing up (going forward is just going up at an angle), so the energy density of your fuel becomes much more important (i.e. we'll never have a heavy cargo lift drone because it's so much cheaper to do that with a plane). The only reason people like these is they are much easier to fly than a RC helicopter or plane which takes skill (especially the RC helicopters). As a aerodynamic machine they're rather ridiculous.

Sorry, digression ... anyhow I'm talking about personal use, wondering if anybody has one or likes them.

 

[Bad Itch]

Sure there are a million application ideas, I've been on a committee at work investigating an application of them for a customer request. The problem is the energy budget. Without a fundamental breakthrough in electrical storage their use is going to remain niche. All the talk of Amazon is dubious in my opinion because you're fighting physics here - in addition to the low energy density of having to use batteries (four rotors) you're also stuck with vertical propulsion instead of horizontal.

Planes have it easier which is why all military drones are planes, not four rotor contraptions. You can just have one energy dense motor which provides lift and forward thrust in one package (you get more travel per erg). With a 4 rotor drone you have to supply a lot of energy and it's all just to keep the thing up (going forward is just going up at an angle), so the energy density of your fuel becomes much more important (i.e. we'll never have a heavy cargo lift drone because it's so much cheaper to do that with a plane). The only reason people like these is they are much easier to fly than a RC helicopter or plane which takes skill (especially the RC helicopters). As a aerodynamic machine they're rather ridiculous.

Sorry, digression ... anyhow I'm talking about personal use, wondering if anybody has one or likes them.

A couple of my friends with money to burn have and love them.

One friend lost his first drone. It tool off, flew up. And up and up and up and up, then out over the Atlantic Ocean never to be seen again.

 

[redbaron]

Kite-flying for trendy dipshits.

 

[Cognisant]

Go to my profile and check out the robotics album.

I had grand plans to do an app based convenience delivery system, basically turning smartphones into a vending machine. You order something less than 1kg and the drone flies to your GPS location, goes down from about 300m to about 10m and drops the package, either encased in foam or with a parachute.

The drone depicted has 2x5000mah batteries, an on board microcontroller with a GSM shield so it can communicate with the ground station via SMS, eight motors (I forgot which type and there's probably better motors out these days) and the wing tilting is servo driven. With a payload it's catapult launched in plane configuration, flies to location, changes to VTOL to drop of the package, once it is delivered the drone returns to 300m, changes back to plane mode, flies home and lands in VTOL on an assembly designed to recharge/reload/store/relaunch it.

But then the government introduced all these regulations and that was the end of that.

 

[Pizzabeak]

They're good for hobby video work.

 

[scorpiomover]

Go to my profile and check out the robotics album.

I had grand plans to do an app based convenience delivery system, basically turning smartphones into a vending machine. You order something less than 1kg and the drone flies to your GPS location, goes down from about 300m to about 10m and drops the package, either encased in foam or with a parachute.

The drone depicted has 2x5000mah batteries, an on board microcontroller with a GSM shield so it can communicate with the ground station via SMS, eight motors (I forgot which type and there's probably better motors out these days) and the wing tilting is servo driven. With a payload it's catapult launched in plane configuration, flies to location, changes to VTOL to drop of the package, once it is delivered the drone returns to 300m, changes back to plane mode, flies home and lands in VTOL on an assembly designed to recharge/reload/store/relaunch it.

Really cool idea.

But then the government introduced all these regulations and that was the end of that.

Damn gub'mint! (Spits into a spitoon).

Maybe you could start your own country. Then you could make the laws and regulations and let yourself be able to do it.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I was working in a geodesic office and the boss wanted a drone so bad. I think he just though its cool, but the fact is you can fly that thing and measure a huge field with it with precision.