DailyDirt: Speedy Deliveries Coming Via Robots

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The FAA hasn't exactly been quick to figure out how its going to regulate drones, and its current rules are a bit of an arbitrary mess of trying to determine what "commercial use" really means and how to register pilots and/or the UAVs they fly. Still, plenty of projects are moving forward with plans to use (semi-)autonomous robots to deliver packages more efficiently and quickly.

• Google's (ok, Alphabet's) Project Wing expects to be a commercial business by 2017 -- delivering packages with low-flying drones. It's still uncertain how these UAVs will get FAA approval by 2017, but if everything goes smoothly (cough!), there could be a low altitude "Class G" airspace specifically for drones in a year or so. [url]
• Starship Technologies, despite its name, is planning to use a 6-wheeled robot on the ground to deliver groceries -- instead of any kind of flying contraption. This robot will be able to haul around 20 pounds of cargo at 4 mph with a range of about 4 miles. That's not exactly impressive, but it doesn't need to worry about flying into anything or getting shot out of the sky. [url]
• Tacocopters are feasible. It's not a matter of technology. All sorts of things can be delivered by multicopters -- mail, ice cream, drink orders -- it's just a matter of how much it's worth it to you to do it (FAA approval, the cost of equipment, logistics, etc). [url]

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Filed Under: class g airspace, commercial use, drones, faa, multicopter, robotics, robots, tacocopter, uav
Companies: alphabet, google, starship technologies

DailyDirt: The Drones Are Coming

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've talked about all kinds of drones before and about the FAA restrictions on using the more toy-like versions outdoors. Sometimes people do stupid stuff with drones -- and it really doesn't help to create an environment where people can enjoy drones responsibly. However, people will always do stupid things, and we can't let the jerks ruin it for the rest of us.

• A drone with a very small amount of radioactive material was found on the roof of the Japanese prime minister’s office. Japan has no restrictions for flying unmanned equipment below altitudes of 250 meters (except near airplane flight routes), but presumably this incident will spur lawmakers to put more restrictions in place. [url]
• Drug traffickers crash landed an overloaded drone carrying methamphetamine near the Mexico border. The drone was a DJI Spreading Wings S900 -- and ruined any chances of an authentic tacocopter for delivering Mexican food. [url]
• A DJI Phantom drone crashed on the White House lawn earlier this year, and the pilot turned himself in, saying it was just an accident. This is why we can't have nice things. Thanks a lot. [url]
• Doug Hughes, a 61-year-old mailman from Florida, flew his gyrocopter and landed it on the West Capitol lawn to make a statement about campaign finance reform. Okay, this wasn't a drone, but delivering letters by hand is always more personal, isn't it? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: campaign finance reform, doug hughes, drone, faa, gyrocopter, methamphetamine, tacocopter
Companies: dji

FAA Says Drones May Be Used For Fun... But Not For Profit

from the because-how-dare-we-allow-innovation dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about a court saying that the FAA's rules that banned the use of drones for anything commercial were overstepping the FAA's mandate, and making it clear that such drones should be considered legal. The FAA has appealed, and in an attempt to drive home its point that not a single potential commercial use of a drone is legal, the FAA has doubled down by clearly laying out what's not allowed. Lots of people are pointing out that the FAA's claims are likely to ground the high profile plans by Amazon to deliver packages by drone, but it's some of the other things that are on the prohibited list that strike me as even more ridiculous: I can almost, kinda, barely, sorta see the rationale for saying that package delivery is not allowed, since you could see how that might interfere with other things or cause problems. And, in case you're wondering, the footnoted "6" after that "delivering packages to people for a fee" clarifies that "free shipping" on a purchased product doesn't count.

But... the rest of the items in the list all seem very troubling to me. None of those seem like cases where there's likely to be any interference with aircraft or any other kind of problem. Drone use for real estate videos is increasingly common and something that actually seems like a very good idea. Here's an example of one such video: Can anyone explain any reason why this should be illegal? Same with the use of drones to determine if commercial crops should be watered. That sounds like a really good idea. But it's not allowed. Because the FAA appears to basically want to control absolutely everything. This seems like a massive overreach in so many ways.

Filed Under: commercial use, crops, drones, faa, real estate, regulation, tacocopter

Commercial Drones Declared Legal; Release The Tacocopters

from the let's-get-this-going... dept

Almost exactly two years ago, we wrote about the tacocopter, a sort of proof of concept idea for using drones to deliver products to people's homes. Yes, Amazon got some attention last year for claiming to be working on something similar, but the Tacocopter (and Lobstercopter on the east coast) idea was the first I'd heard of anyone seriously thinking about commercial-use drones. However, the key point of our Tacocopter story was that they were illegal:

Current U.S. FAA regulations prevent ... using UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, like drones] for commercial purposes at the moment.

Well, that's no longer the case apparently. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) administrative law judge Patrick Geraghty has unleashed the tacocopters of the world by issuing a ruling that the FAA has no mandate to regulate commercial drones. The case involved the first time that the FAA had actually tried to fine someone, a guy named Raphael Pirker, $10,000 for trying to film a commercial with a drone at the University of Virginia.

The issue, basically, is that the FAA has historically exempted model airplanes from its rules, and the NTSB finds it impossible to square that with its attempt to now claim that drones are under its purview. As Geraghty notes, accepting that leads to absurd arguments about the FAA's mandate over all flying objects:

Complainant has, historically, in their policy notices, modified the term "aircraft" by prefixing the word "model", to distinguish the device/contrivance being considered. By affixing the word "model" to "aircraft" the reasonable inference is that Complainant FAA intended to distinguish and exclude model aircraft from either or both of the aforesaid definitions of "aircraft".

To accept Complainant's interpretive argument would lead to a conclusion that those definitions include as an aircraft all types of devices/contrivances intended for, or used for, flight in the air. The extension of that conclusion would then result in the risible argument that a flight in the air of, e.g., a paper aircraft, or a toy balsa wood glider, could subject the "operator" to the regulatory provisions of FAA Part 91, Section 91.13(a)....

..... The reasonable inference is not that FAA has overlooked the requirements, but, rather that FAA has distinguished model aircraft as a class excluded from the regulatory and statutory definitions.

The judge notes that while the FAA had some internal memorandum about these issues, it did not put forth a full rule, and thus it is not an actual policy. As a result, the ruling finds that the current definition of aircraft is not applicable here and thus the FAA has no real mandate over this kind of drone.

This does not preclude the FAA from trying to go through a full rule-making process to try to gain a mandate over commercial drone use, but that will involve a big political fight. It's way easier to block something like that from becoming official than overturning it if it was already deemed the law.

Filed Under: drone, faa, ntsb, patrick geraghty, raphael pirker, tacocopter, uav

Why You Can't Have A Tacocopter Drone Deliver You A Taco For Lunch Today

from the the-government....-and-a-bunch-of-other-factors dept

We've talked a bit about some more intriguing uses of drone technology lately, including personal individual surveillance as well as for building floating ad hoc networks. But I don't think I've ever seen as much attention given to the potential disruptive nature of drone technology as the story that's been bouncing around the internet the past few days concerning the miraculous concept of the TacoCopter.

Yes, the TacoCopter, one of those ideas that once you hear about it, it sticks with you. It's pretty straightforward. You order (and pay for) a taco via a smartphone app, indicating your location, and a short while later, a drone hums into view and drops a taco at your feet. The folks behind it are targeting San Francisco first (of course), with an expansion plan that includes "TacoLobster" "LobsterCopter" on the east coast. While some have insisted it's a joke, the folks behind it insist that it's real... except for the fact that it isn't really real. It's not a joke, it's just not quite feasible. Or legal. The legal part is the the one that's getting the most attention. As the founders explained to Jason Gilbert at the Huffington Post, you can't actually use drones for commercial purposes these days:

"Current U.S. FAA regulations prevent ... using UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, like drones] for commercial purposes at the moment," Simpson said over Gchat. "Honestly I think it's not totally unreasonable to regulate something as potentially dangerous as having flying robots slinging tacos over people's heads ... [O]n the other hand, it's a little bit ironic that that's the case in a country where you can be killed by drone with no judicial review."

Of course, that's not the only problem. There's also... well, everything else. Which turns out to be a pretty long list.

Simpson told HuffPost that because of the FAA's regulations -- as well as other minor problems, like navigating the treacherous terrain of an urban environment, keeping the food warm, finding a city map precise enough to avoid crashes 100 percent of the time, avoiding birds, balconies and telephone wires, delivering food to people indoors, delivering food to the right person, dealing with greedy humans who would just steal the Tacocopter as soon as it got to them, etc.

Not surprisingly, the team behind it isn't actively working on the project right now, though they still seem to insist they're serious about doing it for real at some point in the future.

That said, it's not hard to realize that most of these problems can and will be solved at some point in the future, and such a commercial use of drones could actually create quite disruptive business models in a lot of sectors. Obviously, just delivering tacos isn't that big of a deal, but once you begin to realize that these things can deliver almost anything (within reasonable weight limits) then it starts to open up a huge world of interesting possibilities. For that reason, it wouldn't surprise me to see that the regulations that now limit such uses of drone technology will almost certainly remain in effect much longer than the technological limitations remain a hurdle. Those who are disrupted by such uses will continue to insist that such things are dangerous, rather than learning to adapt and embrace the technology.

Filed Under: drones, regulations, tacocopter