Drones to fly without spotters on the ground monitoring route and skies for other aircraft

  • BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Four months later:

    Theft of UPS delivery drones causes UPS to halt production and use.

    How to hack UPS drone V1.23.8 and install Buzzard CFW!!

  • ME5SENGER_24
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    1 year ago

    I can’t wait for the articles about homemade anti-drone net guns becoming the new porch pirate’s weapon of choice

      • vector_zero@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Porch pirates and crotchety old people and anyone who doesn’t like to hear screaming propellers outside of their living room window.

        • NightAuthor@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There’s some new toroidal propeller designs which actually greatly reduce the loudness and the offensiveness of the noise.

          Who knows if they’ll use them tho

          • vector_zero@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’ve seen them and they look awesome. I really hope they do use them, because drones are disgustingly noisy.

    • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I don’t see that happening.

      It’s got to be easier to jam these things’ signals electronically than to launch a physical net. 🤔

      • gressen
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        1 year ago

        Unlicensed use of radio spectrum is very illegal and would draw a lot more attention than a net cannon.

        • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Pretty sure stealing drones is illegal no matter how you do it, and people can see where a net is launched from.

          • Microplasticbrain
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            1 year ago

            Yea ok stealing a drone is one thing, fucking with radio signals is a whole nother level of “you fucked up”

            • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I’m not saying which is “worse” I just think one would be easier and harder to get caught doing.

              You have to have a whole apparatus to launch a net, you have to get a net, people can see the physical net move through the air and tell where it launched from. You have to store a giant net launching gun.

              But I’ve seen people make jammers for some $10 worth of parts.

              Signals can be tracked, sure (we’ve all seen Pump Up The Volume) but by the time the FCC gets to where it was turned on you, your new toaster, and your free drone parts aren’t there anymore.

              This is not a moral stance, it’s an opinion on logistics.

              • WarmSoda
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                1 year ago

                I think a baseball bat might do the trick. Why get fancy?

                • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Because it has to be on the ground for that and you may as well just goink it off the porch at that point.

                  A jammer can bring the drone down anywhere along its path.

          • Rootiest
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            1 year ago

            and people can see where a net is launched from

            Yeah, if they happen to be watching at the time.

            Broadcasting a signal to block GPS is like sticking a big red X on your exact location, and they are always watching the radio waves.

      • ShadowRam@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        what’s to jam? It’s not like these would be Radio controlled.

        Their onboard navigation will take them from point A to B to A.

        You gonna jam/fake GPS signals?

        No one is risking the big book thrown at you for GPS jamming for some random package.

        And you’re not launching a net high enough to get these.

        • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          No one is risking the big book thrown at you for GPS jamming for some random package.

          I think criminals might.

          To the rest of your post: I don’t understand how drones or GPS work so …maybe? How hard is it to jam GPS/how detectable is it?

          Is “illegal as fuck” the only thing stopping people or are there actual technical limitations stopping it from being tried?

          Then going back to my original post, are those technical limitations greater or lesser than the technical limitations of building a net gun?

          • ShadowRam@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            How hard is it to jam GPS/how detectable is it?

            Hard,

            Easily detectable.

            Extremely illegal as fuck…

          • Rootiest
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            1 year ago

            You have to broadcast a malicious signal (noise) strong enough to overpower the existing gps signals, which wouldn’t be that difficult to do as gps signals are weak and come from far away.

            But it’s super duper illegal and would be trivial for local coppers or military to find you and wreck your world as you would be broadcasting a strong signal that clearly indicates your location.

            So yeah, I do think most of what prevents people from doing this kind of thing more is just the fact that your local police/military will fuck you up for doing it and it will be real obvious to anyone near you who did the thing. They really don’t like people messing with their gps.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Eh, in the US it will just be a shotgun.

        I imagine a drone is relatively easy to shoot down with bird shot if it’s not actively attempting to evade you.

        • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Is that them things they shoot skeet with?

          I agree americans love they guns, but shooting in the air is dangerous and may damage your new air fryer.

          • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            That’s why you use your old rusty barn shotgun with rock salt.

            There are also all sorts of non lethal shotgun rounds if you would rather not corrode your gun.

            • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              That’s for stopping young Bruce Willis, not taking down a drone.

              And storing it in a barn is no excuse to allow a gun to rust.

  • The Giant Korean@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Soon the sky will be full of these fuckers. I like the idea of them (edit: as in the utility of them), but can you imagine? Hundreds of them just buzzing around, constantly.

    • devious@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Is it really that different to the vrooming of cars that we have grown accustomed to?

      • Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Right? Cars are orders of magnitude louder, right in our face and constantly pump out reeking fumes. If these things reduce the amount of trucks on the road it would be a big win.

    • ShadowRam@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      to be fair, at the height these things will be flying, you won’t hear them on most days.

      • Gyromobile@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My mini drone can be heard from 200 feet up easily if you are underneath it. If its 100 or lower everyone around can hear it. 400feet is the maximum allowed height.

        • ShadowRam@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          That must be one crazy loud drone.

          All the ones I fly, including others are practically silent past 100ft…

          What RPM/blade diameter is your mini-drone? the smaller ones are louder because of the higher RPM’s

          • Player2@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Have to remember too that carrying packages will require more thrust. Also, they would probably be large enough that big birds don’t try or fail to take them down. I was flying a ~35g drone around my yard last year and a hawk of some kind snatched it right out of the air and tried to kill it on top of a tree. Thankfully got it back with some diplomacy (yelling at bird) and no one was hurt. Drone still flies to this day…

            Got it on camera too, the claws look massive.

        • Arondeus@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Pretty sure these have the new propeller shape that cuts noise by like 80% or something. See Mark Rober’s video if you are interested :https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU?t=831

          you won’t hear them at 100ft especially if there’s any ambient noise around you at all.

    • WarmSoda
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      1 year ago

      There’s no way these things will last.
      But it is kinda cool in a Jetsons type of way.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    UPS delivery drones are now allowed to fly longer distance flights beyond the sight of ground operators, the Federal Aviation Administration revealed in a press release on Wednesday.

    This is the kind of move that opens the door for drone delivery companies like Wing, FedEx, and Zip to deliver packages across a wider area and service more customers.

    UPS Flight Forward, a UPS subsidiary focused on drone delivery, can now deliver small packages beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) without spotters on the ground monitoring the route and skies for other aircraft, using SwissDrones SVO 50 V2 drones.

    That includes uAvionix Corp. and, last week, infrastructure inspection company Phoenix Air Unmanned.

    The news comes just a few days after Walmart announced it’s partnering with Wing to make deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

    It’s not clear what the number is now, but that’s well behind Amazon’s previous projection that it’d complete 10,000 deliveries to customers via drone by the end of 2023.


    The original article contains 286 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 44%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Rhaedas@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I didn’t see mention of what allowable ceiling of flight this is for, still below 400 feet? I would expect there will be regular flight paths established to specific urgent delivery customers (like hospitals) rather than just any package.

    • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I would imagine it’s still below 400ft to minimize the chance of interfering with manned aircraft. I read through a handful of articles though and none mentioned it.

  • devious@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    A lot of people posting that the threat of theft or interference will put a halt to drone delivery, but I wonder if that will really be a problem when looking at the the return on investment. A lot of people have said similar things about self service checkouts but industry keeps pushing on.

    The cost of drone delivery will shrink dramatically over time (labour and energy being the two big ones) especially if you compare it to equivalent service levels (e.g. same day delivery) so much so that companies would likely easily absorb the costs - if it all works of course.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    UPS delivery drones are now allowed to fly longer distance flights beyond the sight of ground operators, the Federal Aviation Administration revealed in a press release on Wednesday.

    This is the kind of move that opens the door for drone delivery companies like Wing, FedEx, and Zip to deliver packages across a wider area and service more customers.

    UPS Flight Forward, a UPS subsidiary focused on drone delivery, can now deliver small packages beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) without spotters on the ground monitoring the route and skies for other aircraft, using SwissDrones SVO 50 V2 drones.

    That includes uAvionix Corp. and, last week, infrastructure inspection company Phoenix Air Unmanned.

    The news comes just a few days after Walmart announced it’s partnering with Wing to make deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

    It’s not clear what the number is now, but that’s well behind Amazon’s previous projection that it’d complete 10,000 deliveries to customers via drone by the end of 2023.


    The original article contains 286 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 44%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!