Should Amazon deliver orders with drones?

I've got to say that the practicality doesn't work out from a physics perspective. It takes energy to levitate any significant weight to a particular height, and considering a drone has to carry enough batteries to power itself and carry a package, it's likely to be an extremely limited form of delivery in terms of both weight and range. Things get worse when it gets windy - many drones can't fly stably in a moderate wind. Of course, then you have the technology issues of being able to navigate where GPS and other radio waves may get jammed.

Countless amateur drone operators have suffered from a loss of control causing loss of the drone due to loss of signal or interference, including the auto-return-to-base feature crashing it into an obstacle. At the present time, you're lucky if you can carry a relatively light GoPro camera for about 20 minutes on a single charge.

Then we have to think about privacy, congestion, safety, liability etc.

At the moment, it's all just a novelty to try and ensure some "brand name" gets into the press. Cheap publicity from a corporate view, so a few corporations have jumped on the word.

I've got to say that the practicality doesn't work out from a physics perspective. It takes energy to levitate any significant weight to a particular height, and considering a drone has to carry enough batteries to power itself and carry a package, it's likely to be an extremely limited form of delivery in terms of both weight and range. Things get worse when it gets windy - many drones can't fly stably in a moderate wind. Of course, then you have the technology issues of being able to navigate where GPS and other radio waves may get jammed.

Countless amateur drone operators have suffered from a loss of control causing loss of the drone due to loss of signal or interference, including the auto-return-to-base feature crashing it into an obstacle. At the present time, you're lucky if you can carry a relatively light GoPro camera for about 20 minutes on a single charge.

Then we have to think about privacy, congestion, safety, liability etc.

At the moment, it's all just a novelty to try and ensure some "brand name" gets into the press. Cheap publicity from a corporate view, so a few corporations have jumped on the word.

There are some hurdles to overcome with regard to public safety, let alone the physics of the operation.

Any drone scaled up to overcome the physics, becomes a rather heafty object to be flying so low, along with the noise during landing and takeoff.

I agree that it's more about publicity than a real commercial operation.

Mark

The basic physics problem is 'simply' solved by lifting the drones (many at a time) in an airship

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2494314/amazon-reveals-plans-to-make-deliveries-using-incredible-airship-drone-base/

- then they only need to control speed of descent when fully loaded. They need to be fully autonomous to be commercially viable.

I think we are more likely to see little wheeled delivery robots on the street first.

MK