Servo - December 2016

smaller of the San Juan Islands have any bridges for mainland access. We had to rely on Med Flight insurance to be helicoptered ‘off island’ in emergencies.

Non-insured flights would have been in the $35,000 category. However, drone flights in the near future might be able to supply on-island doctors with specialized medications, transfer of critical blood tests, and even unique medical instruments.

Are Delivery Drones Safe from Hijacking?

Another issue that has bothered a lot of robot experimenters is what if one of these drones gets ‘captured’ while on a delivery run and sold to an unscrupulous buyer. For the price of a pizza or something inexpensive on Amazon, using a stolen credit card, a bad guy could toss a net over a UAV drone or just scoop up a mobile version and put it into the back of a van, then quickly take it out of town while an accomplice in the back of the van disables the power and removes any tracking devices. The future will offer us a lot of neat things, but along with the future, we will continue to have dishonest people.

Drones Hitching Rides to Increase Range

Amazon has considered the use of trucks or busses to assist their drones to increase the delivery range as a recent patent filing indicates. Tests that began over a year ago show a prototype Amazon drone actually delivering a shoebox to someone’s backyard as seen in Figure

9. The four-prop quad appears to also have a pusher prop in the back.

As part of the patent filing, they also want to have the option of landing their drones on a truck or bus for a portion of the delivery route. The drone will then depart the vehicle at the nearest point of the route to the customer’s house. Since most present day drones have a limited range, this will not only save energy but quicken delivery times. It will also allow drones with dwindling battery power or with possible technical problems to land back on one of the system’s trucks in emergencies.

As Amazon executives have stated, “There are a variety of factors when deciding whether or not to land a drone on an eligible vehicle, Amazon sends a message to a driver when it wants to land a drone on a vehicle and the driver gives permission for the landing and confirms that the drone successfully docked with the vehicle. If a drone’s battery is about to die or some other malfunction occurs, the company would plan for the aircraft to land on the first available vehicle, and then Amazon personnel could set up a meeting with the driver to retrieve it at a set location. The FAA did drop a ‘bombshell’ when it changed drone operation rules to allow only line-of-sight drone control, but Amazon feels that it can prove the safety of its intended services.

Mercedes Vans and Starship Technologies Robot Deliveries

Mercedes Benz’s Delivery Van Division recently began working with a robot company, Starship Technologies to develop a relationship that uses the car company’s vans as ‘motherships’ to bring Starship’s small mobile robots (shown in Figure 10) closer to a local delivery area. The companies strive