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Amazon, Google, Facebook and Civilian Purposed Drones.

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Patrick

Sat Mar 15 2014, 05:50PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Im thinking the civilian drone market may be best implemented as a bridge to cover what satelites cant do. (re : Malaysia flight 370) clearly this is what Google and facebook have planned. High altitude - long duration - low cost fleet drones for search, tracking at sea, signal relay, and environmental monitoring. The Global hawk is an excellent start, but way to few in number and way to expensive to be useful in a civilian endeavor.

i think, since satellites are available for short times, and inclination around as they orbit, winged drones (ala U2, global hawk helios) can be stationed as needed, cover large areas, then if needed in response to an event concentrated to assist.

I think the key in all of this is getting away from the typically American philosophy of big expensive craft needing enormous development and maintenance. Moving back towards the Henry Kaiser liberty ship and model T Ford philosophy. We need cheap, but still capable machines to be mass produced (as Khrushchev said...sausages), that can be made to work for profit, instead of looting the public treasury. Selling bandwidth from a winged drone would subsidize all the occasional expenses of a missing 777 or lifeboat. That may put Google in a better position than Facebook's balloons.

I just dont think any of these "nice to do things" is enough to make a useful buisness model, and justify the expense of a large rollout. But for one thing, data transmission, of many types, but mostly cell phone and internet connectivity. there is big money in wireless antenna and transmission construction and operation. You also dont have to spend decades burying cables for anticipated population growth. (and it minimizes ground level line-of-sight antenna problems in mountainous northern California for example.)

Sulaiman

Sat Mar 15 2014, 07:17PM

Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3141

a few years ago I had a similar idea,
my main commercial motive was internet users paying to use the craft,
with rewards for spotting polluters etc.
My main concerns were;

national sovereignty;
no nation wants 'foreign' craft wandering around their airspace
(may not be obvious to continental USA citizens but for example
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia etc, nations of Africa, Europe ....)

national security;
drones would be able to photograph/video (or more) installations considered security assets
(how can you decide if a drone is just carrying a camera, or a bomb)
Governments would not want the expense of air defences around every security asset.

safety;
flying near to airports etc.

all of the above would require something like national airforce people being able to override civilian control, and the personnel costs would be an issue.

and if mass produced objects start falling from the skies (economy model)
there would be general outrage and huge insurance premiums

Patrick

Sat Mar 15 2014, 09:22PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Yes some of these points do worry me.

Sulaiman wrote ...

national sovereignty;
no nation wants 'foreign' craft wandering around their airspace
(may not be obvious to continental USA citizens but for example
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia etc, nations of Africa, Europe ....)

yes, but from ultra high altiude, (120,000 ft ASL) you can peer into many nations, especially islands, and if your 12nm away in international airspace, theres little anyone can do. most of the world is covered by ocean, so this does mitigate some of this concern.

Sulaiman wrote ...

national security;
drones would be able to photograph/video (or more) installations considered security assets
(how can you decide if a drone is just carrying a camera, or a bomb)
Governments would not want the expense of air defences around every security asset.

yep, im sure Nellis, Edwards and Holloman AFBs wont want to be under constant view of even the american public, much less an enemy. so i think the facebook ballon idea may come under law limitaions in any real use.

Sulaiman wrote ...

safety;
flying near to airports etc.

all of the above would require something like national airforce people being able to override civilian control, and the personnel costs would be an issue.

and if mass produced objects start falling from the skies (economy model)
there would be general outrage and huge insurance premiums

yes, this is my greatest concern, but with light (like helios) winged drones and a parachute (for pulling it down, to force a crash, not save it), restrictions on overflying population centers, and requirements for killing the machine, this may be commercially viable.

Sulaiman

Sun Mar 16 2014, 01:06AM

Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3141

getting a stable high magnification image from 120,000 ft. high 12 km away doesn't sound like a low cost solution,

how do you deal with the 'bomb-in-a-drone' terrorism problem?

"low cost" and 'reliable datalinks' don't seem to belong in the same sentence

ALSO, AFAIK, any commercial use of a drone would require at least two operators,
a payload manager and a CAA/FAA licensed pilot.

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