The hopper should have around 10 minutes of battery power for final delivery point, which is likely to be away from power source. So, we need recharging stations every 5 to 10 minutes of flight.
The flight path have 600V electric wires (local bus and trolley). It would be easier than building recharging stations, but getting through FAA and city could take years.
Patenting the "power stealing" part? ;-)
On a sunny day (Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:06:36 -0800 (PST)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in :
I once did read the biography of Fokker, he was the one who grounded the Fokker airplane company. In that biography he tapped the electric tram from his window So it is old hat, has been done :-)
Just call it "Green Energy". You'll get money from Obama, too!
The FAA doesn't get to redefine terminology unless it states so expressly in the rule. It will get nowhere by claiming "but, what we meant was...", and expecting people to comply with that interpretation. No court would enforce it.
If the FAA wants the pilots to keep the drone in sight, then it can say that. Apparently, so far, it hasn't.
Sylvia.
You have to fly _under_ the line, there are all kinds of support structures above. Of course, the drone would have to fly in the same direction as the trolley bus is running and politely wait until the bus leaves the bus stop or overtaking it with battery power.
In the US, medium voltage (a few kilovolts) open wire lines are crisscrossing on nearly every other street in suburban areas feeding the pigs. A drone could attach to two phases of these lines. Of course, the drone must detach from the line before every pole.
Flying 10 mins, recharging 10 mins sounds like a massive waste of pilot time and drone fly time.
NT
As to #1: a) Are drones electrically noisy? If someone hovered one in front of a cell site antenna, could radiated noise from the drone interfere with the cell site uplink (typically -116 dBm for 10 MHz LTE, -104 dBm for 5 MHz PCS, and maybe -100 dBm for 5 MHz UMTS cellular)?
b) What about police and LifeFlight helicopters? Could a drone cause a crash, or could the rotor wash be relied upon to blow the drone out of the way?
On 18/01/15 09:45, Neon John wrote: [...]
Don't get me started. In some places, invoking 'safety' is the only way to get anything done at all.
Jeroen Belleman
stealing power". Of course, we have to ask for permission and work out the "fine" in advance. To save on battery weight, it would work like an electr ic hopper for charging.
ossing on nearly every other street in suburban areas feeding the pigs. A d rone could attach to two phases of these lines. Of course, the drone must d etach from the line before every pole.
es above. Of course, the drone would have to fly in the same direction as t he trolley bus is running and politely wait until the bus leaves the bus st op or overtaking it with battery power.
We can attach from above if hopping stationary; and yes, will have to watch for incoming bus. Even if we have to hock it up from below, it's not too difficult to do so. Technical problems are solvable. Political problems a re the expensive in time and resource.
The pilot does not need to watch it recharging, if the recharging structure is safe and secure.
Generally not.
Not via the controll carrier, nor by the devices running on it... usually.
Cell spec is spread spectrum and harder to quash.
No influence whatever. If stray RF cause plane or copter crashes, we would have already seen it in the last four decades.
The passenger jet onboard "shut it all off" stupidity is just that.
Helos LIFT into the air. The "rotor wash" while in forward flight would be a bit back from the front of the craft. A helo could probably take flight with a giant bathtub under the rails. The rotor blades LIFT it into the air.
Good one. They would mandate a hard wired protocol to be in place for presumably landing it immediately.
That poses some hazards, but doing nothing probably poses more.
in-flight "recharging is a stupid idea. UNLESS you have supercaps which can "fuel up" in seconds. In-flight battery change-out is about as close as you could come, so the whole idea is pretty stupid. Just land it, swap it, and go again.
d s l
p
Main recharging would still be done in fixed stations. In-flight rechargin g is just to extend the range a bit. Supercap is certainly an option.
Swapping cargo might be easier than swapping battery. So, first leg hopper comes in, drop off cargo, and rest (recharge). Second leg picks it up and go. We need to build cargo loading and unloading anyway. Adding battery swapping would be more expensive.
The upside about these millions of laws and regulations is that nobody can possinbly enforce even a small fraction of them. If they were all enforced, the US would face starvation in six months. Or maybe six days.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing laser drivers and controllers jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
I'm thinking motor noise, or noise from high-freq clocked motor speed contr ollers. Wouldn't take much at -115 dBm. !!
Noise is noise. Noise in the channel affects capacity, even if the air-int erface standards anticipate some noise and account via error-checking, etc. .. For both UMTS and LTE, noise in the uplink is a problem because it "shr inks" the cell coverage area.
I think you misunderstood me. If a drone hit a helicopter blade, what would that do to the helicopter? - I'm assuming the drone itself would be damaged beyond economical repair - s imilar to throwing it into a wood chipper!
Thinking out loud, might contact damage or break the helicopter blades. ?? And could that kind of damage cause a police/Medivac helicopter to crash?
Here again, I'm envisioning some sort of news event (like a car crash on th e Interstate) with helicopters landing, etc.., and some idiot tries to get his own video footage of the event and ends up crashing his drone into one of the helicopter blades, rescue vehicles -- or maybe one of the patients o n the gurney?
it guess it depends wether one drone with two replacable batteries is cheaper than two drones with fixed batteries.
-- umop apisdn
quad-rotor drones are mostly foam and lightweght blades, with a hard nuggets (motors) and some softer masses (battery, controller)
I can't see a single impact being significantlky worse than hitting a bird but that may result in damage requiring replacement of the rotor blade,
Otoh if the drone was trailing a 5m steel rope it could be much worse.
-- umop apisdn
Airborne weed whacker, where the weed moves instead of the whacker.
Note piloted craft makes noise for a reson, but drones do not need to. Be glad the FAA has left the sound levels from a drone at anywhere, like
170dBA, compared to a motorcycle passing at 70dBA, else we wouldn't be able to 'find' them.
Localised damage but probably not enough to bring down a heli, unless it got into the jet intake and caused a cascade.
There's been concern here with bush fires, and folk using drones to try to get footage in amongst the firefighting aircraft. I think the concern is overblown, but then I'm not the pilot in the hot seat.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.