Ramblings from an Automation Mad Man
By Jerry Maldonado – VP Business Unit Strategy, Customer Lifecycle Solutions
So hopefully you read about drones and / or read my latest blog. If not, you’re missing out! Drones have the power to fundamentally change the way we do lots of things today. So normally I tell you what’s outs there, but this time I decided to change it up. I decided to build a virtual thought about how drones should be used in the future. This is just my vision on what is possible.
Someday most likely real soon, we will be walking down the street in some of our larger cities and walk past a large truck, where the cab portion is adorned with antennas of different sizes and shapes protruding form it like the quills of a porcupine. On the side of the track pointed at the sun, are solar arrays like big frond leaves, they adjust to capture as much light as possible. On the sides of the truck like ears on an elephant, are wind and weather sensors constantly monitoring the state of the weather.As you continue to move closer to the truck you can hear the whir of motors and from the roof, lifts off a delivery drone with a package bound for a central processing plant nearby. As it lifts off, the package clears the landing pad and ascends at an angle away from the rear of the truck. At that same moment, two new drones are inbound and a small screen on the interior of the truck shows the drones are landing in bays one and four. Seconds after the drones land , a delivery person walks up to the truck , flashes his badge at the badge reader in the back , the doors open and you see what can only be described as an air traffic control center and loading bay all wrapped up into one . Packages are handed to the delivery person for local delivery, and new packages dropped off for shipment.
This is the delivery system of the future and the future could be closer than we think. Just imagine utilizing the skies above to transport packages back and forth to distribution points in the city. Each distribution point then in turn acts like its own processing station that recharges the drones, check health, make repairs, load them up and launch them back into the sky to either a large destination or a central distribution hub. This system very similar to the system employed by some airline companies would reduce the time a package gets moved around.
For larger companies or business professionals who might receive a multitude of packages a day, a single size landing bay might be deployed. This landing bay could be the size of an old milk box used in the late 30’s. Located in a spot where it would allow egress and fitted with IoT devices for weather monitoring and control of the lid, a drone could lock onto the landing bay as it nears the container. Almost in the same way say a Roomba iRobot would find it charging station. After it hones in on the location and then slowly descend and land on the box. Upon reaching a certain altitude, a command is then given to open the box. A response from box says it is safe to land and the drone completes its landing cycle, releases the package, and sets the landing zone to full (or depending on size to a % of full). With a whit, the craft lifts off , clears the bay , closes and secures the lid and back to the truck for refuel and another delivery
Now this system would be localized to small packages say less than 20 lbs but it could still be used for larger payloads as lifting systems and duration of flight are increased. Through the use of pre-planned flight plans, this would allow for more automated flight, and the utilization of some rudimentary instrument landing system could be used to help guide the drones into and out of landing bays.Flight monitoring system could be deployed so as to track the shipment from point to point, monitor the health of the drone, fuel reserve, changes in weather, etc. so as to pinpoint the location of the drone. Emergency system like a parachute could be used, as well as other mechanisms to ensure safe flights and safe landing in the case of emergency.For larger packages, they can follow the same hard and fast way they are shipped today. In fact at night the truck could fold up shop, secure packages and her birds and drive off to the overnight facility for full safety checks, updates, upgrades, charge battery packs, both internal and external and all forms of other functions. Then in the am full of new packages, go and setup shop and start the day again.
Now imagine adding this type of system to and for hospitals, to shuttle supplies back and forth as needs or emergency changes. For example, a major fire hits one side of the city, emergency responders might need to triage lots of patients on site, a mobile distribution center could be part of the first responder system, now fresh medical supplies can be shipped in quickly and efficiently allowing ambulances to shuttle people to the hospital based on urgent needs. This now allows trained medical staff to stay on site treating folks as needed. Other hospitals can start supply shuttles to the nearby hospitals as need to help as they take more and more folks into ER’s. Take it up a notch, and now the drones can fly blood and potentially lifesaving organs from location to location, in the quickest time possible at a fraction of the cost for say using a helicopter, or person with a cooler in a truck.
While this all sounds farfetched, it is not as far as you think! There are companies looking at some of this right now. Amazon for one is looking at how drones can be used for delivery. And there are others companies looking at applications for police to politicians and all folks in between. The possibilities are, oh excuse me, I think I hear my delivery drone flying in right now.
Follow the Ramblings from an Automation Mad Man every other Wednesday. Did you miss last week’s post? Read it here: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No wait, it’s a drone?