1. JerryMC

    JerryMC New Member

    Feb 27, 2017
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    Hi Everyone,
    I am drone pilot for more than 3 years, therefore I decided to run my Thesis on Drones,
    Drones are the future of humanity, for patrolling, shipping, lives savings, inspection, transportation and other applications,
    As part of my Thesis I decided to run a study regarding pilots main concerns, as a drone pilot my main concern is Hitting someone due to a drone malfunction or even to be liable of 3rd party damages, study results are not confidential, I will be happy to share them, Hopfully many of you will participate so we get better understanding regarding your concerns.

    This research is meant for our use and your personal detail won't be shared with anyone (you may also answer anonymously.)

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUur5suCUiv4H794qC6KyxsrsSBKtodsOy8NVOVvkERrPObQ/viewform

    Hope its oK,

    Thanks!
     
  2. JerryMC

    JerryMC New Member

    Feb 27, 2017
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    Hi,
    Thanks for everyone who participate,
    It helps a lot,
     
  3. Jonathan

    Jonathan Drone Expert
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    Aug 31, 2013
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    I filled it out. I don't think parachutes are the answer by the way.
     
  4. JerryMC

    JerryMC New Member

    Feb 27, 2017
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    Hi Jonathan, thanks for replying,
    What do you think is the answer to improve safety for drone and people?, why do you think parachute is not the answer?,
    Disney(I didnt know they are in the drone business...) applied a patent regarding Drone airbag ( http://www.orlandosentinel.com/g00/....html?i10c.referrer=https://www.google.co.il/ ) do you think this could be the solution? , By the way, the reason I can think about why parachute/air bag is not the answer is weight.....,
    on one of the forums someone wrote that the answer is to improve drone redundancy, I have asked him if it possible to make "low cost" drones such the Phantom, Inspire or Solo to be more safe/redundant and still be low cost, he didn't answered my question, what is your opinion?
     
  5. Jonathan

    Jonathan Drone Expert
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    Aug 31, 2013
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    Well, regular aircraft don't come with parachutes, though they did experiment with parachutes for a few light aircraft, because they are deemed safe enough for it not to be needed. The same goes for drones. Just need to make them safer, and more reliable. In fact they are a lot more reliable now than they were 6 or 7 years ago and I haven't actually had a drone failure in a long time, this is flying many days every week for years. I have a DJI Phantom 4 that I've been flying for a year almost and it has had zero issues.

    I don't think redundancy is the answer, well not in the way most people talk about it anyway. Most people's idea of redundancy is having more motors. In fact Yuneec touted this in their new hexacopter a year ago, saying because it has six motors it is safer because it can still fly if one fails - as if having six motors is something new and innovative, when it is neither. All you do by adding more motors is increase the weight, increase the strain on the power source and increase the number of parts that can fail. Having more motors mean you have more motors that can fail.

    Redundancy is good when you're talking about navigation, flight control and other on board computer systems, for sure. These things are already being included in new drones - dual flight controllers, dual GPS etc. Also, the drones themselves are becoming smaller and lighter, while still increasing their capabilities. They are already pretty safe. If the props were not exposed there would hardly be any concerns at all if the majority of future drones are Mavic-sized or smaller. It should be easy to make electric motors pretty much infallible if you use quality parts and engineering, they are very simple machines - much simpler than other types of engine - so really it's down to keeping the computer systems sleek and also infallible. LIDAR and laser range finding etc with be a big part of this in the future. GPS is just about 'good enough' for now, but it's not perfect. You need the drone, whether it's the flying type, driving type or underwater type, to be aware of its surroundings, to be able to 'see' where it's going, without the need for external systems like orbiting satellites and other fallible, transmitted data. Imagine if you had to walk around without eyes and ears, with only GPS and GLONASS systems intermittently beaming you your current location every few seconds, and occasionally being cut off so someone else has to guide you by hand - that's where drones are now.
     
  6. JerryMC

    JerryMC New Member

    Feb 27, 2017
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    Hi Jonathan, thank you for the detailed answer,
    You are right, regular aircraft doesn't come with parachute(most of them...) but the main differences between drone and an airplane are:
    1.Fix wing can glide outside dangerous places,
    2.Probability for failure of airplane is around 10E-9, probability for failure of drone is around 10E-2 to 10E-4(rare..)
    lets assume that in 5 years there will be 1,000,000 drone flying each hour...(all over the world, for delivery, inspection, police patrol, photography etc.), it means that each hour around 100 drones will crush, am I right?
    High end drones that cost more more than 50K will be much more reliable but "regular" drones such the M600, M200, INSPIRE etc. will stay around 10E-4, otherwise the cost will increase dramatically, what than?

    Jerry
     
  7. Jonathan

    Jonathan Drone Expert
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    Aug 31, 2013
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    York
    In 5 years times the drones will be very different, so they will not have the same accident rating they have now, regardless of how accurate or not your numbers are. I'm not talking about high end drones either. Come back and tell me I was wrong in 5 years time
     

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