Blimps and drones: a combination made in logistics heaven?
Amazon isn't the only retailer that's looking into drone delivery. Walmart appears to be working on a similar concept but its solution might be a bit different compared to Amazon's. Walmart has filed for a US patent for a floating blimp warehouse which will make delivers via drones. The idea is to have a floating warehouse up in the sky from where Walmart can instantly ship products to customers using drones.
According to the patent filing, the blimp-style floating warehouse would fly at heights between 500 and 1,000 feet. It will have multiple launch bays for sending drone deliveries. The blimp itself will either fly autonomously or be remotely controlled by a human pilot. This solution could help Walmart lower the cost of fulfilling online orders, cutting down on "last mile" costs to a customer's house which is normally handled by a logistics company.
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After months of testing, Alphabet's Wing division is launching a drone delivery service in Australia. It will cover roughly 100 homes in the suburbs of Crace, Palmerston and Franklin, just outside the capital city of Canberra. Customers will be able to request small goods, such as medicine, coffee and groceries, from a range of local businesses including Kickstart Expresso, Capital Chemist, Pure Gelato, Jasper + Myrtle, Bakers Delight, Guzman Y Gomez, and Drummond Golf. Wing says it will slowly expand to more neighborhoods "in the coming weeks and months" and "connect with more local businesses" to expand the products that are available to order.
It's a huge moment for Wing. The team, which started as a massively-ambitious "moonshot" project inside X (then called Google X) has been testing drones in Australia since 2014. The company had planned to launch a commercial service in 2017, but clearly fell short. Instead, Wing teamed up with Mexican food chain Guzman Y Gomez and pharmaceutical retailer Chemist Warehouse for some advanced trials in October 2017. Since then, Wing has delivered 3,000 packages to homes in Fernleigh Park, Royalla and Bonython -- three communities just south of Canberra, close to the border between Australia Capital Territory and New South Wales.
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Walmart Files Patent for a Blimp Warehouse
(Score: 1, Spam) by aristarchus on Sunday August 20 2017, @09:22PM (5 children)
No Comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @09:43PM
I remember this exact concept being discussed either here or on the green site 1-6 months ago (It gets hazy when you're dealing with a few dozen stories a day and a few hundred plus a week.)
Practically speaking: Is the FAA going to allow this? As a semi-permanent fixture in the air, how is this going to affect airspace for people concern with pollution and other such issues from what is essentially a giant air-barge belching out exhaust above a city, with none of the normal emission control requirements?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @09:43PM
Hope I Never Discover Evil Nazi Blimps Usurped Regional Grocery Stores.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday August 21 2017, @06:53AM (2 children)
I hope they have the decency to use a proper blimp name like "Hindenberg" followed by a number, like Hindenberg 10. Because you know one of these things is going to crash into a bunch of houses, and there's gonna be a reporter that uses that famous line "Oh, the humanity!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @07:31AM (1 child)
Oh, the commerciality!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:52AM
OMG...I cannot believe they did this exact thing in Sharknado 5...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @09:53PM (1 child)
Walmart has not "patented" anything (yet at least).
This is a patent application. See this statement in the actual article: "Walmart has filed for a US patent"
A patent application is not a patent. However, too many press folks don't understand that fact and then clearly the Soylentnews editors don't understand it either.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @09:59PM
Live by pedantry, die by pedantry! [justia.com]
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday August 20 2017, @09:58PM (5 children)
500 to 1000 feet, eh?
I give this thing 24 hours (or less) in the air before some gap-toothed redneck starts blowing many holes in it, resulting in very fast near-vertical delivery of everything all at once upon some unsuspecting citizen. Not to mention a considerable local helium discharge into the atmosphere, which may result in highly unusual bird calls for a few minutes. There's only so much protection afforded by separate floatation chambers, and ammo is cheap.
Some ideas just don't survive the "smell test." This is one of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @04:59AM (4 children)
The shell of blimps is not compressed by its gases. They're not like balloons. Shooting it would be unlikely to accomplish much of anything.
Though there's one thing I don't really understand. People seem to come up with the most sociopathic ideas for any new technology. I think it's because the media has probably led so many people to believe that 'out groups' are rabid animals just ready to strike. Far left individuals decry rural whites ready to destroy any new technology. Far right individuals decry urban blacks ready to destroy any new technology. Once again, Horseshoe Theory. [wikipedia.org]
However, these technologies already exist. Somebody doing something as small as placing a large rock on a busy high speed freeway would likely cause a catastrophe. Oh god, these newfangled automobiles will never be possible!!!
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday August 21 2017, @10:09AM (2 children)
Pretty sure I remember reading somewhere (but unfortunately can't find a link - maybe it was in one of my Dad's many books about airships) that back in the golden age of airship transport, they would routinely fly into port riddled with bulletholes after flying over the US. Whether the attacks were from trigger-happy country yokels or trigger-happy urbanites I don't remember, but I am pretty damn sure that modern Americans of many stripes would enjoy taking pot shots at the proposed Castle Walmartbach [wikia.com], especially if it was casting a shadow over somebody's land / neighbourhood for months at a time.
Yes, there are plenty of low-tech and largely anonymous ways to cause havoc on roads and railways etc already, and it should be noted that some people already do those things for "fun". However it should also be recognised that firing on this thing would this have the added appeals of novelty, of scale, a good measure of Walmart-hate and of course the enduring dream of firing into the air to create a rain of expensive consumer electronics. Large airships can shrug off regular bullets by the thousand but they are by no means robust. With a little ingenuity and the right materials (secured from Walmart, ironically) I reckon a determined individual could probably build a home-made blimp-killer and not get caught. I'm imagining something cobbled together from a drone and a blender to cut long gashes in the gasbags, but I'm sure craftier people could come up with more effective ideas.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday August 21 2017, @04:56PM
Mini version of the old-fashioned chain shot. Load a shotgun shell with two 12-gauge balls of lead strung on 10 feet of piano wire.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 21 2017, @05:57PM
The local gun shop sells a 50-cal for just over a grand. $5 a shot in packs of 100, range over a couple miles.
Somehow foreign terrorists are too dumb to envision shooting planes down near US airports (crash on the city), but something blimp-sized with a Walmart logo? Doesn't matter how many bags are inside, the locals will ensure enough of them will quickly develop big leaks.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday August 21 2017, @03:20PM
Oh, I wasn't expecting the gas to leave – these aren't pressure vessels – I was expecting the control electronics and propulsion hardware to be riddled in fairly short order.
You have to see the road signs and mailboxes around here to really understand. It's also informative if you look at the history of car carriers on railroads; in the USA, they used to be an open design [pinimg.com] Now they're armored. [wikipedia.org] Why? Rednecks, that's why.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday August 20 2017, @10:25PM (1 child)
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2240282905/ [imdb.com]
Or crashing helicarriers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVI-EQKi8V8 [youtube.com]
The whole idea of a warehouse that can crash is stupid.
Large distance, slow, high, blimps for transport with a pilot have *some* margin of error, from the height.
500 to 1000 feet is just adding some bonus potential energy to the first (and last) crash.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @05:50AM
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAsSWk3Ddsg#t=40s [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by ealbers on Sunday August 20 2017, @10:34PM (2 children)
The largest goodyear blimp can barely carry 2 tons (4000lbs) max...
So thats 100 40lb tv's, not much of a 'warehouse'.
(Score: 1) by ealbers on Sunday August 20 2017, @10:39PM
See
http://www.goodyearblimp.com/behind-the-scenes/current-blimps.html [goodyearblimp.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @12:37AM
Make it one mile in diameter with steel struts and you have liftoff [wikipedia.org] just by heating the air just 1-2 degrees above ambient temperature.
Just make sure you don't use air conditioning when above Texas or Louisiana (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 20 2017, @11:09PM
It's a silly place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Npo0cmp-VY [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Murdoc on Monday August 21 2017, @02:13AM (2 children)
A sure sign that you've crossed over into an alternate universe is the prevalence of blimps. Just look at sci-fi, it happened on Dr. Who, Fringe, among others.
Who knew that the break-off point between the universes would be Walmart?!? Can I go back to the universe that doesn't have it?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 21 2017, @03:23AM
Not without going to war with the Walton family.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 21 2017, @06:00PM
> Who knew that the break-off point between the universes would be Walmart?!?
Anyone who entered the parking lot, let alone the front door.