Most Pressing Problems With Drone Delivery

Drones were supposed to be our future, but now they have become our present. They are all around us, be it for military purposes, wedding shoots or YouTube videos. They are now trying out one more thing: ‘Drone delivery’. So in the coming years, traditional delivery boys will be replaced by drones flying around.

It all sounds very futuristic, but there are various drone delivery problems.

What is The Future of Drone Delivery? Let’s see:

1. Where and How will The Package be Dropped?

Amazon drone delivery, Prime Air calls drone delivery to be the ‘last mile’. But what worries most of us are the last few feet. In the case of food or fragile items, drops need to be safe and sound. Any mishap would result in damage to the package. Even though there are systems in place, there is no surety that the drop will be successful. And it can be easily stolen or snatched by someone when it’s closer to the ground.

The next issue is, what if there’s no one at home? Drones can’t ring bells, nor can they talk to neighbors. Will the package be left at doorstep without any safety, or in the wet lawns? This needs to be taken care of before setting drone delivery in motion.

Also for people living in apartment complexes and flats, the only solution would be to crack open a window and wait for their package to come.

But still, many remote locations won’t be secure or accessible for drone delivery just yet.

2. Weather Report

It is a known fact that deliveries must be completed in all sorts of conditions, be it hot or cold or rainy. You don’t see your Amazon order being delayed because of some rain, do you?

That might not be similar to drone deliveries. Because they are machines, they aren’t exactly waterproof. Even high winds will move drone away from their destination. Hot weather will reduce its lifting capacity, and it can even drop items mid-air.

Some drones even need to be charged by solar energy, like Amazon drone delivery. Which means they can’t function properly in the dark. Goodbye to our late-night food delivery, I guess.

So until drone delivery companies come up with weatherproof drones, human delivery is our only choice.

3. Abuse of Drones

The safety of the package is on one hand, but drones are in danger too. They are like toys to most people, children especially. And they can be easily harmed by throwing a stone or being hit with a stick.

Imagine you see a drone flying above you, what’s the first thought that comes to your mind? That someone is spying on you. And you start hitting it. Tada! It was just delivering something in your neighborhood. But it’s dead now. All thanks to you.

This will be the case with not just you, but most children and people. And hence there needs to be a strict safety policy for drones.

4. Automation v/s Labor

We all have been listening to this. Machines are stealing jobs. Automation is a huge fear of this century. A big amount of people work in delivery jobs, but with drones, all of them will be jobless.

Nothing can replace the human experience, but drones are faster as well as lack emotions.

Why Amazon is working on a drone delivery system? Because they need more orders to be delivered faster.

5. Noise Issues

It might be a shock to know, but studies suggest that noise made by drones is more disturbing than road traffic. That means honking horns at red lights is not the most annoying sound in the world. The buzzing sound made by drones increases noise pollution at a higher rate. Drone delivery risks not only our food getting cold and lost it also risks us having hearing loss.

6. Safety From The Internet of Things

Almost everything can be hacked. Nothing is private anymore. Drones come into a niche part of technology, but they can be easily tracked. GPS technology is not as safe as it seems, and the camera might be recording everything. How can we know if drones are hacked or not? 

They will also be gathering data, like location details and contact numbers. Is that data even safe? We might never know.

7. Legal Challenges

Many nations don’t allow things like drones to fly in air unsupervised. They need to be within sight. That means they can’t go higher up in the clouds, and can’t travel faster.

With that, air traffic rules will also need to be included. Because we can’t have planes and drones crashing.

It wasn’t enough that our roads had traffic jams, now our sky isn’t free too.

8. Range and Battery

‘Battery’: The weakest point of everything electric. Drones face similar issues. Their battery lives are not strong, which means they can stop working between flights. And you can’t charge them instantly, while they are flying.

Can I expect a drone to deliver me food, in the middle of nowhere? Maybe not. Drones can function in a limited range, based on data given to it. And hence not all parts of the world will be able to have a drone delivery system.

9. Costing

Nothing new is worth it, until and unless it’s costing less than the previous thing. There are various delivery drones pros and cons, but if it is expensive, why would anyone have it? 

Drones come in different shapes, sizes and price ranges. But what we require for deliveries, have to be top-notch and costly. This, in turn, means that customers would have to pay extra delivery charges.

Well, here it is, problems that the future of drone delivery and drone delivery companies will face. They might be a good idea on paper, but their execution needs to be done quite carefully.

Until then we will wait for delivery guys to deliver our orders on their bikes.