I used to work in perception for autonomous aerial vehicles and horizontal wires were the hardest common object to avoid. Traditional stereo won't help you localize them -- wires are thin so even mere detection can be hard, and one portion of a wire looks much like another so feature matching fails resulting in bad or no depth estimates -- and LIDAR sacrifices resolution for weight and power consumption (which both have to be optimizied for drones). It's been years since I've worked in this field, and Amazon has many smart people thinking about it but I'm not surprised it's still a difficult problem.
> Traditional stereo won't help you localize them [...] and LIDAR sacrifices resolution for weight and power consumption
I wonder if a more mechanical solution wouldn't help:
Whiskers, like on a cat. A long enough set of thin lightweight whiskers could touch the wire before the propellers do, giving time for the drone to stop and change course. Essentially, giving the drone a sense of touch.
Ah yeah I came up with the solution to that one. It's 'don't fly drones over our heads' approach. Also the 'upgrade the fragile infrastructure so a light breeze doesn't take out millions of people's power.'
It’s really hard for people too. The advice I got for landing in a field was to assume that every pole you saw had wires going to every other pole. Which is reasonable enough for that scenario, but not workable for continual low altitude flying in a built up area.
> horizontal wires were the hardest common object to avoid... Traditional stereo won't help you localize them
This makes a lot of sense. I wonder if it wouldn't be better for autonomous vision to use three cameras instead of two for better spatial reasoning.. maybe in a triangle pattern?
Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/089CBuGTkcY (it's also in the article; my ad blocker must have gotten me on this one). Amazon are not having a good run with these lately.
This comes after the incident where multiple drones crashed into a crane.
Given that prior incident and now this the FAA will likely not be too kind to Amazon. The permission on drone tech is predicated on very strong “see and avoid” technology. Given two pretty bad screw-ups now in as many months the FAA won’t be amused at the failures in the tech on these drones.
A commenter here notes that detecting power lines is a really hard problem. However surely there is a set of simpler solutions to the problem than actually trying to spot power lines.
This sort of thing is a largely solved problem for bigger aircraft and a similar approach with quite a lot of international regulation and agreement seems to be needed.
Drones could be given a cross section of airspace to work within that is say a horizontal slice about 50m to 100m above ground level, with various rules on resolution (ie what constitutes ground level at any point on the planet). The minimum height should clear most obstacles that are hard to spot. There would be flight corridors defined between take off and landing zones. There would be exclusion zones around areas such as air fields and military locations etc.
Drones could even be allowed to use commercial airspace provided they follow the existing rules and are detectable and contactable etc.
The tricky bit is working out take off and landing zones and rules for them. At the moment, aircraft try to avoid flying over habitation zones. I live near to a helicopter factory and used to work there so I have some idea of the issues involved.
There are lots more rules that could be added for safety. For example, requiring height when flying in a non corridor depend on direction. However, I'm only allowing a 50m zone here but then a drone is only about 1m "tall". Even something as simple as divide the compass up into say 16 zones for wind Beaufort 0-2, eight zones for 3-4, four zones for 5-6 and ban flight at 7+. Those wind designations might depend on gust speeds or constant and could be transmitted. The idea is that things get a bit random as the wind speed increases. Divide the allowable height by the number of zones and set your height accordingly. So flying directly north will be at say 50m and directly south at 100m. The wind speed should also indicate the density of drones allowed per horizontal area. That will need some experimentation and legislation to determine what is "acceptable".
It's an ethernet cable, looks like? That's pretty cool that a drone has enough power to break an ethernet cable. It just got tangled in a single cable, looks like it was run across someone's back yard. That's not a bad failure mode, imo - gives them a little exercise in problem solving, figuring out how to prevent ethernet/cable collisions and snags, and maybe results in sensor upgrades, or they figure out good detangling maneuvers or something.
One cable getting damaged is inconvenient, but I'd have to laugh it off if it were my service. 5G would be a good enough backup in the meantime, and how often are you going to get to see these types of accidents (hopefully almost never) so it'd be cool to have a story.
"I ordered some flaming hot cheetos from a drone, and it broke my internet cable!"
It would be great that the drone had some kind of tactile sensibility.
Go slowly in the opposite direction of said contact first, then if that is not working try to rotate on one of the horizontal axis while going in the opposite direction to see if it make a difference, and if it doesn't then something is stuck on your skin, and you should be able to notice that your weight is not the same as before; if that's not the case, then maybe your sensor is just broken, but then maybe you could be able to notice some difference in the power consumption of the tactile components array, and if that's not the case ... well, maybe that sensor is off too ? Wait ... what are you doing in Madrid ?
I think it's a typical retrofit outdoor coaxial cable run. The ridiculously haphazard installation method matches my usual experience with cable provider installations, too.
I'm generally pretty gung ho about tech adoption. Nuclear? Yes! LLMs everywhere? Let's try it! Crypto? OK... give it a go! Self driving cars? Heck yeah!
But I really, really don't want drones flying over my house, polluting the already noisy soundscape, etc. This just strikes me as a terrible idea.
My dream is that an increase in drones would lead to a decrease in vehicular deliveries, to the point that there would be a net decrease in noise.
But in my heart of hearts I am certain the convenience of drone delivery -- and an absence of sufficient regulation -- would lead to a drastic net increase in noise instead.
I am similar to you. Have you seen the startup that is trying to make a more quiet deliver drone? It flies much higher then uses a long wire to drop the package at the location. The demos on YouTube look pretty cool and you don't hear the drone.
Show me the line lmao. You see these rural cowboys stringing 1 - 2 cores over a long distance, I have seen them just going right through or even resting on trees.
The solution is probably a dial before you dig style registry that corresponds to an altitude floor, but I honestly doubt the ability of rural telco to meet that requirement.
Fucking, learn it from the self driving car companies. fly your drones for at least 6 months in the city, make high resolution 3d maps of the area, identify the no fly zones, train models on these. I can't believe their drones are crashing into stationary cranes.
I see the downsides. But I also see the delivery vans in my neighborhood that are always double parking and blocking traffic. At least in the air, traffic can be routed in 3d.
Solid meh from me. Only thing I really don’t like about it is it’s likely to impact the personal rights to fly drones we enjoy today (which are already being chipped away).
Otherwise, they’re probably not very loud or frequent, don’t really present much of a privacy issue vs. what street view already has, and they maybe make the roads a bit safer. Might take some jobs away from delivery van drivers. Nothing seems worth getting overly concerned for.
wait until people start leasing roof space as a forward operational point where a carrier drone can land, and release a swarm of last mile fullfilment drones, pick up returns, etc.
Well these aren't just toy drones, these are 75+ pound drones before you add the package. You need to get your drone licensed to fly one even a fraction of that weight.
I'm sure this will sound a bit whack to some of the sorts on here but honestly, who cares?
I was at the principal engineers offsite summit in scenic Cle Ellum when they supposedly announced prime Air.
I know, I know, what the f** ever, but there was something very ominous and significant at this unveiling. If this were my demo and my unveiling, I would have had a drone pick up a package at one side of the auditorium and drop it off at the other side of the auditorium.
What we got was a mock package and a mock drone and lots of talky talk from a guy who didn't last long at Amazon. This set the tone for everything going forward. And the engineers of tech, the real engineers of tech, not the toxic empathy talkers who can't do anything (tm), need to put these people in their place or the enshittification will continue unopposed.
I'm mostly out of f**s here having made what I needed to make but it's fun to post here in a position of not caring what people think of me anymore. Make of that what you will.
Edit: Come on PE snowflakes! You want to talk about that thread on the principal engineering list about how long it had been since any of you had actually written a line of code? I do. It explains a lot about you guys.
And don't get me started about that urgent missive about only hiring fungible people.
Because fungible equals generalist and that's why both you and Google have the horrible retention rates you have. I can tell I'm not the only one that was in the room for that ridiculous presentation from the downvotes. Keep going and no worries, Amazon will have more than enough money to acquihire the people that actually solve these problems.
Why would Amazon be in trouble for not knowing the customer has an Ethernet cable stretched across their yard? Even AT&T (Southwestern Bell) buried drops from the pedestal to the house.
Would you say the same thing if a delivery driver drove through some other cables or objects on your property and broke them despite being in a clear and nominally safe area?
Maybe we should consider this a chaos monkey test rather than castigating Amazon.
If Amazon can accidentally take down internet in a large area with a cheap commercial drone... what can a genuine bad actor do with a few thousand of these. If this is any indicator, half the country is going to be blind and deaf in the first day of a Taiwan war, it's going to be be over before we even get back online.
riotnrrd|3 months ago
cesarb|3 months ago
I wonder if a more mechanical solution wouldn't help:
Whiskers, like on a cat. A long enough set of thin lightweight whiskers could touch the wire before the propellers do, giving time for the drone to stop and change course. Essentially, giving the drone a sense of touch.
vpShane|3 months ago
wat10000|3 months ago
parliament32|3 months ago
This makes a lot of sense. I wonder if it wouldn't be better for autonomous vision to use three cameras instead of two for better spatial reasoning.. maybe in a triangle pattern?
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
bri3d|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
londons_explore|3 months ago
Google sell maps of things like this from street view data.
thinkcontext|3 months ago
Wouldn't making a quick circuit around the house before landing allow wires to be observed from multiple angles be enough?
rkagerer|3 months ago
PunchyHamster|3 months ago
there are very little aerial lines few meters highers and ones that exist can be probably spotted from satellite images and planned around.
Especially if delivery area is limited, they could just map them out of the routes.
bri3d|3 months ago
The double crane cable incident ( https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/02/us/arizona-amazon-drones-cras... ) and the LIDAR failsafe issue ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/amazon-re... ) were both rather surprising from a process and management standpoint. This issue seems more like a run of the mill "problem with drone delivery conceptually" that Amazon will have to deal with.
jonny_eh|3 months ago
purplecats|3 months ago
the point is not news, its to keep you on their sites as long as possible with no escape
ThePowerOfFuet|3 months ago
itishappy|3 months ago
cmiles8|3 months ago
Given that prior incident and now this the FAA will likely not be too kind to Amazon. The permission on drone tech is predicated on very strong “see and avoid” technology. Given two pretty bad screw-ups now in as many months the FAA won’t be amused at the failures in the tech on these drones.
drjasonharrison|3 months ago
gerdesj|3 months ago
This sort of thing is a largely solved problem for bigger aircraft and a similar approach with quite a lot of international regulation and agreement seems to be needed.
Drones could be given a cross section of airspace to work within that is say a horizontal slice about 50m to 100m above ground level, with various rules on resolution (ie what constitutes ground level at any point on the planet). The minimum height should clear most obstacles that are hard to spot. There would be flight corridors defined between take off and landing zones. There would be exclusion zones around areas such as air fields and military locations etc.
Drones could even be allowed to use commercial airspace provided they follow the existing rules and are detectable and contactable etc.
The tricky bit is working out take off and landing zones and rules for them. At the moment, aircraft try to avoid flying over habitation zones. I live near to a helicopter factory and used to work there so I have some idea of the issues involved.
There are lots more rules that could be added for safety. For example, requiring height when flying in a non corridor depend on direction. However, I'm only allowing a 50m zone here but then a drone is only about 1m "tall". Even something as simple as divide the compass up into say 16 zones for wind Beaufort 0-2, eight zones for 3-4, four zones for 5-6 and ban flight at 7+. Those wind designations might depend on gust speeds or constant and could be transmitted. The idea is that things get a bit random as the wind speed increases. Divide the allowable height by the number of zones and set your height accordingly. So flying directly north will be at say 50m and directly south at 100m. The wind speed should also indicate the density of drones allowed per horizontal area. That will need some experimentation and legislation to determine what is "acceptable".
observationist|3 months ago
One cable getting damaged is inconvenient, but I'd have to laugh it off if it were my service. 5G would be a good enough backup in the meantime, and how often are you going to get to see these types of accidents (hopefully almost never) so it'd be cool to have a story.
"I ordered some flaming hot cheetos from a drone, and it broke my internet cable!"
malfist|3 months ago
d-lisp|3 months ago
Go slowly in the opposite direction of said contact first, then if that is not working try to rotate on one of the horizontal axis while going in the opposite direction to see if it make a difference, and if it doesn't then something is stuck on your skin, and you should be able to notice that your weight is not the same as before; if that's not the case, then maybe your sensor is just broken, but then maybe you could be able to notice some difference in the power consumption of the tactile components array, and if that's not the case ... well, maybe that sensor is off too ? Wait ... what are you doing in Madrid ?
bri3d|3 months ago
Computer0|3 months ago
mig39|3 months ago
Shouldn't it be thick, armoured cable, attached to a strong wire or something?
pavon|3 months ago
Edit: The MK30 is 78 pounds, and about 6 feet diameter. Here is an image with a human for scale:
https://dronexl.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Amazon-Prime-A...
venturecruelty|3 months ago
next_xibalba|3 months ago
But I really, really don't want drones flying over my house, polluting the already noisy soundscape, etc. This just strikes me as a terrible idea.
teachrdan|3 months ago
But in my heart of hearts I am certain the convenience of drone delivery -- and an absence of sufficient regulation -- would lead to a drastic net increase in noise instead.
throwaway2037|3 months ago
protocolture|3 months ago
The solution is probably a dial before you dig style registry that corresponds to an altitude floor, but I honestly doubt the ability of rural telco to meet that requirement.
dwa3592|3 months ago
drjasonharrison|3 months ago
binarymax|3 months ago
[deleted]
xhkkffbf|3 months ago
rogerrogerr|3 months ago
Otherwise, they’re probably not very loud or frequent, don’t really present much of a privacy issue vs. what street view already has, and they maybe make the roads a bit safer. Might take some jobs away from delivery van drivers. Nothing seems worth getting overly concerned for.
stonemetal12|3 months ago
ErroneousBosh|3 months ago
There. Now you have a whole bunch of free drone parts.
rolph|3 months ago
engineer_22|3 months ago
ggreer|3 months ago
For the same payload delivered, ground vehicles cause significantly more property damage, environmental damage, and injuries/deaths.
kazinator|3 months ago
[deleted]
AngryData|3 months ago
malfist|3 months ago
teachrdan|3 months ago
callamdelaney|3 months ago
[deleted]
ynab6|3 months ago
idiocratically|3 months ago
LogicFailsMe|3 months ago
I was at the principal engineers offsite summit in scenic Cle Ellum when they supposedly announced prime Air.
I know, I know, what the f** ever, but there was something very ominous and significant at this unveiling. If this were my demo and my unveiling, I would have had a drone pick up a package at one side of the auditorium and drop it off at the other side of the auditorium.
What we got was a mock package and a mock drone and lots of talky talk from a guy who didn't last long at Amazon. This set the tone for everything going forward. And the engineers of tech, the real engineers of tech, not the toxic empathy talkers who can't do anything (tm), need to put these people in their place or the enshittification will continue unopposed.
I'm mostly out of f**s here having made what I needed to make but it's fun to post here in a position of not caring what people think of me anymore. Make of that what you will.
Edit: Come on PE snowflakes! You want to talk about that thread on the principal engineering list about how long it had been since any of you had actually written a line of code? I do. It explains a lot about you guys.
And don't get me started about that urgent missive about only hiring fungible people. Because fungible equals generalist and that's why both you and Google have the horrible retention rates you have. I can tell I'm not the only one that was in the room for that ridiculous presentation from the downvotes. Keep going and no worries, Amazon will have more than enough money to acquihire the people that actually solve these problems.
ynab6|3 months ago
hk1337|3 months ago
dec0dedab0de|3 months ago
what if the next time it hits a clothes line and lands on someone?
the FAA investigates anything that might cause shit to fall out of the sky
AngryData|3 months ago
bpodgursky|3 months ago
If Amazon can accidentally take down internet in a large area with a cheap commercial drone... what can a genuine bad actor do with a few thousand of these. If this is any indicator, half the country is going to be blind and deaf in the first day of a Taiwan war, it's going to be be over before we even get back online.
engineer_22|3 months ago