COMMENTARYThe man who
launched and led
Google’s Project Wing
for its first two years
thinks package delivery
by unmanned aircraft
“absolutely is going
to happen,” but has
revealed some of the
challenges identified by
the search giant in its
research and develop-
ment efort.
“The biggest chal-
lenge for precision
delivery is going to be
the user,” says Nick Roy,
a professor who took a sabbatical from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) to start the project, including
conducting real-life delivery trials in
August on a farm in Australia.
Challenges to be overcome before
package delivery by unmanned aerial
systems (UAS) can become a reality
include issues of air-vehicle safety and
reliability, customer privacy, neigh-
borhood noise, wind turbulence and
even the possibility of packages being
stolen.
Project Wing was established within
the Google X “Moonshot” organization
to wrestle with “hard problems that
could change the world,” Roy said in
October at a Washington conference
organized by the American Helicopter
Society International.
Roy says Google X likens the
problems it tackles to “a toothbrush—
something we face at least twice a
day.” Other projects include develop-
ing self-driving cars and airborne
T
he biggest challenge to the plans of Amazon, Google and
others to deliver packages directly to customers using un-manned aircraft may be the recipients themselves, including
their unfortunate tendency to reach up to grab packages while
they are still attached to the aircraft.
Package Deal
How recipients react could help determine
whether self-flying package delivery works
platforms to deliver Internet access to
the two-thirds of the world that lacks
connectivity.
The problem being addressed by
Project Wing is that transmission of in-
formation has been revolutionized while
movement of physical objects is largely
unchanged. “Self-flying vehicles can be
the next-generation platform for rapid
and safe delivery on demand,” he notes.
Specifically, Google wants to “allow
anybody to ship anything to anywhere
at any time,” Roy says. “Our focus is on
speed. That’s the attraction of an air
vehicle. It’s not same-minute delivery,
but we want to fly as quickly as we can
over an urban environment. That is
the problem we are tackling.”
Google evaluated a range of fixed-
and rotary-wing configurations for its
prototype before selecting a hybrid de-
sign (see photo) that takes of and lands
vertically as a tailsitter and transitions
to a flying wing for cruise. Small mul-
ticopters could not carry the desiredpayload or fly fast enough, he says.
One lesson learned is that “physi-
cal appearance tends to impact on the
public impression” of UAS, because of
the association with armed drones, so
a non-threatening design is needed,
says Roy, who has returned to MIT but
continues to consult on Project Wing.
Google decided to winch the payload
down from the hovering vehicle after
looking at, and rejecting, the idea
of dropping it ballistically. “It was
surprisingly hard to insulate it from
the shock, and the user experience was
horrible,” he says.
Landing the vehicle, although
looking preferable, also was rejected.
“The user experience is terrible. It is
hard to stop people reaching for the
vehicle,” Roy observes. In tests, users
were likely to grab the package before
release up to 60% of the time.
Research showed it was feasible to
deliver packages in urban environments
using information already collected for
Google Earth. Analysis of Mountain
View, California, looking for a 2-meter
(6.5-ft.) gap to land the payload 5 meters
from the customer’s doorstep, showed
90% of houses could be covered.
But available databases do not
capture obstacles such as power lines
strung across streets, or trees that
change with time. “Unless we have the
capability to update them in real time,
UAS will have to have onboard sensors
to detect obstacles,” explains Roy.
Wind in urban environments is
another challenge, with buildings
shedding vortices that result in compli-
cated flowfields below rooftop level.
“We can model buildings to know
where vortices are and avoid flying or
delivering there. We can build wind-
field models to fold into planning.”
Delivery UAS “will need to handle
wind speeds up to 20 kt. if we want
to cover 90% of addresses in the U.S.,
but vehicles consume more power in
higher winds, and wear and tear on
lithium polymer batteries will be an
issue,” Roy says.
Noise will be a concern, particularly
for neighbors of customers receiving
deliveries. “It is less about decibels and
pure sound energy and more about
quality. Certain types of noise are
objectionable. We don’t have answers
yet,” he adds. cLeading Edge
20 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 AviationWeek.com/awst
By Graham WarwickManaging Editor-Technology
Graham Warwick blogs at:
AviationWeek.com
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