Drones Will Deliver Your Pizza, And Much Much More

(Source: techcrunch.com)  

Drones will deliver your pizza in the future. That was one of the tastiest takeaways from TechCrunch writer Frederic Lardinois‘ interview with Helen Greiner, the founder of drone maker CyPhy Works, at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco today.

Ok, drones delivering pizza, or any other kind of goods, isn’t necessary a new concept — Amazon is among the many testing autonomous delivery vehicles — but Greiner, who graduated MIT and spent 18 years with her first company, robotics pioneer iRobot, believes it really isn’t far away.

“From a technical point of view, we can do it, [but] it will take regulatory and cultural changes,” she said. “The FAA is right to not allow it today, but more experimentation would be great for the community. [The FAA] has signaled they are open to changing the rules if we can prove it is safe.”

Greiner has an interesting take on exactly what our future robotic couriers will look like. That’s because CyPhy Works newest drone has a very different design to the rest of the market. (And it’s a fairly crowded and competitive market.)

CyPhy Works specializes in enterprise and business drones, but LVL1, a consumer drone that the company pre-launched on Kickstarter ahead of an arrival next year, doesn’t sport the gimbal that is ever-present on pretty much every drone today. Aside from making it look nice, Greiner said this enables the craft to fly more fluidly, which makes capturing video or taking photos smoother and easier, and prevent more common damage.

“The new design makes it more rugged and portable. We use electronic stabilization for images because we believe that simplicity of sight is key, you’re basically just flying a camera… plus [in the case of repairs] it’s always the gimbal system that goes bad. We think drones will morph into designs like this over time,” she said.

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