http://start.att.net/news/read/article/popular_mechanics-amazon_patents_drone_selfdestruction_system-rhearst/category/finance



Amazon has been granted a patent on self-destructing drones. Or, if you want to use the more technical term, "directed fragmentation of an unmanned aerial vehicle."

Spotted by The Verge, the patent describes what could happen if an Amazon package drone were to fail mid-delivery. Drones can fail for any number of reasons: battery failure, hitting a bird, or even getting shot down. If Amazon drone delivery wants to get off the ground, its drones will need plenty of fail-safes to win the several levels of governmental approval, from federal to city.

"When loss of flight operation is detected, the UAV can enter a fragmentation sequence mode," the patent, invented by Amazon employees Dushyant Goyal and Pragyana K. Mishra, reads. "During the fragmentation sequence, one or more parts or components of the UAV can be released. In doing so, the weight, speed, air drag coefficient, and other factors related to the UAV can be altered. At the same time, the momentum and trajectory of the UAV are also altered."

Amazon's made no secret of its desires to make drone delivery a real thing, it had its first successful U.S delivery earlier this year. By having drones break up mid-flight, the company is hoping the impact of such a worst-case scenario would be lessened. Computers would quickly evaluate the drone's situation and attempt to crash-land its parts wherever they would do the least damage to people. Having a drone part land in a tree or a lake is better than than the entire drone falling on a street.

So they're flying explosive devices around?  Wonder what they're using to frag it.

I think clamps or retractable fasteners will be easier than high explosive.

In before drone hijackings become a thing...

Net cannons, fowler nets/strings dropped by 3rd party drones, signal jamming of GPS system...

If you make something automated carrying something valuable, get ready for theft.

Also waiting for new classifications of air space to try and cripple hobby RC folks because Amazon is willing to pay to use the airspace while hobby minded folks wont be able to.

My Alexa has a self destruct that never works.  

Muslim engineers need jobs too.

Sounds more like it just falls apart into multiple planned pieces lowering the possible damage or injury to whatever it might fall onto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L1__ooD5-M

Drone delivery is a gimmick for PR. It's not any way financially, or logistically feasible.

Pay me enough and I can become an amazon drone pilot...

Pretty much this
With current tech, they have a pretty minimal delivery range especially carrying any kind of packaged , unless amazon thinks it's going to have thousands of launch pads or only serve a lucky percent of the country
This is nothing more than a joke

I will shoot them for free

What about the package it is delivering?

It sure would suck getting hit in the head with somebody's bowling ball they ordered off of Amazon because the drone engaged a self destruct.

But man, if you lived through it, you're gonna get paid.  Amazon has deep pockets.

They aren’t going to carry very heavy or large packages.

What about the hazard of simply chopping off some dude's fingers that tries to fuck with it?

A.W.D.

What altitude will they be flying at? Enough altitude and even a AAA battery is gonna hurt.

Not everything is about dying small towns. A single digit percent of geographical coverage probably covers a third or a half of the population.

Finally time to stand up a squadron of R/C F22's and set a DRONECAP over my house.

You don’t shop with amazon much or you’d know that AAA battery will be in a box large enough to carry a case of beer.

Of course they are only going to serve a “lucky percentage”. The fucktards that live in urban hell.  You can pretty much count on ever seeing drone delivery in cities over a million people.  Hell here in the Tokyo area a drone with a ten mile range could serve 20 million people.  One with a one mile range could serve a million, 20 with a one mile range could serve the entire city.