Or reinvent the trusty old mailbox as a drop zone for drones. Google can't realistically handle all the edge cases so crowdsource the edge case resolution to the owner of each house. They can decide where they want to put their drop zone containers. The design of the drop zone container can be optimized to stand out on CV algos which the drone can then use to home in for delivery. This also works in multi-story apartments where there's a common drop zone for the entire apartment and it's left to the residents to sort it to the appropriate owners.
I wonder if it's possible to design a drop chute instead of a drop zone container so that the drone never needs to do the winch thing; the drone drops the package into the chute at it's current hover height and takes off while the chute takes care of slowing the package down to the ground.
In any case, this is an exciting area ripe for experimentation and bold ideas.
> the drone drops the package into the chute at it's current hover height and takes off while the chute takes care of slowing the package down to the ground.
Skip hover, we don't need 10cm accuracy yet.
What's the cheapest way I can deliver one or multiple payloads from a fixed wing aircraft at 5000 feet to a 100x100 ft 'package' zone with 99.9% accuracy? (in any weather condition).
we grow quickly by letting people with big backyards sign up to be the delivery zone, then manage the last miles on their own.
Yeah, personally if it meant I could get packages shipped to me more cheaply/quickly/reliably, then I would definitely be motivated to minimally modify my "house" to make it more palatable to the delivery drones.
I wonder if it's possible to design a drop chute instead of a drop zone container so that the drone never needs to do the winch thing; the drone drops the package into the chute at it's current hover height and takes off while the chute takes care of slowing the package down to the ground.
In any case, this is an exciting area ripe for experimentation and bold ideas.