If this type of delivery works and takes off can you imagine the noise pollution from all the drones flying around?
At 100m high, noise varies between 50dB to 55dB, depending on drone size. That's for current drones. That is below daytime noise levels in many places.
That's not even accounting for specific measures to decrease their sound levels. Those are going to be delivery drones, after all, not racers. They can use larger, slower and specifically designed propellers.
I can not understand why Amazon vans make that horrible sound when reversing. Surely the croaking hurts them more than saving a few accidents helps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-up_beeper
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018517/ "Still another alternative is the broadband beeper, a device that has the same cadence as the conventional beeper but broadcasts a “white-noise, whooshing sound,” says Thalheimer, who has no financial interest in or affiliation with Brigade Electronics, the manufacturer. He explains the sound is still readily audible behind the vehicle and is more easily localizable than a single-tone beeper, but the white noise is masked by community noise, so it is much less annoying to the public."
https://www.forconstructionpros.com/construction-technology/... https://brigade-electronics.com/en-us/products/backup-and-wa...
But it doesn't matter how many of them there are - they could be able to fly at an altitude where they don't cause meaningful noise pollution.
For context, the global average cost for electricity is about $0.13 USD per kWH. From wikipedia, "Over an 8-hour work shift, an average, healthy, well-fed and motivated manual laborer may sustain an output of around 75 watts of power." [0] So, from a purely mechanical perspective, a human can only output about 0.6 kWH of work per day, which is only worth about $0.08 of electricity per day. And yet, in states like California, where this test is being done, human labor costs a minimum of $15/hour, or $120/day.
Energy is not the limiting factor. We could use drastically more energy and still save gobs of money if we can cut the cost of employing a human out of the loop.
Say someone drives a 200 horsepower car. That's roughly 1200 kWh/day of available mechanical power.
Depends on altitude before delivery?
I’m willing to let this play out.
The reverse beep sound is comparably annoying but not so common in a quiet neighbor.