This is another issue which has to be thought out. I was at a party last week with one of the major MIT geniuses involved in Drone R&D and mentioned this to him. That is, once we have a million quads flying all over, chance are some are going to fall on people and hurt and kill them. Two or three lbs falling from a couple hundred feet can be deadly... Here is the interesting part. Even after spending tens of millions on R&D - tied in with the government, industry, educational fields, etc. he said they've never even considered that! Their focus is on many other things! It would seem that this problem can be solved in various ways. For heavier drones, a sort of airbag which deployed once the quad hit a certain velocity might be part of the answer. Parachutes or even wings which deploy (air brakes, effectively) could slow down the velocity. I'm sure someone somewhere is working on these problems - but perhaps not, given the reaction of my friend from MIT.
Oh yes it has......................LOL http://fruitychutes.com/uav_rpv_drone_recovery_parachutes.htm http://droneyard.com/2013/07/01/uav-parachute-recovery-system/ http://droneparachutes.com/ http://www.hdtglobal.com/services/logistics-support/space-recovery/uav-recovery/
Yeah, I've seen some of those. The key here is one which is fail safe and requires no operator input. Lots of possible options. I think an airbag which would be set off by a combo of velocity and maybe infrared detection of the human might be one answer. Chutes are somewhat old-fashioned and I'm not sure they'd do the job. Since most quads are not used for acro and racing, G-forces, etc. could be used to deploy. Of course, they'd also have to be reasonably prices for replacement.
Go to http://ardupilot.com/forum/ or http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topic/list We have been talking about this there too and some systems are made that deploy automatically....sorry no direct link, but both forums have a search that will show you the information.
Yes! I saw too interesting stories today - one is about a system which will allow a quadcopter to lose one prop and still fly. The other is about a guy developing mini-airbags for cell phones....once the technology matures, you can imagine that quads will have a combo of air bags, protected props, failsafe for prop failure, etc.... When, and not if, they start flying over public spaces and people - they will have to prove some kind of MTBF which makes them as safe as anything else......that is, the authorities are simply not going to put up with bricks falling on things.
You also have those parachutes from Opale, I have one on my S900 http://www.opale-paramodels.com/index.php/fr/shop/parachute-de-secours/parachute-drone
There's the life saving accessory from Project Ryptide. Something like this could be adapted to act like an airbag, like you said. I'd much rather have one of these land on me (and the drone afterwards) than a flying lawnmower .
