Thousands lose power after food delivery drone lands on power lines

[wco81]

The drone was fried but that didn't knock out the power. The power company shut it down to check the lines and other infrastructure.

Wasn't a long outage in Brisbane, Australia.

Read in The Verge: Food delivery drone lands on power lines resulting in power outage for thousands — The Verge

They said the food was still warm.

But they don't seem to react like "oh the humanity!"

Donald told ABC News: “This is the first time that I’ve seen it happen. It could have simply been an equipment malfunction. It may have been human error.” He added that there was no damage to the network and that Energex responded quickly to the problems. “The meal was still hot inside the drone’s delivery box when the crew got there,” said Donald.


“Fifteen years ago, we asked people to be careful if they were giving their children kites for Christmas and where they were flying them,” said the Energex spokesperson. “Now we’re asking parents to be very careful with where their kids fly their drones.”

 

[AlanL]

If the food was still warm did they complete the delivery?

 

[wco81]

In that article they said they've done 200,000 food delivery by drone in about a year and a half in the Brisbane area.

A lot of deliveries to suburban areas which may not be served by the usual food delivery apps.

 

[Drone Master]

If the food was still warm did they complete the delivery?

I would think that it may be a little over cooked by then!

 

[dronerdave]

If a drone fried in a cross phase, there is a big chance of possible damage to the line/equipment. It needs to be inspected hence the outage. Not to check everything effected would be negligent on part of the power company.

But it would be ironic if the power company used a drone to check the line.

No matter how you look at it though, I wouldn't want to be the drone pilot or company owner. Oops.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

They seemed to close down the areas power mostly for retrieval purposes, but yeah interesting the drone was lost and meal survived . . . "and whilst it didn’t take out power, there was voltage tracking across the drone and the drone caught fire and fell to the ground."

Would have been interesting to know the location, not mentioned in the article.
Might have been the main areas to date Wing have been doing, in the Logan council area, Loganlea, Marsden etc.
Think it is still just around that area.

 

[dronerdave]

They seemed to close down the areas power mostly for retrieval purposes...

Very possible.

 

[YVRGUY]

That the way I’ve been heating my meals…just a little on the toasty side…thank you.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Found it interesting that Energex considers drones no different then kite flying from the last generation 15 years ago. Guess they are on board with drones.

 

[theDRONEranger]

Shocking! Simply shocking news!

 

[wardtom084]

Any idea what drone that is?

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Any idea what drone that is?

It’s the Alphabet/ Google / Wing drone, specifically their design and use.

Wing

Wing offers drone delivery. Our fleet of lightweight, autonomous delivery drones can transport small packages directly from businesses to homes in minutes. Wing delivery is safe, sustainable, and easy to integrate with existing delivery approaches.

wing.com

 

[wco81]

So autonomous, have enough lift, maybe 5 pounds lifting capacity just to have overhead, enough battery capacity to say make a few 5 kilometer round trips?

Has to have good obstacle avoidance or if it can't detect wires or thin power lines, then maybe operate at 20-25 meters or higher to avoid most obstacles?

Actually if they don't deliver beverages, just food, probably a 2 pound lift capacity would be sufficient to deliver a couple of burgers and fries?

 

[Skydreamer]

reminds me of walmart drone delivery,when box hits the ground you can hear sound of glass breaking

 

[danwnz]

The drone was fried but that didn't knock out the power. The power company shut it down to check the lines and other infrastructure.

Wasn't a long outage in Brisbane, Australia.

Read in The Verge: Food delivery drone lands on power lines resulting in power outage for thousands — The Verge

They said the food was still warm.

But they don't seem to react like "oh the humanity!"

Don't have over head power lines in Carindale, its great. Also don't get drones, storms taking trees that take out power lines...

 

[CactusJackSlade]

But it would be ironic if the power company used a drone to check the line.

HAHAHA! For sure!

 

[wco81]

Would use less energy and time than sending out a crew and a truck with a cherry-picker hydraulic lift.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Power providers / network managers are using drones all the time for line / tower inspections for some years, probably in the next few years any not doing so now will be on board.

It's a no brainer like lidar topographic mapping, what used to take months can take a week now.

 

[dronerdave]

Would use less energy and time than sending out a crew and a truck with a cherry-picker hydraulic lift.

That's fine for yearly maintenance or difficult spots to inspect, but when a line relays, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to use your lift. Lines relay all the time (many at night) and often no cause is found. Most culprits are adverse weather, birds, trees, vehicles hitting poles, and even mylar balloons. Getting the line back energized is priority and launching a drone is time consuming. Usually the troubleshooter will do a high speed drive-by inspection looking for the obvious and if nothing is found, the line will be tested and hopefully re-energized. So when you're out of power and the troubleshooter fly past you without stopping, they're looking for the obvious because they know you're not the only one effected. If you actually see what tripped the line, call and tell the power company. I had one guy go off on me when I drove by him as he was waving his arms. He got in his vehicle and followed me to where I was closing the line. He wanted to know why the power was out. I yelled down at him it was a mylar balloon and he wanted to know how I knew that. I told him to look down at his feet where the balloon was still burning. He jumped about 2 feet in the air.

Best to keep your drone away from power lines, electrical substations, and power plants. It could be an expensive blunder to knock anything out of power not to mention creating a public safety issue.

 

[lookout]

Shocking! Simply shocking news!