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Australia Idle

Hundreds of Drones Crash Into River During Display (abc.net.au) 86

Posted by EditorDavid from the droning-on dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader maxcelcat writes: A fleet of some 500 drives were performing a display over Melbourne's Docklands in the lead up to the FIFA Women's World Cup. About 350 of them didn't come back and are now being fished out of the Yarra River, no doubt somewhat worse for wear.

According to the operators, the drones experienced some kind of malfunction or loss of signal, which triggered a fail safe — an automated landing. So hundreds of drones landed safely... on the surface of a river!
One local newscaster called it "a spectacular malfunction" (in a report with a brief clip of the drones gently lowering themselves into the water).

The report also notes another drone company also once lost 50 drones in a river — worth tens of thousands of dollars — during a Christmas show.
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Hundreds of Drones Crash Into River During Display

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  • I mean, it makes sense for the old fireworks shows that are being supplanted by the drone shows... but I don't see what advantage there is to doing a drone show over water. I assume the drones are flying high enough that buildings aren't going to cause a line-of-sight issue.

    • > but I don't see what advantage there is to doing a drone show over water.

      Fish can't sue if a drone falls on them.

      "It's not like drones just fall out of the sky"

      See post title.

      • "It's not like drones just fall out of the sky"

        See post title.

        Why are you treating something you wrote yourself as a quote?

        Also, it's apparent you didn't read the summary. These drones didn't crash, they landed nicely... except the surface they tried to land on was water. Which is a big part of my point.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        That's my new band name: Fish Don't Sue

    • Because lots of people want a clear view, and they canâ(TM)t have it if you do it between a bunch of buildings.

    • You're asking that after drones crashed? That's like asking why airbags exist right after one saves you in an accident.

      • Re:Why over a river? (Score:5, Informative)

        by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday July 22, 2023 @06:14PM (#63707590)

        Except they didn't crash. Problem is, as with many Slashdot stories - the title is contradicted by the summary and article itself.

        The drones did a controlled, safe landing... just like they're supposed to do when they lose signal. Problem is, it was on the water.

        • But they can crash, and sometimes do.

        • Did they waterproof?

          • Re: Why over a river? (Score:5, Informative)

            by RockDoctor ( 15477 ) on Saturday July 22, 2023 @09:15PM (#63707804) Journal
            I doubt that it's physically impossible to make a drone waterproof, but it's probably difficult. Several holes in the body (rotors, battery retainer, and/ or cable, camera lens (or cable) ...

            How waterproof is an important subsidiary question. Proof against gentle rain (about IP 5.x - I'd have to check the definitions), dropping into walking depth water (IP 6.x), or to snorkelling depth (IP7+)? The answer to that is going to greatly affect how much these modifications weigh, and therefore how much volume any counteracting buoyancy would comprise. Which will affect the flight characteristics.

            Yeah - probably not impossible. Also probably work that you might do when designing a â10k professional drone for surveying, legal and filming work, but not for a â500 "keen amateur/ swarm of a thousand" type of work.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by irving47 ( 73147 )

              Not waterPROOF but surprisingly resistant. Check youtube for Peter Sripol or maybe Flight Test videos on the topic

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          That doesn't sound all that safe then. At least not for the drones. :-)

        • I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like hundreds of drones doing a "controlled, safe landing" on me.

        • just like they're supposed to do when they lose signal

          No. Just like the one of many options they were programmed today. Choices include: Hold in place until battery is low, land in place, or return to launch location. These options exist specifically because some people fly over water and it would be incredibly stupid to land in place when doing so.

    • I mean, it makes sense for the old fireworks shows that are being supplanted by the drone shows... but I don't see what advantage there is to doing a drone show over water.

      Plenty of reasons.

      Big cities aren’t known for open areas with good views. Water ensures an open area. Even if the drones are over the building level, which I doubt they are, a building would still be in the line of sight unless you were directly under them.

      Historical inertia. They held the fireworks there, so they’ve already worked with the rights-holders or others to make things like these work, and people know where to go to get the best spots.

      Water creates interesting reflections, which is pa

      • Why shouldn't they have flotation pads and self-recover?

        • Why shouldn't they have flotation pads and self-recover?

          Why indeed? And with that, the only downside goes away.

        • Weight? Manufacturing difficulty?

        • That would require either expensive and weighty self-inflation systems (and control systems - you don't want your buoyancy bag to inflate in the rain) which means fixed large volume bits of buoyancy foam, which means drag, which means reduced top speed and/ or battery life.

          A simple problem definition. Not so simple in the solution department.

          • I dunno. Seems like another problem that Pool Noodles can solve for us!

            • Until you want your drone to fly gracefully, in formation, without entangling 23 other drones in the formation, at maximum speed.

    • Its not the drones line of sight, its the audiences line of site.

      Many cities are built around water bodies. We had a similar thing happen here in Perth (Main West coast capital in Australia. Melbourne is on the East coast) where some 40 (therabouts) drone fell out the sky during a similar drone show over the swan river.

      Water bodies might not have quite the same safety necessity for Drones as they do for Fireworks (Although to be clear, a drone falling on your head is no trivial matter) but they ALSO provide

    • Three reasons:

      1. Australian government and insurance highly regulates drone usage. Flying over people and roads is highly problematic.

      2. They are not particularly high flying relative to surrounding buildings. The river provides the best unobstructed views and viewing platforms.

      3. Drones don't have to crash to be dangerous. Contact with a flying/landing drone typically causes serious injuries. The blades WILL cut you and those cuts will leave permanent scars.

      In summary, it's cheaper to lose a few hundred dr

  • In one of the videos of the event, the owner commented that it was "so windy" seems likely the wind caused accelerated battery drain and depleted it faster than expected.

  • Rehearsal (Score:3)

    by cstacy ( 534252 ) on Saturday July 22, 2023 @06:42PM (#63707628)

    Soon, this will be happening with flying cars.

    • Coming soon : the OceanQuest 2 - a flying car which don't need no steenkin; auto-land.

      Too soon? Naaah.

  • My drone will attempt to return to its GPS position of launch, if possible. Just descending straight down (even under control) isn't always a great idea.

    • Seems to me a simple solution is to give the drones a map of preferred landing areas throughout and surrounding the performance area. If it can't make it to the starting point it could try for a spot in the B, C, or D-rated areas, or just avoid Z, Y, W- rated ones.

      The map wouldn't need to be very high resolution, and algorithms to avoid the drones piling up on the sides of the safer polygons (using only pre-stored identity-based offset information to work without intra-swarm communication) should be simple

      • A really dumb drone swarm can safely be landed from a position within a defined safe perimeter by having all of them simply descending at a similar speed, which was the logic used here. If you want them to be able to land on specific points, then they have to be able to dodge one another while making a failsafe landing. But your failsafe might be constrained by any number of factors, like wanting to be sure that it can work even if a number of subsystems are not functioning.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      I watched a mate demonstrate this to me ten years ago. It was funny as hell because when he switched off his transmitter, we watched as his quadcopter ascended and speed off in an unexpected direction.
      He'd forgotten to change the "home" location from one he'd set a week before. Luckily he managed to halt the return-to-home procedure.

  • They are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement!

  • I can understand a science story published a week later, but this is what I'd call "old news" Get with it, editors.
    • Newer news says someone was jamming the signal from a Docklands residential tower.
    • Makes me think of the classic footage from Oregon (?) with the sound track of people's cars being smashed by lumps of whale meat landing on them like bags of wet cement.

      I forget when the original "We should've used less dynamite" event was, but it was before Douglas Adams had the crew of the Heart of Gold tiptoeing around the lumps of whale meat, and got a reprise in a whale stranding in the Western Isles a few days ago [slashdot.org]. Classic news reporting, a gift that keeps on giving [bbc.co.uk].

      I remember WKRP in Cinncinnatti a

  • The curse of 5g is upon us!

  • in the first sentence it says " fleet of some 500 drives were performing a display " i think you meant "drones" not drives? if i'm wrong, keep it up, but if im right, just fix it and delete my comment :) :)
    • lol I literally just made an account now, even though I've browsed slashdot for years, to correct a noun issue. well now I'm here and you can all know me I guess? xD

    • Maybe the editor's browser was doing spell-correct rather than just misspell-highlight.

  • Hard drives?

    Good work.
  • Fireworks accidents were 1000x more fun than this lame shit.
  • Well, at least nobody got hurt. You know the kinds of stories we get when a fireworks display goes horribly wrong?

    • Yep. I was at a fireworks display in Marysville that got a bit too sketchy for me, so my girlfriend and I bailed. And a couple minutes after we left, a girl's leg got blown off. Drones are potentially pretty dangerous too, but there's relatively little danger of removal of limbs.

  • drop me in the water.
  • In my era (80s) - the saying about the Yarra was "too thick to drink, too thin to plough". Surely the drones would have floated?

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