How Google's Wing Drone Delivery Aircraft Works

How Google's Wing Drone Delivery Aircraft Works

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hey everyone it's norm from tested here and  we are on location we're going to a location   for a shoot today and i think it hopefully  it'll be a cool place one of the technologies   we've been covering at tested for the past decade  is the emergence of drone technology like hobby   rc drones you know from companies like dji and  alongside that fast-paced development has also   been the question of when we might see drones in  commercial spaces for things like drone delivery   one of the companies working on drone delivery  is google with their spin-off wing we saw a few   of their prototypes at maker faires in years past  uh but i didn't realize they actually have been   making drone deliveries today they're actually  in the field in places and cities in australia   and east coast in the us shipping people coffee  lunch tylenol you name it what we're going to   today is one of their test facilities south of  san francisco where they run their aircraft that   they've developed to make sure it's safe and  to test the platform that they've developed and   we're going to hopefully check out that aircraft  learn about the prototypes that got them there   and check out what it means to have delivery not  in a you know two day window same day delivery but   in a same hour delivery time frame so hopefully a  little bit of that future that we've been promised so now here with adam woodworth adam we met  before testing viewers actually may recognize   some of your projects uh they've gone viral some  of your rc personal projects but your day job you   are the cto of wing yeah yeah i i've been involved  in aviation my whole life and uh you know whether   it's on the hobby side or on the professional  side um i just really like flying things um and   designing things yeah and here you're designing  you and your team have worked on many iterations   of design uh that have now are now in the field  that's a thing that like blew my mind you guys   have not only at this facility done the tests  but people are getting a real delivery so i want   to kind of hear about from the technical side in  the aircraft design side how you got to this point   where did you start one of the the main drivers  here is uh you know at the forefront sort of the   safety of the operation so you know when you're  flying things you really want to make sure that   those things are reliable they're safe they have  a low impact on the community or operating over   and so most of the design elements on this system  are sort of built to meet that goal if you look   at this plane sort of as a as a aircraft designer  this isn't sort of what i would normally think of   as as like what a plane should look like but it  really is is the outcome of all of those design   constraints um you know at the most fundamental  level uh we're basically like if you took a   you know normal multi-rotor you know quadcopter  and sort of smooshed it together with a regular   airplane so we can take off uh vertically hover  like a helicopter and then these rotors up front   we'll turn on and we accelerate up to sort of  flying speed the hover motors turn off and we   can cruise efficiently on the wing there and  that vitol design gets you the benefits of that   vertical takeoff so you can deploy not necessarily  with a big runway um and take advantage of all   the modernization of the the electronic speed  controllers the things in the drone world rc hobby   world but also the efficiencies of when you're  flying fixed wings yeah so you know the wing   lets you go further farther faster and you know  the hovering system lets you get into you know it   lets you sort of drop off a package in somebody's  backyard where you wouldn't you know you wouldn't   be able to sort of come in and circle and land um  the other the other element of this is that you're   you're basically carrying around a spare airplane  with you all the time so if you think about you   know i'm flying around as a plane and one of these  servos brakes or one of these motor brakes or you   know a part of the tail brakes you have a whole  second airplane with you so you can slow down   hover over like a helicopter right um and and you  sort of have you have implicit redundancy in the   configuration are both systems operating ever  at the same time like when it's in a glide mode   are you using you know the rotors that are  for the vtol so under under sort of uh under   normal operating conditions they sort of operate  independently so uh you know once we get up to   cruise speed the whole hover system will turn off  and then you know all of your roll pitch and yaw   commands will come from these aerodynamic surfaces  uh there's a there's an interesting period between   when you're hovering like a helicopter and you're  flying like a plane where all these things have to   be working together um but the one of the benefits  of having this sort of configuration is that   you have uh you have you have a very over actuated  robot so like if you think about like you have   these six degrees of freedom you can move around  in and normally you have sort of actuation degrees   of freedom you have you know 12 hover motors  that can all generate forces you have four cruise   motors they can all generate forces you have four  control surfaces that can all generate forces so   there's a there's a sort of a very interesting and  complex allocation problem here of let's say this   control surface isn't working right you have a  bunch of other actuators on the system that could   sort of lend a hand to make that happen and that's  that's sort of you know one of the underlying   philosophies of our whole design is this sort of  like graceful degradation of performance if you   have any sort of fault so let's say this breaks  or you have a motor that breaks or you know you   have a sensing problem you want the system to sort  of gracefully adapt to that degraded condition and   sort of you know just keep like be you know just  keep operating and that's just a natural benefit   of the design of going for a vtol design which  sounds like something your team knew you wanted   to do at the beginning but like you said this  is configuration isn't what you would normally   think of when you're as an aircraft designer  but going back to like your earlier prototypes   that looks like a traditional fixed swing so  yeah is this where you started yeah so this is   this is um one of the places we started back in  around 2014 and this was called a tail sitter   design so basically the the hover system is  the same as the the forward flight system   um so you know you take off in this orientation  and then to go in the cruise like an airplane   you tilt over 90 degrees and accelerate out  well you lose some of that redundancy but the   one that was so some of the issues here are you  know you you don't have that sort of inherent   redundancy in the configuration and you also have  to you have to size this propulsion system for   both cruise and hover efficiency so like those  are from a from airplane design perspective   those are very different sort of performance  regions um the requirements for a hovering   system are usually much different than the both  the power requirements and sort of the efficiency   trades that you have when you're cruising and  so for a configuration like that on the vital   side where you have a sort of separate lift  and thrust setup you can optimize each one   for their their relative environments and then  that transition part that's where the yeah and   magic happens yeah and one of the one of the sort  of other benefits of going to uh the configuration   we have now is that the transition event is one  of the sort of more dynamic events in vital flight   so you know for something like this you know  you have to pitch over 90 degrees all of your   you know the sensor sort of orientations  change the orientation the package changes   um it's a relatively dynamic maneuver uh for  for a configuration like we're flying today you   more or less just sort of accelerate so if you  think about you have sort of like an infinitely   long runway now um that's up in the sky and the  plane can just sort of you know it can take its   time to get up to speed where we're going we  don't need roads yeah there's no you know you   don't have to change the orientation of the gps  antenna you don't have to worry about you know   is the is the vision system that's helping with  navigation does that need to change orientation   and you know for a lot of the things that  we're carrying a lot of is prepared food   um you don't want like right you know you don't  want your coffee cup to have to do a 90 degree   coordinate transform or build in something like  a gimbal storage system and to go from there to   this configuration yeah is it simulations in cad  yeah a lot of it you know uh i always joke that   the the way that you design airplanes is spending  a lot of time you know drawing all the airplanes   you're never going to build yeah um so you  really do sort of you know go to the whiteboard   and everybody sort of puts up their post-it notes  of like well what if it looked like this what if   it you know had 50 rotors you know 12 what if it  you know what if it changed shape what if you had   multiple airplanes like there's there's all these  you sort of fully exploit the design space and   then you start applying some of the operational  constraints to it so you know an example of that   would be like okay well we want the we want the  package to maintain a fixed orientation so you   can take a bunch of the concepts you've drawn  and then you can sort of push them off the side   uh you want we want redundancy and hover so you  can take a lot of the the components that you know   can't absorb a propulsion system you can push them  off the side and eventually just sort of on first   principles you can narrow down the design space  from you know something that looks like there's   thousands of options into just a handful that you  can go and do sort of the deeper math trades on   like for this system in particular um you  know a lot of the design work was around   you know having the margins to be able to absorb  system failures so if you if you think about if   you think about a you know a regular camera drone  like a regular quadcopter if you lose one motor   um it's very hard to maintain sort of attitude  and enroll pitching control um for something   like this if you if you lose one motor you have a  bunch of other motors to make up for it but there   are some combinations where um you know even if  you're even if you have six motors you you might   be able to lose one and still maintain steady low  flight but you can't complete the mission um we   found in a lot of the design trades the the sort  of reliability case closed around eight motors so   so eight hover motors would be sufficient uh to  you know absorb a propulsion system failure or   sort of 80 percent more here that's a good sweet  spot and the the interesting trade uh that we   discovered was uh you know you're you're designing  sort of primarily to the the safety and redundancy   uh target but then you know since you're offering  a commercial service a cost is a large element   um and sort of general complexity of  the build becomes a large element of it   and by going from eight up to twelve motors  uh you can shrink the size of the motors so   you can use uh you know less expensive materials  for the the lift rotors like these don't have to   be carbon fiber they need to be plastic um it  also moves you into a size of motor that's uh   much more popular in the hobby space so you have  the sort of volumes of production scale there that   affect the cost there and uh you know in our  case uh the smaller routers we don't have to   we don't have to position a line in any particular  orientation so if you had if you had a big   rotor on here and you wanted to stop it to hover  it's acting like a little wing yeah and that can   cause a lot of drag and i can also sort of make  the controls problem harder so by going by going   from eight up to twelve it let us shrink all  the individual propulsion system elements and   in many ways like be able to ignore some  of the second order problems and then you   describe this as having like two flight systems  one basically two airplanes in one physical   design but then you're also carrying a payload  a payload that's not attached to the body it's   hanging right at us at a set length at the turbine  length with a package can you talk about how that   factors into the flight characteristics and the  design of this yeah so this is um this is a this   this box in of itself is a very interesting design  case study um so you know where the the airplane   on its own is about four and a half kilos and the  the package is about another kilo and a half so   you know a third of this weight is in here so if  you look at sort of normal payload fractions for   a hovering thing that's that's a lot of weight  to be carrying around um and it's also it's also   relatively big compared to to the airplane like  if you look at this like the size of it compared   to the wing this is a lot of surface area to be  dragging around um for all those reasons we went   to an external payload so if you think about it uh  if you size the fuselage to carry this inside you   you carry that drag throughout the whole fight  um in our case like we're dropping off the box   so if you carried on the outside you only need  to take that that drag penalty on the way there   and you can fly back as a sort of cleaner smaller  airplane um but carrying it on the outside makes   this sort of part of the airplane with all the  vector forces yeah so you know all the loads   that all these other parts of the plane have to  take this has to take as well and this also can't   impart sort of any strange forces on the plane  um so everything about sort of the shape of the   box the construction box is all to address that  and if you look at it sort of from the front it   it it forms a relatively aerodynamic shape not  you know it's a super aerodynamic shape but   um relatively so and because we don't control  the orientation that goes up into the bottom of   the plane it needs to be symmetric so that like if  you design this this nice sort of aerodynamic body   one way and then it locks the other way right  you might have some problems um additionally   you know the assembly of the box needs to be  relatively straightforward um you know this is   part of you know as we as we sort of partner with  merchants as we as we carry other folks goods this   is like part of their their operation so they're  you know having these things at the restaurant   somebody's gonna put together um you gotta make  sure that when you put it together it will still   fit into the airplane um it can't take up a lot  of space um so there's a there's an interesting   uh sort of paper folding problem associated with  all this of how do you get the shape to fold flat   to fold open to be rigid when it's connected and  to fit up into the bottom of the airplane it's   a combination of aircraft design and packaging  yeah yeah it's one it's a very interesting one do so i'm here with tony who's a flight test engineer  who runs the flight testing operations here   tony this is where you and team have been running  test non-stop for the past couple months um to   to get certification from faa that's right  that's right we set up this facility actually   about a year and a half ago and spent most  of 2020 preparing for type certification   which required us to do uh over a thousand  flight hours in in multiple cycles with our   aircraft system here and so this was set up to  help facilitate that and then earlier this year   we operated the system uh through the end  of the the type certification requirements   and were uh able to uh produce the outcomes that  we wanted so what i saw earlier today was an   example of what would have been going on with the  aircraft landing taking off having these the dummy   the packages that were sent you know a kilometer  away or so which is is that representative of   what a deployment in the field looks like it's you  know in australia or virginia where you have this   is it somewhat like this with these pads that are  for charging but also with these giant qr codes   that what it is it is it is uh while you know we  don't have residential neighborhoods around here   we've designed this to be as representative  as possible so the distances that we have   the infrastructure that's in place a lot of  this mimics what our situation looks like   in the production environments in australia so  up to this is 50 aircraft but it could scale   right it could be smaller it could be bigger  their space this much apart give me a sense of   what that cycle looks like what what is this  aircraft doing now and what does it do you   know in that cycle of takeoff and landing sure so  it's obviously on the chart or on the charging pad   right now this is where it's uh being charged  up the batteries that are inside the aircraft   and then once a customer places an order uh the  aircraft receives a mission to begin its its uh   delivery mission to this customer and so it'll  take off from the charging pad it will go and meet   the merchant at a specified location where the  merchant loads the package onto the aircraft the   aircraft then travels to the customer's front yard  backyard wherever it may be delivers the package   and then returns home to charge again wow so  up to two stops right going to the merchant uh   with the operational range of how many miles  or kilometers uh we're looking at 10 to 15   kilometers or so okay so that's that's pretty  good and also that gives you a sense of like   distance from merchant uh a user an end user of  like what type of speedy delivery they're looking   for right the same half hour delivery time frame  um and it's charging for how long typically uh   charging depends on how far it flies so if it does  a very short mission then obviously charging time   is less but um generally we're looking at anywhere  of uh 10 to 30 minutes or so wow and at the scale   like i think the thing that we're bearing lead  is it's all autonomous right like you have people   watching the computer systems that run this uh  but they're the missions are sent via back end   and up to these 50 of these aircraft here are  all independently going on those missions that's   correct and it's it's really strange to to think  about this because as the pilot in command you're   responsible for all these aircraft but you're not  actually flying them right so being a man pilot   switching into the you know autonomous space was a  bit of a a shift that took a while to get used to   but now that we're here it just makes a lot of  sense it's much safer it's much more efficient   and ultimately i think this is the way that  we scale these types of operations is there   any way to directly tap into these aircraft for  direct you know rc control no it's so for for   the production operations which would be our in  our business environments there's no way to tap   into the aircraft itself we're here at a test  facility so we do have some extra capabilities   here and some of our aircraft you may have seen  have a little rc receiver on them and that is   for if we need to do any type of overrides  while we're doing specific test campaigns   and then kind of how aware are these aircraft  of each other in the other sensors on them   that allow them to know what's around them  outside of just the fiducial markers or is it all   telemetry so there are some sensors on board the  aircraft that allow it to understand the world   around it it could see trees it can see obstacles  but when it's in the air it's not aware of other   wing drones as it's flying and all of that  is managed by our backend system where it's   able to plan all the different routes and  keep everything deconflicted that sounds   like that's one of the big like technology  hurdles is creating that flight controller   system what would be an air traffic controller  but for a you know a scalable number of drones   yeah and actually i had my undergrad in air  traffic management and so it's really cool   to be in the space where you know commercial  aviation has manned traffic uh air traffic   control where here it's fully autonomous and you  can imagine a world where maybe our air traffic   control system could expand and potentially  provide benefit to other airspace cases   so brandon tell me a little bit about  the the way these aircraft are controlled   what's the system like that runs them the  system when someone orders something the system   takes that order and when the merchant is ready  to load the package flight path is automatically   created so our systems take into account the  aircraft's capabilities the geospatial knowledge   in the flight area any airspace restrictions or  any other limitations in the exact flight area   and a four-dimensional path is generated  so that's three dimensions in space and   then the other dimension is time right and those  volume reservations are like the contract between   the unmanned traffic management system and  the airplane and the airplane flies within   that reservation volume to deliver your package  and all these reservation volumes are actually   usually unique each order creates a custom plan  that's optimal for that time and place to get that   package to you and that's taking consideration  everything else going on in your system   yes you know what other flights the  things that may need to get prioritized   uh you're saying there's information that's  hard coded in terms of maybe geography   is weather or something that's factored in yeah we  take into account the the weather and the winds um   because the airplane does fly uh in airspeed um  to get to deliver the package so depending on   if there's a headwind or tailwind those timings  could be different but we take all of that into   account and getting to the point where the system  works you're taking like the basically what a air   flight traffic controller would be doing on their  day-to-day job but applying it to maybe go you   know this this these parameters for delivery  yeah and it's fully fully autonomous right and   we've created the the algorithms um and the system  to test and evaluate those algorithms is actually   quite expansive we do millions of simulations  every single day and we have other algorithms that   can look at that data and look at the optimality  of of our software to make sure that if there's   any issues then we can fix them pretty quickly  is it fundamentally a closed system and that it's   your your aircraft information that it's factoring  in or other external other telemetry that you're   also considering we've built we've built the  system from the ground up uh to be interoperable   with other unmanned traffic management systems um  so in the industry there's a drive towards having   these uh service suppliers that can supply  unmanned traffic management solutions and we have   the capability to share those four-dimensional  reservations with other systems so we can all   deconflict together is that a trend that that  industry is moving toward like yeah we see this i   see it working reliably right now for delivery but  is that not just scalable number of aircraft but   size and type of aircraft and this fundamentally  this type of system is what how aircraft how the   skies will be kind of traffic controlled going  forward yeah exactly you know we really view   drone delivery is a new form of transportation  and i think uh there's going to be many many   use cases that we haven't even contemplated and we  all need to be able to share the airspace together   to really bring this new this new  form of transportation to everyone we think of traditional delivery  services using vehicles right they   work on existing infrastructure there's an  understanding between community and you know   in government and regulation of what that is here  it's a lot of new ground or air right so what   is that like to work with different countries  or different communities yeah and having them   understand that airspace becomes part of that you  know delivery experience yeah i think there's a um   i think that the way that you framed it is it  really is a new thing right so it's it's a new   bit of that infrastructure and um you know we  try to really respect that right like you're   introducing something fundamentally new um you  don't want it to be disruptive you want it to be   additive to the experience um so you know we do we  do a lot of community outreach before we go into   an area to offer the service um we do a lot of  sort of surveying of the folks who you know are   the are the relative few on the planet who are  getting to sort of experience this in reality   like the feedback of sort of what people are  experiencing is really important helps feed   into uh what the next versions of stuff like this  will look like um and i think generally you know   i always look at like reality is the ultimate  cure for the what-ifs so when you have when   you have an industry you have a technology  that the idea of has existed for so long   like there's a lot of time to imagine all  the things that might happen there's a lot   of time to sort of like you know plan out all the  scenarios of like oh well this is what it'll look   like or these are the risks or you know this is  this is what scaled operations will look like   but once you actually do it like once  you actually go and see it in operation   all of that becomes clear like you start  to see sort of what the real trends are   what where the real risks are where the real  risks aren't um and it lets you sort of you know   fundamentally reframe the problem so i'm sure one  of the questions people have is when is this going   to be in their part of the world you know where  does this make sense where do you as companies   think this makes the most sense uh and what does  deployment look like when you reach places outside   where you're testing currently yeah so um you know  you've seen the test site today but you know this   this is a reality for a number of communities uh  you know across the globe right now um we've got   operations uh in two cities in australia uh in  in finland and in uh on the east coast in the us   and you know the the delivery experience is uh  you know for it for an average customer it's   not that much different than you know any of the  other sort of on-demand delivery services where   it's just sort of become a part of their daily  life um so you know you we've got a we've got a   little marketplace application you pull it out you  say hey you know i want this coffee or i'd like   this you know we sell a lot of full roast chickens  i want this chicken um and uh you know you go   through the checkout and you know unlike uh unlike  a regular delivery service we present a couple of   different options for you know where would you  like the box delivered so um you know it'll say   it'll look at a a bunch of constraints around  you know what the aircraft needs to be able to   you know sort of get from the environment in order  to drop off the box but basically if you've got   about a 10-foot diameter circle somewhere in your  yard the the plane will be able to go and leave   the box there so it's not like predetermined  group share drop-off points it really   is it's really a gps base your backyard  yeah it's it's totally sort of you know   like a zero infrastructure solution and and  in many ways like a sort of a planning free   solution so you know if if if that video property  happens to meet those set of constraints to get   the plane in the plane will come and you know  it'll come drop off your box and you know the   whole experience might take you know 30 or 40  seconds and the plane's gone and you've got you   know whatever whatever things you're interested  in getting um you know we're doing right now   you know there's on the order of like a flight  every 30 seconds or so somewhere on the planet   where somebody's getting that reality of  drone delivery um the cool part for me   is you know having i've liked aviation forever  um but aviation is a somewhat rare experience   right like you think about you know when was  last time you know a lot of people like you   you remember the first time you flown a plane uh  if you ask somebody the same question about when   the first time you drove in a car it's like like  like automobiles have been like fully normalized   like it's just like it's just part of sort of the  day-to-day life um and the cool part here is that   we're doing the same thing with aviation like  you're taking that experience of aviation which   was previously a very rare experience and it's  like for those pockets of the the globe right   now it's it's it's part of the everyday um and  i think it's a it's a you know it's a great way   to introduce people to aviation it's also like  you know it's offering a very valuable service   that you know in comparison to any other form of  transportation you know is fundamentally better   for the environment fundamentally safer you  know we target we target levels of safety for   moving the box as being literally safer than  any other way you could move that box so you   know compared to picking up the box and walking  down the sidewalk like having the drone bring it   is actually like a net increase in in the safety  of the whole ecosystem um and so it's cool to see   you know having having spent the majority of my  career in this space it's cool to see it starting   to become a reality in these these these parts  of the world um and you know our hope is that   those parts of the world expand and there's more  more places where people are experiencing this um   and that's why we're you know we're continuing to  refine the capabilities we're continuing to build   out the test infrastructure and and really trying  to sort of you know prove at all levels that   you know this is something that makes sense this  is something that is safe to operate this is   something that is sort of a net positive wherever  we we happen to bring it thank you so much adam   and your team for inviting us out here to check  that out it's really amazing what you guys have   done and to see how far it's come since we started  seeing glimpses of these at places like maker yeah   yeah i remember i was probably three or four years  ago now i remember showing you all around a plane   that didn't really look like this yet no one  could talk about it no no no you couldn't say   anything about it but you know i think one of the  one of the cool things is that like you know you   can you can go on youtube right now and you can  see videos that are like shot by customers like   people who are actually experiencing it it's not  it's sort of outside of that that demonstration   space now it's really it's starting to  become a real part of everybody's lives so that was really really neat and i think  the thing that was maybe the most surprising   was how how much it all just kind of worked i  mean the fact that this is as a technology that   they've been working for for the past 10 years has  gotten to a point where it's it's out in the field   and you can get standing the middle of that  deployment facility 50 aircraft launching   and landing was kind of like that a little  bit of that magic of technology that we love   a couple takeaways i had though one you know the  the engineering they've done into the aircraft   from the prototypes to what they ended up with  incredibly amazing an amount of thoughtfulness   things that i never thought or knew they  had to consider from the packaging design to   you know even the hook right that how how it  hooks onto the package all that seems to be   stuff they've been really smart and integrated  on but maybe more importantly is that back end   that software and the algorithms that they've made  that platform for autonomously controlling a fleet   of aircraft doing the job that an air traffic  controller would be doing but on an airport   that doesn't need to look like a traditional  airport a drone port that can be shipped in   a shipping container and put up and remotely  controlled over the cloud that's going to be   technology that's going to be not only essential  as i now realize for drone deliveries but also   for any type of autonomous vehicles when we think  about the dream of flying cars or even airplanes   in the future has could have applications  there and then finally there's what adam   said at the end that really stuck with me which  is what they're doing isn't just you know making   the science fiction reality uh the science  fiction world the reality in the technology but   in the practice and that's the most important  part you know as engineers they can invent   the technology to make this work from a  technical standpoint but none of it matters   unless it makes sense and it's practical in  the real world and that's gonna have to be   a harder thing for i think for them to uh to get  over uh the communities uh accepting drones in   the sky i think they've already had feedback  about you know what the drones sound like as   they're flying and making these deliveries because  when we think of drone deliveries it's not just   getting into remote farmers or to remote people  who live you know off the beaten path but they're   talking about getting people real items in their  backyards and to make drone deliveries as common   as your doordash or your uber uh and for that  to happen i think they still have a little bit   ways to go in both the regulation and  also in both in in terms of the acceptance   in society uh but good luck to them and thank  them for inviting us out there to check out this   tech and as novel as it may seem to me and to you  their hope is that it becomes really commonplace

2021-10-29 02:30

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