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I thought the idea of Amazon Prime air drone delivery was a pretty cool one when it first came out and I started to question whether something like that (an autonomous gps guided vehicle) could possibly be created with the Arduino microcontroller(s). Any thoughts?

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    Is this your other question just worded slightly differently? If so, it would be better to ask one question, not two almost identical ones.
    – Nick Gammon ♦
    Commented Mar 21, 2016 at 23:10
  • @NickGammon uh oh, well as you can see im new here and I have no clue what caused me to submit it twice
    – user19489
    Commented Mar 21, 2016 at 23:27
  • You might really want to check out LIDAR applications. While extremely expensive, it's a superb way of checking your surroundings. (youtube.com/watch?v=nDkW_XuXQEM)
    – aaa
    Commented Mar 22, 2016 at 8:20

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GPS is not, by itself, enough to make an Amazon Prime-like delivery drone. GPS only provides a very rough position (thanks to the US Military imposing a large margin of error on non-military users, or so the urban legend goes (it's actually a difference in transmission systems that makes the difference)). It's good enough for getting you to your destination and working out roughly where you are, but getting to a specific pinpoint location just can't be done.

So you need other sensors as well. Things that can examine the environment and work out where you are in relation to other things. Especially people. Object avoidance is the critical component of any autonomous drone, and unless you can come up with a completely safe and foolproof system the FAA will be down on you like a ton of rectangular building blocks.

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Yes, someone (not me) has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-r2Jk0uA6U

I doubt it would work very well with non-flying vehicles - in the air, a 3 meter margin of error is fine, on the ground it's the difference between the sidewalk and the middle of the road.

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