I’m not sure it would be? Articulated arms are very heavy and need high-torque drives or messy hydraulics. The driven load is high. Drones are actually pretty efficient I think. I saw a paper showing they can be more efficient than trucks for deliveries under many conditions.
Conversation
Also it’s not apples to apples… arms would be tougher to control and slower. Here you get low-compute, higher-envelope 6dof.
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Ah found the study. Not definitive but suggestive.
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“An analysis of the GHG emissions of the fuel of each transportation mode shows that quadcopter drones and electric cargo bicycles are among the most efficient vehicles in terms of CO2e per km and a competitive alternative in terms of GHG emissions per package….
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“On the other hand, it is important to note that small drones are considerably limited in terms of weight and volume of the packages transported.”
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“Therefore, an analysis of the energy consumption and GHG emissions on a per metric ton-km basis shows that small drones are the most energy-intensive vehicles,”
Basically — good for small packages for small distances. Don’t try to move ton-size loads over km scales with drones
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Replying to
Yeah gravity is a bitch. I was shocked to learn (from smil’s “numbers don’t lie”) how efficient jumbo jets are. Uses similar energy per passenger mile to inefficient single passenger vehicles iirc.
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I never understood the physics, economics, or regulatory (noise and safety) basis for single passenger vtol. Seems ridiculous on the face of it. Am I wrong?
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Replying to
For passenger jets a lot of it is also logistics and unit-economics efficiencies (passenger-lb-mile costs fell like 40% in last half century iirc, much more than physics efficiency gains)
Small jet engines are less efficient I believe, though modern regional jets are very good
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Single passenger vtol… yeah rotorcraft are overall less efficient but possibly scale down better. Larger helos are real gas guzzlers.

