Item — HN Reader

I'm just wondering if technically and economically we're at the point where we can use drone for each runner from start to finish? Or at least for people who wants it. ("I'm not a cheater, I'll show you")

I think the tech for self-navigating drone that follows a person is already mature?

3 comments

The number of participants in many/most marathons would make this an economic and safety nightmare - better would be more checkpoints (perhaps every 1Km) with good video coverage of the runners passing them.

Definitely. I can imagine the sky above a major race almost turning dark as 40,000 drones hover overhead. Sounds very unrealistic (and horrible). More static cameras would suffice. And GPS watch data where available.

Drones are noisy as hell. You'll have to outfit everyone with hearing protection if there's hundreds or thousands of them for hours on end.

This could make marathons entertaining for a change?

Drones are still expensive. There is an easier way though, just run with a GPS watch provided by someone else. That's what an honest runner with results too hard to believe would do.

"Ok guys, I get why you don't believe my results, it's natural to be suspicious. Please give me a GPS tracker, I will run with it to prove nothing shady is going on" is not that hard to arrange unless you're actually cheating.

Gps can be fooled: pass the device on. There are other methods, but harder to do if tge device isn't yours.

Video/ photo every xkm would be better. Especially as eta (at a checkpoint) can be fairly accurately er...estimated.

these drones would need 3+ hours of battery life

you could daisy chain them, swapping them in/out

Then use a predator drone ;)