this idea is heavily inspired by a proposal to make oil tankers more energy efficient by reducing the sloshing of shippoed oil by using air bags to keep the liquid in place.
For large volume mailers like amazon and USPS there is a risk that packages will tumble if not stored correctly, this is part of the reason why amazon sends you a large box with not much inside sometimes, instead of mailing empty boxes through the full lifecycle, instead have an air sac that would fill into hold packages in place. For the airbag solution for fuel tankers, a single large bladder is used to fill the entire volume of the tank, which works as the liquid would be all at one level (assuming the tanker was on flat ground). The packages would be a more complicated affair, the collection of boxes would invariably be uneven, and would therefore require a more complicated airbag system. At this time it would be difficult to say what the final design would be, but the technologies of softrobotics could be a cool place to start (or maybe I just really like the tech).
One approach that might be used would be a grid of air bags that would expand themselves to create an inverse of the topology of ther boxes being shipped. The grid pattern is unlikely to perfectly secure the items being shipped, but it would be better than just a hope and a prayer.
For large volume mailers like amazon and USPS there is a risk that packages will tumble if not stored correctly, this is part of the reason why amazon sends you a large box with not much inside sometimes, instead of mailing empty boxes through the full lifecycle, instead have an air sac that would fill into hold packages in place. For the airbag solution for fuel tankers, a single large bladder is used to fill the entire volume of the tank, which works as the liquid would be all at one level (assuming the tanker was on flat ground). The packages would be a more complicated affair, the collection of boxes would invariably be uneven, and would therefore require a more complicated airbag system. At this time it would be difficult to say what the final design would be, but the technologies of softrobotics could be a cool place to start (or maybe I just really like the tech).
One approach that might be used would be a grid of air bags that would expand themselves to create an inverse of the topology of ther boxes being shipped. The grid pattern is unlikely to perfectly secure the items being shipped, but it would be better than just a hope and a prayer.
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