This is how the fences in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age work. The drones fly in a honeycomb pattern and are recharged in a mesh network with a few base stations flying around. Whenever a drone has a low battery it steals some power from its nearest neighbor, so the power gets diffused through the network without any of the drones needing to move out of position. If I recall correctly they just bunch up and push you away if you try to walk through them, but otherwise don't obstruct the view. Pretty fun stuff. :)

Pretty good, but also quite niche. I think many people who build fences are not doing it just to keep things out, but also to keep things in, mark territory, provide security against more than just deer, aesthetics, etc.

However, on the fence industry, I could see a shake-up of fence estimation software. Perhaps one that uses ML to take the data necessary for an estimation (geographic data based on asker's location + parameters, materials & prices needed for the job, labor, etc) and create an estimation at the click of a button rather than from human input and calculations? Could help to bring your fence cost down (marginally, but still).

My dad was in this business his whole life, and said the software in the industry right now is shite. Ripe for disruption.

I knew a guy who made a shitload of money with a software program he wrote for carpet stores/installers to optimize cutting different carpet pieces to minimize waste.

It sounds simple and boring, but if you can save people a lot of money, they don't mind sharing it with you.

I remember when I was a catastrophe insurance adjuster, I used Xactimate. It was pretty great at the time, but I think the underlying tech (i.e. getting material pricing) could be greatly improved, especially dealing with things like shortages and increased prices due to demand spikes.

In Norway we have sheep roaming the mountains in summer....and wolves. How many wolves to kill is a huge political issue. Government reimburses sheep killed by wolves.

Building fences around the areas is basically impossible. But I hope some day drone-shepherds can do the job.

This would be cool but then the debate remains almost the same, just how many wolves can the drone guarding the sheep shoot, a wolf has got to eat so some programmers got to randomize a few 'look the other way' actions in.

The thought of the drone shooting didn't even cross my mind. No way anyone would approve military equipment roaming the mountains like that. What if it shot a human?

I was thinking flashlights and sounds to scare them off.

If sheep have evolved to have drone guards, then wolves will just have to feast on deer, elk, and whatnot, until they join forces with the eagles and hawks to take down the drones.

The nice thing about this idea, is that even if it flops you get to have a lot of fun flying drones around!

My grandmother was pretty "anti-tech", and thought that e-mail was just a passing fad, but I think that even she would have tried this if it meant her flowers would have been spared by the deer.

This is kind of already being done by Sunflower Labs. https://sunflower-labs.com/

I was wondering when the "attach guns" part comes up. Wasn't disappointed :-)

Invisible Fence is a fantastic product that gives great value to many people. Seems to me that this could be the same. Note that Invisible Fence offers expertise in install, dog training, etc, over and above the DIY kits.

We recently put a deer fence around about a half acre and it was not inexpensive.

Another upside is that this would be reconfigurable. And there'd be a ton of ML-extractable insights for customer and the company.

PS: Skimming, I originally read the intent as "a fence to keep drones out", which is funny.

mmh ...too much noise pollution. Mammals will learn quickly to visit the area at night.

When I read this, I first thought you meant a fence for keeping drones in (or out). Maybe it zaps them when they get too close. Another idea for OP.

A turret or two seems more practical: http://pyvideo.org/pycon-us-2012/militarizing-your-backyard-...