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MIT's Acrobatic Helicopter
YourHero writes: "MIT has a new toy, a remotely-piloted helicopter that's agile, stable, and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat and reconnaisance and surveying disaster sites. Oh, and it's also good for aerial photography. It's so good that it even does 360-degree aileron rolls at the flick of a switch. The release gives some basics, videos and other juice are here.
This cost $40k, excluding labor, because technically, student labor is "priceless" - so a nod to Kara Sprague, Alex Shterenberg, Ioannis Martinos, Bernard Mettler, and Vlad Gavrilets, who probably provided most of the labor. Stringfellow Hawk has not been reached for comment."
[HUMOR]
Though I wouldn't want one of these for an evac chopper.... Some things just can't be replaced.
[END HUMOR]
-Space for rent
Oh, and it's also good for aerial photography.
... anywhere (bow chika bow wow!))
How long until someone starts selling these with some stupid pop-up ad campagin, a la X-10 cams.
(Works
They should take this concept vehicle and do a demo for the DOD. The military has been experimenting for a good while on unmanned spy vehicles (some really far out stuff, if anyone saw the TLC show on it) and a vehicle like this that is so lightweight and agile as well as being able to take nifty pictures would be a real bonus to them.
Sent from your iPad.
Yet despite all of the physics and scientific perfection...
;)
...there is still no Helicopter Ejection Seat
------
Today's Top Deals
... and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat ...
you people are scary.
Now I can easily move my storm troopers and GI Joe's into battle without risk of a human pilot falling into harms way!
And if they think that this thing will make it cheaper, they are in for a shock. Budgets on movies that can afford aerial shots are large enough that hiring professional cameramen and helicopter pilots is not an issue.
The main usage of these is air shows. Even for the military, there isn't much need for a maneuverable drone. What they need are fast drones that are very expendable. These things are way too complicated to be useful in the near term.
Stringfellow Hawk has not been reached for comment
untill this thing can go mach one and lift ernest borgnine, i really doubt stringfellow hawk will need to comment...
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
I don't know if it has ever been done on a helicopter per sae, but there have been ejection seats that went out the _bottom_ of the aircraft.
:)
I think the F102 (or one of the other supersonic, large-single-vertical-fin fighters) had one of these.
Just don't pull the handle during taxi.
DG
http://streetmodified.org/books.html
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
> in the current public mood, perfect for urban > combat and reconnaisance and surveying disaster > sites. Oh, and it's also good for aerial > photography. So it's also good for surveying targets, dropping chemical/biological/nerve agents, and photographing the results. Maybe /bin/laden guys will even hack it to email al jazeera with exclusive footage.
If you actually read the article, you'd seen this:
Small, agile, robotic helicopters could provide a new means of military reconnaissance or weapons delivery in mountainous, urban and other challenging terrain off-limits to larger aircraft and too dangerous for manned aircraft. They could fly at low altitude in tight spaces between skyscrapers or locate a terrorist's cave in the mountains, sending live images to an aircraft carrier or to bombers in flight.
Obviously, this could have been quite useful in the mountanous terrain where Al-Qaeda might have been hiding.
This quote from the article is probably the most important piece of information. The last decade has seen so massive advancements in our understanding of nonlinear dynamics and how they can be applied to engineered systems. Problems with traditionaly engineering approaches are that we often have to assume nonlinear systems (i.e. everything in the real world) are "linear about a point". While this is fine for some problems, like automobile suspension systems, it's just not sufficient for tasks like control complex airflow, predicting weather patterns, or driving robots across uneven systems.
As nonlinear analysis techniques become more and more prominent in engineering design, we'll start to see more and more of these technologies which can accomplish extremely difficult technical challenges.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
They expect that military-capable versions will be producible for about 1/4 the price tag of the Predator. Thus, these are arguably far more expendable, as opposed to "way more complicated".
Further, while professional cameramen and helo pilots may be affordable to big movies, they simply aren't capable of some of the maneuvers these little things can make. They're not a cheaper replacement for a professional cameraman and pilot, they're a better replacement (which may be cheaper too).
Now that would be a cool thing to hack!
I'm a concientious
Or maybe it's because you're posting off topic anonymous comments to stories, you fucking bitch.
Slashdot, The Official MIT Newsletter. MIT Lab stuff, Get an MIT education, more MIT, and cripes, oh looky, a bit more MIT here too. In fact, why doesn't Slashdot just sponsor all of us to attend there, so we can all be included in a nice clicky in-group? Ah yes, that's right - It's for SPECIAL people only. And that is why it is continously mentioned! To make all the non-MIT people feel inferior. Nice one Slashdot!
Check out the IARC competition website. There are teams' webpages linked from there, too. My school (UT Austin) is planning its first ever entry for the 2002 competition. .60 Gas Graphite by Miniature Aircraft USA).
The task this year is to fly 3 kilometers along 4 waypoints, identify a building and an open entrance on the building, deploy a subvehicle (not necessary, but practically necessary) through the entrance, and have the subvehicle return reconaissance to the judges 3km away.
Many people opt to use R/C helicopters and modify them (we are using an XCell
Just in case you don't know who he is.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I used to fly radio controlled helicopters, they can be had for alot less around $1000-$1500 with full aerobatic capability check out http://www.acehobby.com/products/helicopter/index. html
the Raptor 30 is an excellent model to start with
If you hadn't blanked your email on those submissions, someone would have sent you a message saying WHY your submissions were getting rejected.
In any rate, thanks for your dilligence. We have the story already. You can stop submitting it, now. ;-)
And we're gonna paint 'em black, too! Muahahahaha!
Best Slashdot Co
Sandwiches and pizza slices, delivered to your window (just watch out for the blades).
Man, would you guys please fix the page widening posts? Just make a limit of 2 nested block quote tags or something.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
And for all you open source nuts who want to tie in this story to the rest of /.
Autopilot.SourceForge.Net
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
As stated above, its been done and for a LOT cheaper. Yes I read the information and its a little different, but not really... Most modern advanced radio controlled heli's (just like this one) are simple enough to fly with some practice and are all computer controlled already. I can make my helicopter do a loop and a roll without me doing anything but flicking a switch. Its very simple with the computer radios and some simple commands input into the radio. Yes, its stable and I have used my heli to take pictures too. Total cost to me so far ~$2500.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
You can buy an X-cell 60 Chopper, build it, and fly it without the aid of MIT researchers for less than $2k., including aerobatics.
I just thought I would add that bit of information since landing and takeoff of radio controller helicopters are arguably the most difficult thing to learn to do.
Also, companies have produced camera/camcorder mounts for these types of helicopters too.
Are the voices in my head bothering you?
Imagine this: The Pentagon offers to transport, arm, and fuel home-built drone aircraft to fly against Al Qaeda. Your aircraft must meet the following requirements:
- On-board GPS
- On-board video capability
- Must be controlled via a soon-to-be-built wireless IP network in (let's say Somalia)
- 500-pound payload
From the comfort of your home, you can patrol your Pentagon-assigned territory, and engage targets as designated by the JSTARS targeting system.I figure the Pentagon can probably turn a profit by charging fees as they provide what is essentially the world's most realistic flight simulator. As an added bonus, they could sell the TV rights to the on-board video. Wouldn't it be fun to watch "The World's Most Terrified Terrorists"? Imagine what the MIT folks could build for this mission!
I think the most ironic part of the whole idea is that it turns the tables on the bad guys. Under this scenario, their most terrfying time of day would be when school gets out in the US. "Oh no! Schools out! Everyone head for the caves!"
What a neat application for embedded Linux.
Because he's dead.
What's going on? It's simple:
Slashdot editors have decided to give up being even-minded individuals. With all the crap I've read about this Michael character, I'm pretty convinced that he's a fairly petty individual where his emotions rule his world.
I agree, those articles you have linked to are both newsworthy and appropriate for mention on Slashdot. But I guess Slashdot isn't as much about space-stuff as they are about Computer-stuff.
Personally, I love all the science-stuff, but there's no accounting for taste. But in this case, taste shouldn't be the criteria! It should be based on relevancy to the founding agenda of Slashdot. I've seen some really stupid things go up recently... and apparently, a lot of people agree with me on that due to the lack of commentary associated with the articles mentioned.
Is Slashdot a business or is it some sort of personal toy operating on random and personal whim?
That little flippy was quick to land ;-)
The USAF and the UK (not sure about mainland Europe) have long employed gyrocopters in similar roles. Not sure they can do loop-to-loops though.
The UK had quite a sophisticated version, I'm not sure of its current status though or whether any are still flying. John Bakker recently extended the concept to a flying car. But Sikorsky and Bensen really kicked the crud.
can participate in the Cheney-Rumssfeld "war on terror" gravy train.
Unlike the academic projects, you can download our code and contribute!
-- http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/
The link to MIT quite explicitly states, over and over, that this craft does aileron rolls. I'm not completely familiar with helicopter flight dynamics terminology, but it seems strange to me that a vehicle with no ailerons could do aileron rolls...
Anyone able to shed some light on this? Creative terminology, or something more interesting?
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
God forbid you should speak the truth here on Slapdick. I see you got modded down already, and twice to boot.
Fucking Slashdick fascists.
since the explosives are at in the rotors, if someone shot out the rotors: the bloody thing is going down anyway.
This thing seems way too small to fit some kind of weapon. For this to be useful in combat, it'd have to carry a machinegun or maybe a small rocket launcher. A machinegun with 1000 rounds would weigh, say, 15-20 kg, and the recoil would probably be too big for this chopper.
The recoil of a rocket launcher, on the other hand, would be minimal. Problem is to aim the pod, since you can not adjust fire during firing in the same way - since you would carry only, say, 10 rockets. The aiming problem would mean you'd probably have to include hydraulics for tilting and rotating the pod, wich means more weight.
'course, you could just pack the thing with 15 kgs of plastic explosive, fly it into a building full of your opponents of choice, and set it off.
The Hellfire missile used on the Predator UAV, for example, weighs 45 kgs. Obviously, this is too much for this litte chopper.
I wonder how this extra weight affects flight performance. Does anyone have any more info on this?
Score:-1, Wrong
This cost $40k, excluding labor, because technically, student labor is "priceless"
You mean free, as in beer?
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
but god bless the Google cache.
Is this really considered a TOY???
From my experience it would be called a hobby.
MMMMMM hobbits..
Oops, wrong thread
This looks like a great and low-cost way for radio stations to do away with sending reporters up in helicopters to cover traffic. Back in 1993 WNBC listeners throughout New York City were listening to one such broadcast and heard the copter crash, killing the reporter and pilot. Many other such crashes have occurred over the years. With luck, this MIT copter could make it obsolete to send traffic reporters in the air.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Let's see them make it do a Hammerhead stall.
Then, we arm it, and figure out how to put booster jet engines on it.
THEN we call Stringfellow.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I give up, some one get me when Elvis returns...
CmderTaco, the page widenning bitch was
-finally- found dead in his house in suburban america.
Investigators believe the death was caused by
sheer stupidity, and frequent butt fucks he was
getting from the fine commitee of slashdot trolls.
Nuff Said.
Greets to all the real trolls out there, specially
the clever ones (Alan_Thicke is not included, I know
I used his format, but he is just as dumb as that dead fool.)
(Old US Army Aviator speaking here)
.5G
Every effort at creating an ejection system for US rotary wing aircraft has been met with irristable resistance by the Aviators.
One methid, firing the seat through the floor. That is fine if you are an airforce guy at FL 2 zillion, but for us the ground is about 10 to 50 feet below the aircraft when we are most likely to need an ejection seat.
Second, not many of us like having explosives strapped around the rotor head at any time.
Third, most of us are not all that confidant that the firing sequence would work every time, i.e., not trusting the explosives in the head to blow early enough for the blades to clear the path of the seat flying up through the plane of the rotor disk.
One glairing item from this story:
HELICOPTERS HAVE NO AILERONS! They might mean a "snap roll" or a 360 degree z axis roll, but there are no ailerons on a helicopter.
This is nothing new anyway, any fully articulated rotor system OR rigid rotor system, with a powertrain posessing enough power, can safely do rolls, loops, etc. Don't try this at homw with your UH-1 or OH-58/Jetranger or Longranger, they have semi-rigid rotor systems that will break if you try to maneuver at less than
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
since we've /.'ed the site, here's google's cache..
go pats.
I can see why these robo-copters might be useful for certain types of recon, such as in tight spaces or places where the camera must be stationary. I can't see that these would be generally superior to the fixed-wing reconnaisance drones in use now, however. They've solved one of the drawbacks of copters - the difficulty of piloting them, especially in spots where you don't have line of sight with the remote-controlled copter itself. They haven't solved one of the main drawbacks though - fuel efficiency. Copters, especially little remote ones, don't have nearly the range of a fixed-wing aircraft. I suppose the military could build larger ones that can carry more fuel than the mini copter made by MIT, but the problem is still the there. Copters just don't have the same range for a given amount of fuel.
They're also probably a lot louder than existing drone planes.
I could see how these might be useful for, say, scouting out forested areas below the forest cover, or even going inside (large) buildings, etc. But if you want to send one into Iraq from Saudi Arabia, that's not going to happen.
it could also give filmmakers a cheap, risk-free way to shoot aerial footage. Currently, says Gavrilets, "It costs $20,000 a day to rent a helicopter and a pilot for certain types of aerial shots."
Grown ups in the commercial world already had this idea, and implemented it years ago:
http://www.hicam.com.au/art_bw1.htm
According to Dictionary.com an aileron is:
"Either of two movable flaps on the wings of an airplane that can be used to control the plane's rolling and banking movements."
Since a helicopter doesn't have ailerons, only a control rotor, this isn't, strictly speaking, an aileron roll; its more of a control rotor roll.
Every Saturday I go out to Palomar Flyers's Johnson Field and fly my Kalt 30 Baron r/c helicopter. I'm still a newbie, but there are always plenty of people doing things there beyond even what this MIT bird is capable of, and I put a wireless video camera on mine, and it was pretty easy, so... whats so special about this mit thing? :)
HELICOPTERS HAVE NO AILERONS!
I noticed that as well, odd they have it on the main site page too. Helicopters move the blade angles to achieve the same result. In case anyone is wondering Aileron 's are the little flaps* on the wing that move up or down to tilt the plane to make it bank or roll.
*They are not the FLAPS mind you, these are only used to provide more lift to the aircraft at slower speads.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
The article compares this to a predator UAV, and implies that if scaled up, it could replace the predator. But, basically, the $500k pricetag is a number pulled out of nowhere. The Navy is already working on an unmanned helicopter, the firescout, and it would provide a much better idea of how much an unmanned helicopter would be costed. Just for fun, though, let's look at how far the xcell has to go to be more useful to the military... XCell .60 Pro Graphite 2K (top of line) vs predator UAV:
Predator: range 400 miles/40 hours, altitude 25,000 feet, cruise speed 70 knots.
XL: Total weight 11 pounds. Total run time 5 minutes.
Predator: Payload > 450 pounds. Accessories: helfire missles, high resolution optical and infrared zoom (19-560mm) cameras (I actually used the a Wescam in development, it was sweet!), synthetic aperture radar (resolution 1 foot) for all-weather surveillance, a laser designator and rangefinder, electronic support and countermeasures and a moving target indicator (MTI). Automated gunfire detection.
XL: Total weight, ~11 pounds. Payload: A small video camera.
Predator: UHF and VHF radio relay links, a C-band line-of-sight data link (range 150 NM) and UHF and Ku-band satellite data links.
XL: A 49 MHz hobby RC link
Predator: fixed-wing design, which is generally lower maintainence.
XL: rotary wing, which generally has higher maintainence.
-----
I think that this could probably be turned into a tool for war, and that the automated flying (like what is built into the Predator) being developed for helicopters by this project would be useful to that end, but it's just one aspect of the total system... to accurately cost a production system, you'd have to have a much better idea of the entire system's design requirements.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Sounds good to me at only 1% of the cost of a 'Plagued Predator'.!!!
http://www.msnbc.com/news/699998.asp
There are still a few flyable 111 variants still in service, used only for the purpose of training aircraft mechanics and avionics specialists, but still "in service" nevertheless. None left in offical service directly in any combat or defensive roles however. The last of those were decommissioned in 1998.
That is an increadable piece of coding..only 12,000 lines to do real-time control and the snazzy aerobatics! Kara Sprague deserves a programming medal! Way to go!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Another toy for the hackers to steal for use in quickly deploying hacks on top of the Great Dome...I like it! Click here if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Now only if MIT could pull off another stunt at the big Harvard v. Yale football game.
It couldn't carry much firepower, but it could probably manage a targeting laser to paint a target for a long range missle or even shell that had terminal guidance by laser...
and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat
... ever, perhaps. The main march had, by NYPD estimates, over 14,000 participants -CNN said "hundreds"... sheesh. I was there, it was thousands. In several situations, the NYPD broke up peaceful gatherings and rallies, clubbed participants, and took them off in ambulances and paddywagons. Check out the coverage on http://www.indymedia.org.)
How would these helicopters help in such situations? They could be used to douse protesters with pepper spray and tear gas directly from above -no need to send police into a crowd anymore! How to distinguish those pesky so-called "free-speech" protesters from window-smashing anarchists? Just equip the copters with face recognition software! Officers can put their time to better use photographing crowd members' faces to feed back into the system!
Have an rowdy situation unfolding? Simply arm these copters with fletchers full of sleeping potion, and you can rest assured they'll be hauled off to the slam, where they belong!
(In New York City, this past Saturday we saw one of the largest turnouts for a global trade-related protest in
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
The ability to do aerobatic maneuvers is interesting, but not tremendously valuable to most rotary UAV missions. Take-off and landing in high wind conditions with a flick of a switch would VERY impressive.
Yamaha Motors has been selling a rotary-wing UAV for the past 5 years. They have also demonstrated an automonous flight using a voice commanded flight control system.
Link to Yamaha's Industrial Rotary-Wing UAV: http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/sky-e/index.html
That's because the loser is in some gutter in Hollywood passed out on cheap wine and prescription drugs. I know because I almost ran him over yesterday..... quicker reflexes damnit, I need quicker reflexes..
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
Well just don't go to SUNY Institute of Technology in Utica/Rome hoping to do shit like that cuz the fucking school sucks.
266 MHz PC104 Board, 16 Meg of Flash RAM and 32 Meg of RAM. Wireless LAN telemetry.
http://web.mit.edu/~feron/Public/www/DASC.pdf
MULE(TM) Mobile Unmanned Lift Enabler
A PRACTICAL VTOL PLATFORM CONCEPT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
The MULE tactical UAV is a vertical take-off and landing JIT logistics platform meeting today's military mission-payload-delivery requirements. It is designed for ultra-high reliability, very low dB & IR signatures, and minimal field servicing, maintenance and overhaul. The MULE will efficiently, and autonomously, re-supply remote locations, retrieve downed-pilots, and/or perform surveillance and reconnaissance.
Preliminary Specifications and Predicted Performance: (Sea level; Standard day conditions)
MINI-MULE *** MAXI-MULE
Normal Gross Take Off Weight - 700 Lbs. *** 1500 Lbs
Fuel Capacity - 100 Lbs. (15 Gal.)*** 300 Lbs. (45 Gal.)
Mission Payload (net of fuel) - 200 Lbs. *** 500 Lbs.
Empty Weight - 400 Lbs. *** 700 Lbs.
Hover/Loiter Endurance - 2+ Hours *** 2.5+ Hours
Max Range - 130 Nautical Miles *** 350 Nautical Miles
Min/Max Speed - 0 to 115 Knots *** 0 to 160 Knots
Engine (Advanced Int. Combustion) - 120 HP *** 300 HP
Fuel Requirements - Heavy Fuel *** Heavy Fuel
Transport Crate Dimensions - 60" X 60" X 96" *** T.B.D.
-- "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who survive; the 'learned' find themselves fully equipped to live in
Aileron 's are the little flaps... They are not the FLAPS mind you
Pilots use the term "Control Surfaces" instead of "little flaps" to avoid confusion, unless of course they are talking about the flaps and they happen to be small.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Don't you remember that James Bond movie at the beginning with Ernst Stavro Blofeld going after Bond from his wheel chair with a remote control helicopter!
The main site is posted here. But basicly CMU is also doing this, and has gotten very far. It can track a person running around a field with a life-vest. It can also lower some object into a person's hand. This might seem easly, but this is still all autonomous. One of the big projects this is for is the Coast Guard wants these to quickly find and possibly help people in the oceans. Teams of these things can scan the ocean for people while the choper with people are just loading up. Check out the videos on the site, very cool stuff.
I just hope they know to stop short of releasing thousands of advanced hunter-killer probes upon the surface of the earth, DoD contract or not. :P
360-degree aileron rolls
Helicopters generally don't have ailerons. 'Rolls' would have been not only sufficient, but more accurate.
-- Nit Pick Nazi
I'm not sure whether the US still uses the F-111, but Australia does and will do so until 2020 or so. In fact, we bought a bunch of surplus ones from the States a little while ago for parts :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The video link isn't working. Did you guys manage to /. MIT!?!
I stole this Sig
More in line with treaties that ban the above, it could dispense an explosive vapor that it could light from a distance with an incindiary device (e.g. phosphorous) for concusive explosions, spray glue or release metal streamers to short out power transmission systems.
science is a religion
The Comanche does not have an ejection seat, but it does have airbags and an explosive cord in the window frames that blow out the side windows for easy escape. But the idea of escaping from helicopter crashes is that you are safer staying in the bird. The spinning rotor is allowed to freely rotate and becomes your parachute in the event of an engine failure and the entire structure from the landing gear to the seats have "crumple zones" designed in to absorb the impact. So don't jump out of your helicopter unless you want to end up julienned!
Hugh (an ex-Sikorsky Aircraft employee)
Actually crash happened in 1986. Jane Dornnacker (the reporter) was killed. The pilot survived. In a twist of fate, the reporter had survived a helicopter crash earlier that year.
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
Al Queda could do the same thing to us from the comfort of an operator's La-Z-Boy.
Careful what we wish for...
True, helicopters do not have ailerons. But the maneuver is still commonly known as an aileron role by pilots of remote control helicopters because of the similarity in control input and aircraft response to an aileron roll of an airplane.
;-)
I don't know what full-scale helicopter pilots would call it, as not many of them get to do roll.
That would be great if helicopters had ailerons.
Anyone could build and use a GPS-guided weapon against us, but Al Qaeda has a supply of low-tech disposable martyrs that is just as effective, not to mention easier on their payroll department. As for their use of a remote-control system like the one I described, that would expose their command and control to all kinds of high-tech countermeasures. If nothing else worked, we could spam them to death.
My suggestion was jokingly intended to even the playing field -- we match our disposable planes against their disposable people.
If we can get Al Qaeda to base their entire weapons program on "Microsoft Martyr XP", it will surely GPF or BSOD before anything dangerous happens! You ask for a creative weapon, I give you the prepaid M$ Enterprise Agreement. We send it via Fed Ex to Al Jazeera; they'll find a way to deliver it. If they somehow manage to make something that works, we hit them with the "ground zero" virus that sends their missiles back to 127.0.0.1.
Therefore, the Israelis will do it instead, using mostly U.S. and Japanese technology, along with tons of parts from Tower Hobbies and Home Depot.
> This cost $40k, excluding labor
1. This cost figure can not accurately represent the costs of redeveloping the SW and control systems for a military / highly-robust system. The SW development methodologies for an academic proof of concept and a military project differ substantially. Basically, instead of 1 grad student producing thousands of lines of code, you would have a large team of programmers, checkers, double checkers, certifiers, testers, and systems engineers developing the system. This adds substantially to the cost of development. Professional developers (not hackers), please comment.
2. AFAIK, the $40k cost did not include the cost of the inertial navigation system. These are very expensive, but neccesary to complement the GPS system used. I think, although I might have misforgotten, that the Draper Lab donated the one used in the test units.
patiwat@sloan.mit.edu
http://www.dbproducts.com/
Cobras have ejectable canopies, thus the "eject" handle at both crew stations. All it does is blow the plexiglass out.
;-)
Sikorsky? Arent those the guys that destroyed a prototype Apache on a familiarization ride with a mechanic in the front seat that cut all power to the aircraft by hitting the "chop" on the collective when I was in flight school
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Had you read the article, you would know that this helicopter can execute such rolls autonomously, without constant control inputs from the pilot. Essentially, it's a full-up autonomous fly-by-wire model helicopter. Not a trivial achievement.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
good for them, but Montag was ot commenting on the autoomous aspects
besides, it is AEROBATICS not ACROBATICS (comment on story, not you)
Wel wel, its a nice gadged. But why does it state that it would be nice for the army!
You people from the US with your current military budget of 1.130 billion dollar think that you always should wage war!
I gues the amerikan dream realy died al long time ago.
Greetings,
From a concerned Citisen of the Netherlands
PS
You people are so geared up and even brainwashed to wage war with the rest of the world its realy sickning.
Hope it makes you think about how things are going.
Wireless P2P networks like this and this, will do that traffic + navigation stuff so much better.
To be honest I can see that MIT copter useful in military scenarios, or for smuggling drugs maybe, but not for controlling traffic...
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.
Am I offbase in thinking that a terrorist with one of these equipped with automatic weapons could use it for wholesale assassination? How could it be stopped? How could even one track the "pilot" if it were controlled remotely via radio and navigated via an attached camera. Shadow Conspiracy, anyone?
That first video (Aggressive.wmv) is unreal. Could someone explain to me how it can change direction so suddenly and accelerate when it's main rotor and tail rotor are not spinning (or barely spinning)? Does it have some other propellants attached to it?
Somewhere out there is footage of a CH-53 doing a longitudinal roll. I don't remember what TV show I saw it in, but I cringed. Things like that simply weren't meant to be.
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
That reminds me..... how are Moller's designs coming along?
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
and this comment down
about 5 years ago. Also, Yahmaha has one that they use for spraying crops! It just costs $400k
http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/sky-e/rmax.html
"Somewhere out there is footage of a CH-53 doing a longitudinal roll. I don't remember what
TV show I saw it in, but I cringed. Things like that simply weren't meant to be."
Thank you, that is the example I was looking for. There is a manufacturers video of that, perhaps that is what you saw.
The aircraft has a fully articulated rotor system and plenty of power. Perfectly safe maneuver when performed correctly.
Americans are the scariest people on earth. Which only goes to show what an IDIOT Eewsamma Bin Hidin' really is. Talk about jamming your dick in a hornet's nest.
I can just see squadrons of these little buggers marking targets for sea launched missiles, smart bombs falling out of B52s, freakin' orbital munitions some day soon... oh yeah baby!
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
If our little group of volunteer pilots had the same political clout as the entertainment industry, we would simply write the letter of marque ourselves and get Congress to rubber-stamp it. At that point, we would have unrestricted rights to attack just about anything, anywhere, using weapons of our own choosing, without any liability for whatever might go wrong. Any would-be competitors like "Bombster" would be sued out of existance, using the "Destructive Media Entertainment Act" (DMEA).
Now that I think of it, what prevents a private company from offering my humorous-but-technically-plausible concept in a place like Somalia? The lack of authoritative government is precisely what attracts the terrorists. It also sets the stage for a capitalist entrepreneur to turn the whole country into an amusement park for destructive toys. Actually, the terrorists have done that already, we're just Americanizing the concept.
Is this idea too crazy for anyone to try? It's not any crazier than building Euro-Disney or putting an NHL team in North Carolina.
sux0r cux0r
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