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Micro Air Vehicles
Offwhite98 writes "Over at The Gainesville Sun they are running an article about really small planes used to watch all kinds of stuff. I am sure the common applications for these devices are pretty clear, but if you could use these for a lot of fun. Use 10 of them as flying candid cameras at a wedding or a party and you I am sure you will get interesting results." A little bigger than the Spy Fly but probably much more robust.
"The planes are operated by remote control and range in cost from about $700 to as much as a couple of thousand dollars depending on the type of video equipment used. "
... i would like to see someone shoot down 100 of these after they were droped out the window of a b52.
don't i remeber reading the air force where spending 100's of millions on uav's
Cruise TT
can be summed up here.
fp?
Looks like fun.
http://autopilot.sourceforge.net/
-- http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/
WOW!
And you thought the X10 cameras were *NOT* used for improper spying... sheesh
I've often wondered how many flying saucer stories started out with somebody spotting an experimental aircraft test.
UF turns a corner in developing small surveillance planes
By JESSE JAMIESON
Special to The Sun
Peter Ifju's latest plane looks more like a miniature flying saucer than a traditional airplane.
University of Florida researchers and students are at the forefront in the creation of micro-aerial vehicles, an emerging field with a list of applications including military reconnaissance, fire management and agricultural monitoring. Peter Ifju, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at UF, holds a MAV equipped with a color video camera and transmitter.
JOHN MORAN/The Gainesville Sun
And it may not be long before they are seen flying around football stadiums or golf tournaments taking video footage from a whole new perspective.
Intuition and artistry have helped Ifju and his students turn science fiction into science fact in developing the small airplanes - called micro-aerial vehicles, or MAVs.
The smallest, about 5 inches in diameter, set a record in April for surveying a target 2,000 feet from the launch site at the International Micro Air Vehicle Competition.
"Before, it was just a dream, and now we're starting to turn the corner on some of these applications," said Ifju, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Florida.
Reconnaissance for military troops in the field, wildlife surveying and use in sporting events could all be applications for the planes, which are equipped with a video camera and transmitter that allows them to take footage of any targets as much as a half-mile away during a 10-minute flight.
"When you think about it, you mostly think of military applications, but there are all kinds of cool things you can do," Ifju said.
"I've always said I'd like to fly a micro-aerial vehicle into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and follow the kickoff and then take it into the stands and lead the wave, and all the time it would be on the Jumbotron," he said.
The planes are operated by remote control and range in cost from about $700 to as much as a couple of thousand dollars depending on the type of video equipment used.
When they are too far away for the pilot to see, they can be controlled through the use of virtual reality "video glasses" that display the camera's picture so the pilot feels as if he was on board the plane.
One of the greatest benefits of MAVs may be that they would eliminate the need for some pilots to endanger themselves during war.
"It's cheaper to fly them and that's $1,000 versus someone's life," Ifju said.
The planes have evolved since 1997 from an 18-inch, 10-ounce plane powered by a gasoline motor to a 5-inch plane that weighs about two ounces and is powered by a nearly silent electric motor that runs a propeller.
Ifju and his students are at the forefront of MAV design with their planes taking first place in the International Micro Air Vehicle Competition for the past four years.
But they are still working to perfect the design and correct some of the problems that come with producing a small airplane, such as mastering their controls and extending their flight time.
Ifju said the goal is not to make the planes smaller but rather to develop better uses such as coordinating several planes to fly the same mission at once in order to increase the chances of success.
"These days our goals are to make the airplane more capable," Ifju said. "Once you're down to a certain size it's like 'what's the difference between a 5-inch and a 6-inch airplane.' "
They'll have to wear their hair long to cover the tattoo, so that when the security drones fly by, they won't be recognized and ...oh, wait. Dark Angel was cancelled. Never mind.
"Use 10 of them as flying candid cameras at a wedding or a party and you I am sure you will get interesting results"
Yeah, like the planes crashing into each other and then into the guests, cake, etc.
Excellent slashdot alternative:
AlterSlash
I almost always read that instead of slashdot.
Reading or subscribing to slashdot only puts cash in the greedy pockets of VA Softwares board of crooks, er, i mean directors. The slashdot janitors and flunkies make the same garbage salary regardless of what happens.
Also another site that always gets the stories at least a day before slashdot sometimes as much as a week, or never in the case of something exposing hypocrisy from osdn.
LinuxToday
Last year when VA stock tanked Slashdot executed a nasty smear campaign against them in attempt to steal their readers, but due to blatant hypocrisy it failed.
Also if you want real dissenting political commentary from a respectable source may i suggest:
The Nation
This magazine was founded to promote the abolitionist movement in the 1800s and continues to be a well respected alternative news source today. Sure the DMCA is bad, but not being able to pirate DVDs on Linux is nothing compared to the real injustices going on in the rest of the world, many times funded by your tax dollars.
Enjoy these alternative news sources and feel good knowing you are no longer helping to line the pockets of crook CEOs from the days of infectious greed by supporting osdn and other fronts for the fizzled stock scam once known as VA Linux.
While this is a very cool technology, and quite the advancement, I wonder how practical it is. Like large aircraft, it has many limitations on movement: forward or... forward. Take his football kickoff example: it would follow the kickoff, and then would loose the ball in the time it takes to circle around the other way.
Wouldn't this have been more useful if it were based off a more maneuverable platform such as a helicopter?
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
Use 10 of them as flying candid cameras at a wedding or a party and you I am sure you will get interesting results.
Use this close to the batter at a baseball game for an interesting result too.
...the nanotech devices which are so light they don't need to fly, just float with flagellum for guidance mechanisms.
Gotta read "Diamond Age" again soon, it was a good read.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
i just saw a pop-up at Yahoo for the new MAV w/ an X10 camera mount.
I believe we have a winner ... this MUST be the slashdot post with the worst grammar EVER !!!
...
Well, wat doo I now aniwai
Has anybody read the book 'The Artificial Kid' by Bruce Sterling? The basic gyst is that people stage fights with each other, film them, and then sell the films. They film them by having several tiny cameras fly around their body, taking in the action from different angles. If I could just get a few of these together, strap some tiny cameras on them, and get a pair of padded nunchucks, I'd be all set.
Well, we all know what the common application for the x10 cams are... er, I mean the hinted application.
So what else would people do with a fully mobile flying camera with a live video feed?
You cant possibly hire enough people to fly each of these planes if you use them for surveillance. Working in an institute that is heavily involved in modern forms of AI I can assure you that the number of crashing /dying planes will be immense.
Its really difficult to make a driving robot come back home. They always hit things or are very slow.
These planes better be really cheap! And the firms that deliver them will have to deliver them in the millions if a few hundred of them are to be in the air at any point of time.
Googlefight "Slashdot Troll" against "BSD is dying" 303:229. BSD thus cant die.
PLIF .
a3c6 0e89 b1ec aa4d d630 26c8 d07e 7eed 8148 5503 02b4 dfaa 9922 b28d 0820 c4af
For those that are interested here is a news release from the competition held in Utah.
c hi ve02/apr/miniairplane.htm
http://unicomm.byu.edu/news1/mynews/releases/ar
What's a Sig???
How long until the porn industry does something with one of these?
"The first erotic feature to include low-level fly bys of all the action!"
WALDO
I actually attend class in the same building at University of FL as the micro-planes people. I attended a demonstration which was way cool.
They've developed an algorithm that can scan the horizon and auto-determine the horizon. In a side-by-side comparison between a human pilot and computer, the human could make you very sick. The vidoe jumps as the plan flys very erratically. With the computer algorithm, the plane flies smooth.
Another note, they use a PC to do the processing. The demo guy actually has an Apple laptop and runs all the video in quicktime. The PC processes the avi quicktime video, and returns the flight control info to the micro-flight airplane.
Another not, they are funded heavily by the DOD.
Another problem is fuel. The micro-planes only have enough fuel for a few times around a football field, and their range is similarly limited.
Finally, the coolest video they have is where the plane tracks a moving vehicle, and follows behind it.
Torsten
Ya know folks... Just because something isn't very useful to the common public, doesn't necessarily mean that it is entirely useless.
I'm sure there are TONS of commercial/industrial uses that can't be predicted just yet...
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
robots.net frequently has articles on Micro Air Vehicles and Micromechanical Flying Insect robots. The Berkley MFI Project Overview is another good place to get more info.
Cool link, here is a clickable version for the lazy mouse squad
http://unicomm.byu.edu/news1/mynews/releases/arch
de plane, de plane.... de really, really small plane!
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Over a Moller Int. they say they have a prototype for a flying passenger car. They've defined success as "more than one minute out of ground effect". Further evidence of their advanced technology is the press release is dated Aug 2002 which (today) means its from the future. In the FAQ they say two years and four more for the FAA - $500k for limited production with price dropping to 80k. Might be vaporware, but I want one.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Results like:
Shitty aerial footage of your wedding or party ("Honey, get the dramamine - I want to watch our wedding video again!")
Guests getting whacked in the eye with a spinning propeller
Stopping your party every ten minutes so you don't miss anything while the batteries recharge
Yeah, these things will totally make my party rock!
Anyone with info on small helicoptors for stationary camera shots.
for these to replace the X10 cameras in the popunder ads...
A segment on Discovery Magazine, aired on the Discovery channel recently, covered these MAVs and showed some guy who'd fitted several of his model airplanes with cameras.
As someone who's also done this I can tell you that it's still important to have the vehicle in direct visual line of site if you want to be sure and get it back.
When looking at the world through a remote video camera without the benefit of an artificial horizon and other instrumentation, it's very easy to get a small model into a spin or spiral from which it is difficult to recover. Being able to directly see the model from the ground is the only safe way to ensure you can regain control in such situations.
The problem is one of orientation -- once you lose view of the horizon through the camera it becomes very difficult to tell what your plane is doing -- thus very difficult to feed in the proper control corrections.
If it weren't a breach of copyright I'd post the DivX video I made of that Discovery broadcast -- it was really quite interesting.
www.aerovironment.com/area-aircraft/unmanned.html from a /. post a few days ago. These are the same people who develop those super high alttitude solar planes w/NASA. A link on the page leads to a technical paper (w/interesting details) of the 'Black Widow' a 6-inch MAV seemingly much further along than the ones at U of Florida. (30 mph, 30 min flights) Cheap too. I want one.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
A tremendously slimmed down Cypher... although these little guys probably won't lob grenades at you.. Wasn't there something like this in Perfect Dark?
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
Send a few of these to follow your congressman or senator around and catch them in the act of accepting their paycheck from the corps that own them.
One of the Lockheed employee newsletters ran a story on these recently.
They don't seem to have any of it that I can find on the web but I did run across this site that has some good info on what DARPA, Lockheed and others are doing in this area.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Someone had to say it.
It's probably not the best example, but the Avrocar comes to mind. It's tantalizing, because it was an actual flying saucer that was being developed just when the flying saucer stories started to become commonplace. The funny thing is that, although the project was secret, it wasn't to hide it from the Soviets. Avro was more concerned about other aircraft companies with deeper pockets, that could have leapfrogged their development effort if they'd gotten wind of it.
Sure a balloon couldn't manuever quite so fast, but it would have a much improved range.
Ok, people are talking about these not being suitable for much because they can't hover or, have too large turning circles. Also, i see people are complaining about the cost and the battery life. Heres my idea.
Humming-birds have wings and can hover. They also have the ability to fly for extended periods, and when they get tired they can perch on the nearest ledge. Obvously, technology is not at the stage where this could be easily implemented into a Humming-bird sized package, and cheaply. However, Humming-birds themselves are relatively plentiful. What if, you attached a minature camera and transmitter to.. a Humming-bird? "But you cant control it!!" i hear you say. What if, you attached electrodes in such away that you could control, or atleast influence the flight. The bird would still keep priority control for dodging obsticles and landing when tired, but you would be able to control the basic directional element, and the direction of the camera. If you employed a flock of Humming-birds you could maintain a good deal of coverage for any event. Also, Humming-birds come with AI and basic flight control systems built in reducing the need for on-board electronics witch in turn reduces weight. For example, the bird has a built in gyroscope and can automatically 'right itself and maintain level flight.
The battery life of the camera could also be extended by attaching the power and/or data cables to the bird and having them trail behind, this would also prevent the bird from going out-of-range.
The millitary applications for this are also good - since no-one would look twice at a Humming-bird on a battle feild, they could be fitted with explosive devices to create humming-suicide-bombers (although the payload would be small).
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
how about mounting infrared (hyperspectral?) cameras and send a flock of the puppies out.
Check out http://www.spyplanes.com . $30K and you can buy a fully autonomous 5 foot wingspan plane (folds down to fit in a golf bag!) with a built-in gyro-stabilized camera. MLBco also makes a 6" remote-controlled MAV that has a mini camera and radio transmitter in it -- it's demonstrated a 20 minute flight time at 60mph. You can't see this thing if it's more than half a mile away; you have to pilot it using the video downlink.
Everyone is going to be thinking of video applications... but what I want is audio. The ability to place a mic anywhere in a room arbitrarily would make me happy.
Of course noise is going to be a problem, and hovering too, but that's my wish.....
Tweet, tweet.
To scout for cops hiding behind bushes etc. when i am speeding on the highway. hehe... takes the radar-gun / radar-detector war to a whole new level.
i'd imagine they make it illegal for spy-cams to fly above the speeding limit, though. (or just outlaw them on public highways outright.) if, that is, too many people start using it for that purpose.
actually i thought about building something for that (a bit larger, though), but havn't got the chance to yet. will keep y'all posted
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Airplanes use aerodynamics to gently finesse lift out of the air.
Helicopters are so ugly the ground repels them.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
tell me how 10 little noisemakers flying arround over a wedding is a good thing? and ... what happens when they malfuction.. it wont exactly be a bird falling from the sky, whatever they're made out of would probably hurt if it hit someone..
MABASPLOOM!
This map hung up on the truck stop hallway door
is looking worn and I can hardly read it anymore
I feel like I'm a speck thrown on the map
and I can't help my urge to laugh
I never used to feel like that
Well I'm half awake half a world away
all my past mistakes and every wasted day
I wouldn't have it any other way
I'll try through my haze and half shut eyes
to count up all the reasons why
I should be back at home tonight
Half awake half a world away
all my past mistakes and every wasted day
proves that I'll never change
I'll always stay the same
I wouldn't have it any other way
Gainesville! Rock city!
Gainesville! Rock city!
Gainesville! Rock city!
Gainesville! Rock city!
Half awake half a world away
all my past mistakes and every wasted day
I wouldn't have it any other way
I wouldn't have it any other way
A helicopter stands still by furiously blowing air downwards. This could easily blow the football off its direction.
"Once you're down to a certain size it's like 'what's the difference between a 5-inch and a 6-inch airplane.'"
Ooo! and Ahh....
What? You mean 'airplane' isn't a euphemism? =]
.f00Dave
... would be to buzz Florida Field (Ben Hill Griffen for you "youngsters" in g'ville) during football games....
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
OK, now I know what's been nagging at me... in Raymond Z. Gallun wrote a story which appeared in "Astounding Stories" in August, 1936, and which I read as a kid in Groff Conklin's anthology, "Science Fiction Thinking Machines."
... was a tiny thing, scarcely more than an inch and a half in length... it dipped in its flight and its quart-lensed eyes took in the scene below.... Excited shouts and cries were detectable to the sensitive, microphonic ears of The Scarab...."
"The Scarab
It flies miles, into the room where the Bad Guys are broadcasting an extortion request: they will kill a million citizens unless "all available radium in the country is brought to our laboratory."
"The mind that controlled the Scarab had seen and heard enough. Now it decided that the moment in which to act had come. With a whir the Scarab shot from the concealing shadows of the corner where it had hidden itself." It injects an anesthetic; the Bad Guy loses consciousness; the nation is saved.
The brilliant, crippled, wheelchair-confined detective explains "A fella can't just sit around, you know. And so I got to thinking that if I had a little radio-controlled robot to do my crook-chasing for me--well, anyway, I wrote a letter to our good friend Dr. Clyde Allison, explaining my situation... after a while the Scarab and all the controls that deliver it were delivered here.... "
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
2K
Imagine the tabloids getting ahold of these things. Already stars have people climbing fences and using telephoto lenses.
Now, just pop a drone in the air and overfly the target. How about flying up to the window of a high rise building?
Add a microphone, instead of video camera, for a twist.
Once they get these babies to HOVER, they will be fantastic. Not that they aren't now.
Imagine automatically dispatching a micro drone to check out a disturbance/noise from the safety of security central? Your camera can't see behind the tree? Fly around it.
Add a little radar and do some 3D terrain mapping...
ad infinitum
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
then Imagine Saddam swatting a pesky misquito not realizing that it cost 10 million dollars to manufacture.
Table-ized A.I.
MAV is singularly unimaginative. 'Electric Sparrow' is the obvious better choice.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Either:
There is some sort of 'aero geek chic' I don't know about
We're witnessing the visual manifestation of genetic selection for an obsession with small flying objects
This is the early stages of an alien invasion.
c .shtml
Look again: http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/27/flying microbots.ap/index.html
and: http://www.gainesvillesun.com/articles/2002-07-31
"Working in an institute that is heavily involved in modern forms of AI I can assure you that the number of crashing /dying planes will be immense" Um. . are you smoking crack? I know for a FACT (having a roomie that's a pilot) that commercial autopilots can handle damn near the ENTIRE flight as is. In fact there is an article in this months Scientific American (or is it Discovery?) detailing the work. I suggest you read the article (and do a bit of research) before commenting on it. These are not AI's. They've got very very little to do with a true AI.
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
So much for the parasites -- now, how can we counter-program a system to detect and take down such a threat? Maybe Star Wars on a much, much smaller scale?
What about automatic pilots, though? For example, the AeroVironment Black Widow, which is a six-inch aircraft, has "altitude hold, airspeed hold, heading hold, and yaw damping" (from the PDF available on their site).
With bigger r/c vehicles, total autonomous flight was achieved a long time ago, even for helicopters, which are much more difficult to stabilize than planes. This can allow an operator to simply guide rather than actually pilot a vehicle, with greatly reduced chance of error.
This already exists in commercial technology: there's an r/c helicopter, made by Honda iirc, used for applications like cropspraying and aerial photography. An operator can fly these with minimal training, because stabilization is automatic.
Gene Simmons already perfected this technology in "Runaway" and took it to the next level with Mechanical Acid Spitting Spiders of Death!
"...where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally
swallowed by a small dog."
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
It would be really cool if these planes would have solar cells on the top of the saucer. Then you could fly a lot longer then 10 minutes. But I guess they need more energy then the solar cells could produce.
Your scarabs are nicer than the ones I have to deal with. The ones that get thrown at me do 120 damage and kill a hord of Hydralisks faster than you can say SH! (*Pop Dead*).
I figure it won't be long until someone starts mentioning security and privacy concerns in this thread, much the same as in the Spy Fly thread. The potential for privacy breaches with this kind of technology (taken to its final stupidity) is mind boggling. However, there are several easy methods of maintaining your security and privacy. The first and perhaps most effective means would be to have some kind of device that generates a lot of electromagnetic waves or interference. Simply sweep a room with a big electromagnet and you will either short the bug out or pull it right onto the thing for you to crush, contain, whatever. Second would be an EMP device. Such a device would be decidedly more effective and thurough than an electromagnet, but I think its a bit impractical because of the side effects. Sure, you'd short out any bugs that might be spying on you, but you'd be reduced to either magnetically shielding everything you own or living like the Amish. A third option would be to introduce some kind of predator. Either develop countermeasure bugs or natural predators that prey on the look-alike species. A countermeasure bug would merely have to home in on transmitting sources to find their targets. Natural predators wouldn't be as good, though, as they wouldn't adhere to any schedules for debugging, and you would also have to care for and clean up after them, etc. I'm sure there are other means out there as well, but this is all I could think of at the moment.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Read this back in elementary school. Danny Dunn invents a remotely piloted robotic dragonfly with telepresence. He uses it to spy on girls showering after P.E.. Well, actually I forgot what he used it for, but it was cool when I read it...
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
I guess that depends on how big the vent to the girl's shower is.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Yeah, I could see us using a suicide bomer humming bird in the middle east. So a bunch of guys are standing around with their big guns, then this bird comes out of nowhere and explodes in their faces. Yeah, it probably wouldn't kill anyone, but it sure would freak them out!
:P
A couple minutes later, a flock flies towards them...
Run away!
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet