Israeli Super Drone Stolen

kristy_christie writes "Globes Online reports that Steadicopter's prototype pilotless helicopter was stolen a few days after the completion of its test program and final test flights. Interesting to note that Steadicopter claims that their helicopter is unique and there is no other of its kind in the world."

Comments

Copy of article...

[pdjohe]

The site seemed slow when I viewed it so here is a copy of the article to save some bandwidth...

Sources inform "Globes" that Steadicopter's pilotless helicopter prototype was stolen on Saturday-Sunday night. Unknown parties broke into Steadicopter's Kfar Maccabi plant, and stole the helicopter, but not its computer software or the money in the office.

Steadicopter is collaborating with Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) on the project. Steadicopter claims its pilotless helicopter is the first of its kind in the world.

Steadicopter business development director Amir Rochman told "Globes" that the helicopter was stolen a few days after the completion of its test program and final test flights, during which it flew automatically and reached its targets using the global positioning system (GPS).

Rochman said, "We invested NIS 5 million in the project in the past three years, and today the police came to the factory to investigate and lift fingerprints."

Steadicopter CEO Tuvia Scgl told "Globes" today that he had no doubt that industrial espionage was behind the theft. "We're convinced that the thief was working for our competitors, because he went directly to the helicopter's location, and broke only the guardrails to that room.

"The helicopter is unique. No other company in the world has succeeded in operating such a flying machine, capable of independent flying without remote control. Many companies have tried, but none of their tests worked."

Steadicopter was launched in the TEIC Technion - Israel Institute of Technology incubator in Haifa. The companies owners are TEIC, Rosh Ha'Ayin-based ITES - Imaging Technology Enterprise Systems, Renault importer Yoel Carasso, and businessman Yossi Kabiri.

Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on November 10, 2003

Re:Copy of article...

[redhog]

Uh, it isn't that unique. At Linkoping University, Sweden, the WITAS project is working on a similar thingy, see http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/witas/ And it seems quitte some other uni's around the world are involved in imilar projects, too...

Re:Copy of article...

[GooberToo]

"The helicopter is unique. No other company in the world has succeeded in operating such a flying machine, capable of independent flying without remote control. Many companies have tried, but none of their tests worked."

That may be true, for a company, however, I've seen a fully autonomous remote control helicopter before. Which is to say, it was a remote control helicopter that flew via onboard computer and did not actually use a remote. In fact, it even has AI that it used to determine it's best route and best orientation to get from A to B. IIRC, this was the work of an MIT student. He had a video of his AI controlled helicopter flying around. It did it's own odd manuvering to get there and back. It even had an onboard camera.

I can't see that the stolen copter is much different...just on a larger scale.

Re:Useless

[Greger47]

So how do they know the software wasn't stolen?

The best thing about software, when someone copies it, you still get to keep it...

/greger

Why Unique?

[TrueJim]

The US military is working on VTOL UAVs such as Northrop Grumman's Fire Scout (e.g., for use by the Coast Guard) and Raytheon is building a Tactical Control System that allows one human operator to control multiple UAVs. Many other people also make VTOL UAVs, increasingly focusing on autonomous operations. (Nowadays it takes more than one operator to control a single UAV -- it would be nice to reverse that ratio in the future.) So I wonder what makes this Israeli drone so unique?

"The Fire Scout system, a vertical takeoff and landing tactical UAV, is in low-rate initial production for the U.S. Navy by [Northrop Grumman's] Integrated Systems sector. Fire Scout will fly at an altitude of up to 20,000 feet, and use an advanced payload with an electro-optical/ infrared sensor and a laser designator to survey littoral regions with pinpoint accuracy, giving military decision-makers the most current information about enemy resources and personnel on the ground. Fire Scout is a fully autonomous targeting and surveillance system that can fly almost silently above deployed Marines to watch for hidden enemies within 100 nautical miles."

"[Raytheon's] TCS, which allows the simultaneous control of multiple UAVs and their payloads from the same control station, was conceived as a joint-service program but never was adopted by the Air Force or the Army. The program is likely to survive, however, as a Navy-only system that eventually could be modified to accommodate UAVs from additional services, experts said."

Re:Useless

[MikShapi]

Hell, they were _in_the_office_.

Any 2-bit tech can ghost a harddrive onto a laptop/clamshell in well under 20 minutes with an external USB2-to-IDE connector.

How the hell can you assume they didn't do just that?

Re:Easy?

[Coelacanth]

It's not easy. Helicopters are inherently unstable, and exhibit non-linear coupled behavior as the flight conditions change (e.g. hover vs. forward flight).

That having been said, the algorithms and sensors do exist (and have for a while) for autonomous flight at some performance level. The tricky bits include landing, as you suggest, but also include generating sufficient disturbance rejection and flight technical accuracy to accomplish whatever mission the UAV is intended for (say, operating a laser target designator, or some surveillance equipment).

Re:Invested how much?

[Dun Malg]

This is the same country that managed to equip their F-4's with rear view windows for pennies on the dollar for what it would have cost the American Air Force.

Actually, it was rear view mirrors (the RIO rear view mirror on a late model F-4 is visible here), and the original apocryphal tale is about the Israeli Air Force being somehow "smarter" than the US Air Force because they thought to put mirrors in for use in dogfights and the USAF somehow never thought to do that. The truth is, however, that the US Air Force has had rear view mirrors on fighter aircraft since the time when they were still the Army Air Corps. The reason the early F-4 models did not was that it was not originally intended to be a dogfighter-- it didn't even have a gun (this was a completely different sort of folly, i.e. the belief that missiles were all you needed anymore). Later, during the Vietnam War, the gun and mirrors were added because (surprise) dogfights still happened!