A.I. Helicopter?

CowboyRobot writes "Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization just launched the Mantis, a 'low-cost, intelligent small helicopter'. SMH reports that 'Within a decade armies of tiny helicopter drones will monitor traffic, inspect buildings for maintenance problems, map bushfires, look for faults in powerlines, and join search-and-rescue missions.' This is much larger than the Seiko flying robot reported last month, but the Mantis should be truly autonomous."

Comments

Re:What happens when it crashes.

[Urkki]

First you would have to solve the problem of the rotor blades. Just blowing the blades off before deploying the paracute doesn't sound like it's much of an improvement over no parachute. Also, a chopper that has lost control and is rotating wildly doesn't sound like something you can put a parachute on, even if you manage to avoid the 'chute getting tangled into the rotor blades.

Maybe it'd be possible, but it sounds quite a hard engineering problem.

Commercial UAVs are already available

[tramm]

I've been working on building a Linux based UAV and have GPLed the software for it. We're also selling turnkey helicopter UAVs that look very much like the Mantis in the article through my company, Rotomotion.

There is no AI onboard, so you don't have to worry about it becoming self aware and joining Skynet. We have a few more years before the machines take over.

Re:Finding faulty powerlines

[capncook]

To answer the question: In the U.S., per FAA regulations, landowners have control up to 500 feet. Above that is public domain airspace. It has been this way since very early on in aviation, since it is critical to have public airspace and federal jurisdiction thereof in order to have a viable air transportation system.

Re:Hardly covert

[NanoGator]

"With a UKP500 digital camera at its fastest shutter speed, all I got were some vague blurs"

There is already a means to fix this problem. It involes using a powered gyroscope to stabilize the camera. That's how helicopters get clean footage for movies.

Re:Hardly covert

[Orne]

There's a big business in creating stabilized cameras for helicopters... thats how we get our pretty pictures for the evening news. Like all things, its just a matter of time until we figure out how to scale them down to fit on our mini-copters. The only downside is I saw from browsing a $40,000.00 price tag for a quality lens.

As for the noise aspect, I totally agree with you...

Exposed Rotor Blades

[rizzn]

This is all well and good for most of the world, but they could be looking at patent infringement from Airborne Autonomous Systems who's utility patent on what they call the SFD (semi-autonomous flight director) covers functionality of a Flight Director (whether or not it's called AI) in an unmanned aircraft. Regardless, though, the FAA has made it clear before that commercial UAVs must not have exposed rotor blades, so it is unlikely that something like this will ever be sold or used in America. (partial repost from rizzn.com)