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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."
Will this helicoptor have the same problems as some of the current UAV's out there - poor operation at high altitudes. I know in places like Afghanistan where the altitude is high and the air is very thin, the UAV planes have problems which result in a much higher incidence of crashes/malfunctions. I can only assume that a helicoptor would have the same problems - perhaps even moreso.
The WITAS Project (a coop project between the Linkoping University of Sweden, Stanford, and some other university I can't remember rigth now) has been doing this since at least 1997 - the've re-built an off-the-shelf electric mini helicopter into a fully autonomous UAV... I've seen it in action, and it can do a lot of very interesting stuff - it can do things like follow roads, separate objects like people or cars from the background, identify said cars, etc., and it navigates based on the landscape it sees and not just signals from GPS or radio beacons (it has GPS as a complement though). Really cool stuff :)
No problem when it is flying, but what about
when a mechanical failure occurs? I don't want these things falling on me! If it is Autonomous, does this mean that no one is watching the darn thing? If an operator is not part of the process, how will it land or "crash" safely?
He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obsta
Within a decade armies of tiny helicopter drones will monitor traffic,
Humm... Cheaper than fixed cameras ? Even if the machines were cheap, that doesn't seem energy efficient, with fuel cost and all.
inspect buildings for maintenance problems
Cosmetic problems, that is. It is flying on the outside, after all. Doesn't seem to be more appealing than using binoculars or climbing a building across the street.
map bushfires
Although I am not familiar with the art of fighting bush fires, it seems to me that they propagate along a frontier line which is defined by the wind, so as long as you know about the wind, you can infer where the fire is going. So, it seems, these machines wouldn't add much.
look for faults in powerlines
This looks interesting, although (1) Not sure if that many faults are apparent (e.g. burnt transformer, loose cables) and (2) Isn't there remote sensing equipment that can already do that (e.g. reflecting waves in the cable?, or signaling from checkpoints ?)
join search-and-rescue missions
If those things become popular in 10 years, what would you say about smart cell phones, network based location systems and cheap GPS ? All right cell networks won't cover 100% of areas. But close !
Now some ideas to provoke:
* Helicopter drones acting as quick messengers in crowded cities (substituting motorcycle carriers for legal documents, small product purchases, etc.)
* Helicopter drones tracking suspect vehicles or individuals for police enforcement
* Helicopter drones doing advertisement from the sky
And, unfortunately but very predictable:
* Helicopter drones carrying terrorist bombs to explode national landmarks
and
* Armies of tiny helicopter drones machine gunning armies of infantry or mobs in protest
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
These things have considerable energy. Anybody remember the recent amputation accident in Japan? Should be fun when you make a programming error:
SAGA -- A famer lost his leg Wednesday in a freak accident when a radio-controlled helicopter he was operating came crashing into him, police said. The injured man, Narichika Aoki, was operating a crop-dusting helicopter over rice paddies in Takeo, Saga Prefecture, when he suddenly lost control of the aircraft shortly before 8 a.m. The helicopter flew straight into the 35-year-old man and cut off his right leg with its rotor blade, police said. Investigators said the radio-controlled aircraft, which is 2.4 meters in length and has 1.35-meter blades, belongs to the local Saga Midori agricultural cooperative. Aoki was working with three other men when the accident occurred. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, July 30, 2003)
When I was in school, I worked on atmospheric dispersions and one of the proposals we thought about was using (in the distant future) several stationary or mobile sensors to measure concentrations of NBC agents. The sensors would talk to one another along with some met stations, and try to come up with an idea of where agents were released from. The advantage to mobile sensors is that they could fly "upwind" straight to the source. That's simplified because in cities air currents interact with trees, buildings, etc, but it is interesting just the same.