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

I Wonder...

[IANAL(BIAILS)]

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.

Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

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 :)

Killer App Scorecard

[rcastro0]

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

Re:Finding faulty powerlines

[Tassach]

how high off the ground does one's property extend if they own the land?

The rights you have to your land are determined by the deed to the property. Generally speaking, unless the deed specifically excludes them, you have the right to everything under your property (minerals, groundwater, etc), extending down to the core of the Earth; and everything over it, extending to the edge of the atmosphere. However, international law/treaty recognizes the right of innocent passage and overflight, so unless it was loitering over your property for an extended period of time I doubt there's much you could legally do about it.