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A.I. Helicopter?

Posted by michael on from the autorotate dept.

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."

5 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Finding faulty powerlines by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Searching for missing hikers
    Surveying wildfires
    Surveying the houses of known government enemies
    Surveying the homes of suspected government enemies
    Surveying your home

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    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  2. Re:AI Robots aren't enough by neglige · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who's with me?

    I, Robot

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    My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
  3. Hardly covert by ChrisPaget · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You've evidently never flown an R/C helicopter. I fly a 30-size and that looks like a 60-size (about 30% bigger than mine in terms of weight and rotor diameter), and they make a LOT of noise. If this thing was anywhere near, you'd know about it - the engines are two-stroke, operating at around 20,000 RPM. And that's without the sound of the blades (also pretty significant).

    Add to that the fact that these things shake. A lot. You can't hope for a clear image from far enough away to not hear it. I've mounted a digital camera on my heli before, and used the remote to take pictures of stuff from the air. With a UKP500 digital camera at its fastest shutter speed, all I got were some vague blurs - you can just about make out me holding the controls and my housemate with the camera remote - and that was from about 20 feet away.

    Noisy as hell, shakey as hell, useless for covert surveillance. And anything that's not covert can be shot down...

  4. In other news... by percepto · · Score: 5, Funny
    The Australian government today lost several of their surveillance helicopters after their new Mantis prototype mated with them and then bit their heads off.

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    The term "outside the box" is squarely within the box at this point.

  5. Commercial UAVs are already available by tramm · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

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    -- http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/