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Epson's 12 Gram Flying Robot
fraxinus-tree writes "Epson has developed a very small (8.6g w/o battery) flying device, something like a bluetooth-controled palm-top helicopter." Since it can carry 5 grams for only 3 minutes, I can't imagine much practical use, but it's still neat.
Was anyone else hoping it would look more like a bee or a dragonfly?
Recipes for geeks -- no meatloaf, we promise.
For your brilliant insight. I agree, totally worthless with nary a chance of practical application.
12g - 8.6g = 3.4g battery. Can carry a spare and a half and fly for a few more minutes.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Wow, that's almost half the weight of a human soul.
I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines.
nuff said
Obviously this will be used by terrorists. This kind of device should be banned.
The street drug trade finally gets a technology boost.
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
Not until they engineer that cool little cockroach bug in 5th Element!
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After watching the video the first time I decided to watch it again and pay closer attention to the attendant's eyes.
It's almost as if she wasn't seeing the item flying in front of her. I felt like I was watching a poorly done movie + animated character sequence.
I don't doubt this item exists but I do have serious doubts about the origin of the video provided.
You could deliver drugs and take payment with it.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I hope they sell it to the masses. I'd buy one even if it was quite expensive (quite a few hundreds of dollars)
Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson") today announced that it has successfully developed a lighter and more advanced successor to the FR, the world's smallest and lightest micro-flying robot. Turning once again to its micromechatronics technology, Epson has redefined the state of the art with its FR-II micro-flying robot--the world's new lightest and most advanced microrobot, which also features Bluetooth wireless control and independent flight*2. The FR-II will be on display at the Emerging Technology Fair, part of the Future Creation Fair that runs from August 27 to 30 at the Tokyo International Forum.
Epson has long been engaged in the research and development of microrobots and in the development of applications for their enabling technologies. The FR-II is only the latest chapter in an Epson success story that began with Monsieur, a microrobot that was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest microrobot and was put on sale in 1993. Having made micromechatronics one of its core technologies, the company has since created and marketed several more microrobots in the EMRoS series*3. April 2003 saw the introduction of the Monsieur II-P, a prototype microrobot that operates on the world's thinnest microactuator (an ultra-thin, ultrasonic motor)*4 and is remote-controllable via a power-saving Bluetooth module. The following November, Epson unveiled the prototype micro-flying robot FR, which featured two ultra-thin, ultrasonic motors driving two contra-rotating propellers for levitation, plus the world's first*5 linear actuator stabilizing mechanism for attitude control during flight.
However, the FR prototype microrobot's flying range was limited by the length of the power cord attaching it to an external battery, and although it was radio-controlled, it had to be kept within sight of the operator while flying. Consequently, Epson decided that the next step was to extend the flying range by developing fully wireless operation paired with independent flight capability. The main issue to be tackled with regard to wireless flight was the need to combine lighter weight with greater dynamic lift. Epson made the robot lighter by developing a new gyro-sensor that is a mere one-fifth the weight of its predecessor, making it the world's smallest and lightest*6 gyro-sensor. Also helping to shed weight is the high-density mounting technology used to package the microrobot's two microcontrollers including the Epson-original S1C33-family 32-bit RISC. Dynamic lift was boosted 30% by introducing more powerful ultra-thin ultrasonic motors and newly designed, optimally shaped main rotors. As for the challenge of independent flight, Epson brought its many years of micromechatronics experience to bear in realizing the development of a linear actuator with faster response time and a high-precision attitude control mechanism, and a flight path control and independent flight system (primarily for hovering).
To top it off, Epson added an image sensor unit that can capture and transmit aerial images via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a monitor on land, and they also devised two LED lamps that can be controlled as a means of signaling. Epson was assisted by Chiba University's Nonami (Control and Robotics) Laboratory in developing the control system for independent flight. The company also received advice on the rotor design from the Kawachi (Aeronautics and Astronautics) Laboratory at the University of Tokyo.
The key concept behind Epson's R&D efforts in micro-flying robots has been to expand the horizons of microrobot activities from two-dimensional space to three-dimensional space. Now, with the successful implementation of Bluetooth communications and independent flight in the FR-II, Epson has literally added a new dimension to microrobotics while greatly expanding the potential range of microrobot applications by incorporating image capture and transmission functions. At the Emerging Technology Fair, the FR-II micro-flying robot's features are expected to be showcased in artistic aeria
What a great new way of distributing drugs! :D Just too bad if the bluetooth is hacked and someone takes it over ;P :)
In the video it looks suspiciously like it's hanging from a wire (by the motion it makes).
But it looks like a neat little toy for the übergeek
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
It'll make midnight drug deliveries a lot more anonymous, anyway.
(blah! I hate when perssing "return" posts the story automatically)
This story was posted quite a while ago here.
It's still a cool little gizmo, though. I'd love one for Christmas!
That's less than half an ounce, for us American folk. :-)
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Blue screen
copters swings back and forth
very fishy
anyone else see that great big blue screen and have it just scream out "please send me to fark"
www.linux-skunkworks.com
It's got a camera. Who needs a payload to be useful?
Need E-mail virus targets new flying robots. Microsoft was brought down today by this new denial of service attack. Microsoft employees were quoted as saying "Those propellers really sting!"
I think I speak for everyone when I say that I don't want smaller robots. I want bigger robots. It would take, like, 300,000 of these guys to form Voltron. It's fair to say that the coolness factor of any given robot can be measured by the number of them which would be required to form Voltron. And, as you can imagine, I'll form the head.
adam b.
Yea, though those seem pretty impractical to build.
It's still pretty cute though.. aww/
done
I swear that little think looks like one of DiVinci's sketches of a human powered machine. Compare
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Here's hoping.
Anyone know how much a light solar cell weighs? It'd be pretty sweet to hook one up so this little guy could fly around all day (in bright sun probably).
Laser power would be interesting, though only in a line-of-sight manner (possibly with beams from UAVs), since you could use the laser to do networking instead of bluetooth...
Also, perhaps a higher-density power source like a fuel cell? Or can they not be built small enough..
(or a nanotube-based fuel cell...)
ANON 2004 writes:
.. very easy manipulation can take place in front of a blue screen.
.. then it jumps frames again and you sort of see it flying around but moving in a wierd pattern with the assistant sort of looking directly at it but maybe looking over it, Jar Jar Binks style in Star Wars I ...
Did anyone wonder a couple of things about the video like I did?
1 - Blue screen background
2 - The video was not contiguous, rather it was choppy - first you see the little helicopter, then it jumps frames to the helicopter in the hand of the assistant with the propellors moving
3 - Why was the video 40 seconds if the thing can fly for three minutes?
4 - Why was the helicopter flying facing the camera and sort of tilting left and right?
Sorry, it looks completely fake to me.
Seriously, I think that this is a very cool thing. Though I have this bad feeling in the back of my head about how it can be used to invade our privacy. Floating cameras recording our every move ala Half Life 2, Star Wars, 1984 anyone?
Mexican border here i come!
I searched google for "weighs 5g" to see what it could carry, and on the first page of results it had this.
It feels like there should be a use for a flying sapphire buddha. I just can't think what.
Although it would explain why he's got his hands over his eyes.
Agreed. That site was the worst offender I've happended upon in quite some time.
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
I can just fly the money to the corner and return with a 3 gram package.
Perverts around the world are waiting for the model with a camera.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
If you read Dan Brown's Deception Point, you would know that a robot like this (but even smaller) could lead to the deadliest of circumstances. Let's just say that I'm sure the special ops people already have something like this.
It's not old - this one has a video.
C'mon geek.
The Pixelito http://pixelito.reference.be/ is a far lighter RC helicopter. It weighs in at only 6.9 grams *with* battery. Check out the page for as size comparison with a hamster.
The future doesn't have to be like the past -- http://www.si
develop one that's human powered.
Wait, wait, they have! (see the tiny little guy inside the egg-shaped cockpit?) BTW, this site also sets the internet record for most occurrences of the phrase BRIO Erector: Crazy Inventors Helicopter; 18!
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
at 6.9g With battery!
http://pixelito.reference.be/
Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
Gotta work with Firefox guys. Firefox is the one true pure test.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I was going to say that this would be perfect for spying on the enemy in the battlefield until I saw this. You would probably need at least 30 minutes of flight time to make this viable as a battlefield spying device.
Having said that, what are other possible applications of this technology? Any ideas?
Epson added an image sensor unit that can capture and transmit aerial images via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a monitor on land
Perfect for doing recon missions in the office!
- Coffee in the coffee pot? Check.
- Did the boss leave early? Check.
- Is the coast clear to sneak out early? Check.
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
now if they could get a web-cam attached to it, we'd get more annoying pop up ads.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
It's powered by these little replaceable compressed air cartridges, each one with an embedded chip to authenticate it to the helicopter. When it runs out, you gotta replace it.
You might think you could just refill it, since air is cheap, but no! The chip won't let you!
Don't try to reverse engineer the air cartridge, Epson will beat you with the DMCA-stick.
Since Arnold is now a politician, is this the new robot? :) Guess it's the one thing that could make the franchise lamer!
How much ink does it use up and can I refill the cartridges?
Sorry AC troller, garcia beat you to it.
"WOAH, 5 grams?!?! depending on the speed of that thing, I could have my friend fly something over for me from down 2nd ave! :D"
brings new meaning to the phrase "gimmie a couple minutes and I'll fly down there"
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Good printer drivers for Mac OS X.
Dear makttkime,
I got served.
Sincerely,
CEO of Epson
PS We will be dropping all R&D immediately to focus on drivers for the OS X.
If the military or CIA likes these they could have a variety of subversive uses. With a little bit of plastic explosive an undercover agent could deliver all sorts of subversive destruction (blow out a structural support in a mosque without having to get too close, an assassination tool that could be launched such that it appears to frame someone else, etc)
Of couse if the military or CIA doesn't want to spend the money, they'll frame them as a "terrorist tool" until the market disappears and the price comes down.
This can fly for 3 minutes and can return video images.
Consider flying this (covertly) into a hostage situation, then shutting down the motor - how long could it return video then?
Or corporate espionage - fly this between the drop ceiling and the real ceiling, land over the boardroom.
Oh hell yes, I can see a lot of uses right now for this.
www.eFax.com are spammers
...one possible use would be to carry five grams of ink and squirt text and graphics onto any size sheet of paper you want. No more paper jams or limitations on size/shape of what you put in your printer.
Sorry, we're too busy out here actually surfing the web and getting things done instead of having to reformat our HD because yet again after some IE bug has let someone fuck our system up and set it on fire.
You're too stupid to even be laughed at.
Here's an in-flight picture, and another angle here.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
Wires ;)
Leaf Blowers.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Dear CEO,
Thank you.
It warms my heart to know that I can post a message to slashdot on company time about a problem I have with a product I own privately and something will come of it.
Sincerely,
mattkime
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
You could make a reasonable skin with 2 micron plastic. A 10cmx10cmx2micron of plastic will weigh approx 0.02g. Might interfere with the airflow and lift though.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
6.9 gram infared controlled rc helicopter. It's lighter and smaller. I downloaded a video of it awhile back of the guy flying it around his living room that someone posted on a message board. Cool stuff.
http://pixelito.reference.be/
5 grams? 3 minutes?
1 botulinus toxin flask...
Go here for a lighter one. 6.9 grams.
http://pixelito.reference.be/
Fill a room full of bombs, wait for the flame dancers to show up, fly the trigger in and set it off. Sure, there's easier ways, but there's points for STYLE, too!
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
5 grams of pot is a nice amount.
Crapdot.org - Still no counter.
I never have mod points when I need em. Alexander Van de Rostyne pretty much single handedly created the micro r/c heli phenomenon. Really kicked off a whole new wave of ultra light/small electronics.
Check out the forums here for more info on all things R/C.
http://www.ezonemag.com
I've never had to reformat a system becuase of an "IE bug". But what happens if I type rm -rf / on Lunix? Do I blame Lunix for that?
*(2.3kg with battery)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Sort of like a mini-ornithopter. But we don't really have any reasonable human-scale ones yet, and small-scale low-speed flight is infinitely harder to deal with.
This thing would be great for selling drugs!!
No, great for delivering them. How's the machine going to demand payment?
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
it must be for delivering joints rolled in the kitchen.
Well, don't complain here. Sent a complaint to the webmaster.
You never actually see it lift off of her hand and when she is "watching" it fly she doesn't really seem to be looking at it. And it is up against a blue screen. Too much the cynic?
invalid html
a browser shouldn't be subjected to such torture. Not Firefox's problem.
I can't imagine much practical use
You obviously don't work in a cube!
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
...probably any other standards compliant browser.
Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They just redefine the standards for "light".
But web designers should realize that there are more browsers out there than the almighty IE.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
In the Globe and Mail version of the story, they say:
In Wednesday's demonstration at the company's Tokyo office, the Micro Flying Robot barely managed to get off the ground by a couple of metres and crashed off a table at one point.
The Globe article does have a picture of it hovering in front of some guy's face, however!
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
That's more than enough for many biological, and some nasty chemical warfare agents.
But it would be more fun to see Bond use it in the next movie to sneak the microdot out, or receive a weapon while in custodity.
Btw, aren't there video cameras that small now? Since it already has the wireless link installed...
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
But the Jetsons would laugh it out of sky.
It's all good.
This is not a fake. I have been following this mans progress since he invented the Pixel micro heli like 6-7 years ago. I myself have several micro heli's and have seen many even smaller projects!
Check your facts!
Go read the micro-heli forums at www.ezonemag.com instead of spouting unsubstantiated claims.
Lemme guess you think the moon landing was a fake and the earth is flat?
Since it can carry 5 grams for only 3 minutes, I can't imagine much practical use, but it's still neat.
Neighborhood weed delivery.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Too much reading Dune/watching Lexx.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I mean, sure, if you make them small enough, they will be completely useless...unless of course, you need to do "remote" aerial surveillance of the room you are standing in...
Really, a Splinter Cell-like "sticky cam" would be better.
*THIS* is a flying robot:
http://www.moller.com/aerobot/
And besides, I might end up with one of these (if you folks would just pass the hat for me):
http://www.moller.com/purchase/purch_info.html
Is it African or European?
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
Interesting pic of this beastie on the Chicago Tribune's website here.
Free registration may be required....
Building flying robots destroys all your html skills. I mean look at this page and the one in the original article.
There is no good and bad. There is only cause and effect.
Since it can carry 5 grams for only 3 minutes, I can't imagine much practical use, but it's still neat.
Yeah, because things never improve.
Nobody ever claimed that there aren't broken sites, you clueless fucking moron. There's this thing called a 'life' that you really need to get one of.
With all the other micro and even nano-mechanical devices out now... am I the only one not impressed at all? There is nothing original at all about this device: technology, design, implementation, etc.
Maybe it's just me but this technology seems kinda dated at this point. Unless they make that thing the size of a dime or at least a quarter I'll just go back to my game of solitaire thank you very much. ;)
Could a solar panel be light enough and still deliver enough juice?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What advantage would having an eye in the sky, even for just a few minutes, specially one that's small and hard to shoot down, give our troops fighting in Iraq?
You advance, launch a pile of there suckers, with a homing signal for easy retrieval, and a small explosive charge for those that find something nasty which means you don't want 'em back. And advance again without anybody being able to play hide-n-seek with guns.
Air mail delivery of small, as snmart as the operator, mosque preserving, bomblets.
Or if they were deployed in an urban gorilla theatre, you'd have something that you could send indoors on recon with a very small GPS homing beacon and BOOM!
Now Moqtada al-Sadr would have a read problem on his hands, and some depleted uranium bullets up his ass, without even able to see us, never mind try to shoot at us.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
That reminds me of the autonomously motion-guided poison dart in the movie, Dune.
How about rigging it with a half-ounce of C-4 and replacing the camera with an infra-red sensor
? Set 100 loose on a bunch of terrorists holding up in a holy-site like say, oh I don't know, a mosque in Iraq?
It would take very little networking between the craft to make sure they all picked independent targets. It would take even less to provide "do not kill" RFID tags to those in a room you want to spare.
No more special forces or SWAT teams are required to take out a bad guy hiding in a building. Simply run in a swarm of these through a window and set them to kill mode.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
This is version 2. The previous one still holds the record for smallest but this one doesn't use a cord for its power. It also adds a camera and some leds for..... well you got to have leds eh. Blue ones for extra speed!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I've always wanted a small fighter chopper which would sit on my shoulder and every time a mosquitto gets to close to me would launch and shoot damned best down.
Seems that technology moves in right direction. We only need a machine gun lighter than 5g (0.5mm would be enough even for biggesth horse-fly or hornet, and some clever design for shoulder mounted helicopter pad, which would allow thing to recharge before next mosquitto would attack me.
Of course we would also need a clever control program. It seems that processor of my new java-enabled cell phone is powerful enough to control the beast.
I can think of one very effective purpose for these little buggers....anti-personnel.
How about rigging it with a half-ounce of magnesuim shrapnel-encased C-4 and replacing the camera with an infra-red sensor? Set 1000 loose on a bunch of terrorists holding up in a holy-site like say, oh I don't know, a mosque in Iraq?
It would take very little networking between the craft to make sure they all picked independent targets. It would take even less to provide "do not kill" RFID tags to those in a room you want to spare. The code would be simple.
No more special forces or SWAT teams are required to take out the bad guy hiding in a building. Simply run in a swarm of these through a window and set them to kill mode.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
The movement of the helicopter is so obviously swinging from a line.
You don't even see it take off from the woman's hand or land for that matter.
Here's a link for you people who read boring books when you were kids:
http://www.norder.com/nostalgia/Danny-Dunn-Invisib le-Boy.html
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
RTFA, god damn it! This is the NEXT version of that robot.
I don't have a sig.
Pay now, or this unit will self destruct. You have 10 seconds. 9. 8...
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
It can supposedly hover on its own. That makes it a robot. Next dumb question please.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That video is absolutely hilarious. It looks like the copter is full-scale, and the woman is enormous. As she stared almost menacingly at the tiny device, I kept expecting to hear tiny Japanese men in the robot yelling 'godzira! godzira!'
Look at the little helicopter. It's cool an... wow... cute chick in labcoat... want her to sit on my face... wait.. helicopter flying now... very cool gadget... drool...
When it "flies" into the upper left corner a camera flashes, and the string becoms visible for a brief moment.
Did anyone else notice that they show the thing spinning in the employees hand, but then cut to a shot of it apparently flying? I don't know, but the blue screen background and the girls there just to watch it fly around makes me question its reality.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
now I can hussle in the ghetto without worring about the po-po trying to bring me down cause they always hating.
nah, but seriously, 5 grams could be a lethal amount of many biotoxins.
Bomb squad, S.W.A.T., etc. could utilize this type of robot to clear/check stair wells and other place were the traditional rover-bot would never be able to get to in a timely fashion. Mount a mini-cam, flash/CS bang....you get the picture. Also, what about it's use in dangerous work enviornments such as coal mines? I think the applications here are endless. I am wrong?
How much explosives will this thing really be able to pack. Maybe that would work if the fuel source was potent eanough.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Money's in the account, crack is on it's way!!!!
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Geezuz I gotta get one of these . . .
So sum up it's "practicle" uses according to the slashdot cummunity:
drug delievery
boss recon for leaving early
spying on naked girlies
I love being a geek!
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
Yeah, sharp makes jumbotrons that are 2389749827346827364 ft across, but I'm still looking at the same old tv. when I can get me one for $100 I'll be interested.
If it can fly autonomously (not possible yet if you have to add more equipment like balance or barometric sensors and blow the thing's payload - but you can put the brainpower in the base station), it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. It could fly point to point in a warehouse on a security patrol, recharging at stops along the way. Automated inspections (attics, structual beams in large buildings, etc) could be done in detail with less strain on a manual pilot - you building inspector just watches the monitor and doesn't bother trying to fly the thing.
The big thing, of course, is adapting this technology to be used outside. Think of a swarm of these released from roadside base stations to check freeway bridges, dams, or structures, minutes after an earthquake. Or a version that works in fluid (really, a submarine) checking ship hulls for damage - on infestations of foreign organisms like zebra mussels - as they steam into port.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I'll bet you could ad to it's range/lifting-power by adding a donut-balloon filled with hydrogen. Wrap it around that box-body.
Think about about it: this thing could carry 150$ worth of coke on a single trip! This is just great for our Mexican friends!
The girl in the video should have been wearing
safety goggles.
Since the military likes to waste tax payers' money, strap five grams of C4 to that baby. A better use would be to carry a load of remotely deployable super glue. Just imagine the look on your coworker's face when they can't get out of their chair! Or when the keys fail to be typable and the mouse is stuck in park. Hehehe, that would kick ass.
it would be perfect for delivering, say, five grams of crack from, say, microsoft marketing to, say, microsoft engineering.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
6 grams isn't a lot, but how fast does it fly?
I am sure it has enough kinetic energy to be useful for something.
It just needs longer autonomy, or the ability to fly into power sockets.
TODO: 753) write sig.
Why, so you could terrorize coworkers with it? (not really a bad idea until it comes back as a thimble-full of smushed electronics) I liked what I saw and could probably remain entertained for several days with one of these, assuming it recharges like those BitCharG cars. I wouldn't simply wannit, but UltraWannit!
Though there is a certain grace and beauty to a dragon or damsel fly, but we've a ways to go to get there.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
you could actually see a guy above the "flying" helicopter pulling the thing up with a tiny fishing rope!
drug delivery...
I want one of these on IR trigger in every room of my house, ready to fly into the air when a burglar enters the room and fire a poison treefog dart right between their eyes.
IMO idiot web developers are to blame for this, rather than IE or FireFox (what I use). They should always check that their fancy little websites work on all the common browsers, not just on their P.O.S. Dreamweaver. However, maybe someone out there could tell me where i can find a plugin for FF that will let me see those (almost IE-propietary) layers that have become so popular lately?
http://www.bernsonline.com/
For those of you who don't remember the series, it was a television takeoff on James Bond which ran in the mid 60's.
These would be great for military use, if the underlying technology were properly refined.
It would be quite useful to have a silent, slow-moving miniature chopper with an X10-like camera attatched, if it had a remote that used a longer-range (radio, anyone?) technology for control, and a simple remote with a few simple controls (joystick; thrust; joystick for camera control, and a 2-inch LCD). If given a ~20g payload, they would easily carry a small, medium-res cam, control device for it, reciever for it, and a small payload (wireless mic, anyone?), as well as a good-sized ethanol fuel cell (i.e. the Toshiba prototype) for 2-3 hours of continuous flight, while remaining small enough to remain undetectable to radar, etc.
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
Now we just need DataBus and we're all set.
(TTFOT is a novel about AI in which the demo uses little drones like this to maintain itself.)
"Your mom goes to college"
:) Only me and my friend laughed though. Hmm...
Heheh! I just saw that movie in the theater and that was the best line
Naked booty on the tube and Grandma needs a pill? Dispatch her Milltowns via the Seiko Autonomous Delivery Robot. The measure of perfection will be capacity adequate to deliver her the gin to wash 'em down.
The U.S. military (through DARPA and other agencies) has been funding research on micro-UAVs for years. Not too hard to think about what they would be good for if you change your mindset to try to solve the "problem" of being able to kill people more effectively.
s p62.html
Some interesting links:
Pretty scary justification for "why bother": http://www.darpa.mil/tto/mav/mav_auvsi.html
For those that don't know, an "ACD" is a program where they actually build a working weapons system out of the technology: http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/mavact.html
This is one of my favorate MAV's: http://www.aerovironment.com/news/news-archive/wa
A general links page that shows the amount of research being done in this area: http://www.casde.iitb.ac.in/IMSL/amitay.html
FAS collects a ton of information about U.S. military programs and systems: http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/mav.htm
Clearly, someone at Epson's been reading
Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy one of my favorite childhood reads...
I would think that someone on /. would have hacked a Linux install on it and used it to control an iPod by now.
Maybe Epson could make an ink cartridge that last more than 30 pages of pictures if they weren't busy building flying machines of little use,
If I attach ten thousand or so to a lawn chair, and fly into space twice, then maybe win the $10M X-Prize!
I have experience with homing pidgeons and let me say that if you aren't far from the border that you can slightly overlord a strong male pidgeon with dry weed and he can fly for about 200 miles without rest.
And a secret to raising dependent homing pidgeons is not to feed them with plain birdseed, but to actually mix seeds with weak THC-bearing canabis seeds that they will have reason to return if not for the nesting females.
I learned this from some friends of mine...the feeding THC seeds to the pidgeon part. The part on loading a homing pidgeon with dry MJ is all me.
is the current technology to enabling something like this to be somewhat self-powered via solar cells?
IMHO there would be quite a few uses for something like this if it could run 10-15 minutes _and_ be self-charging--even if the payload went down a bit.
I prefer my roaches not to fly, thanks :D
...Boston Tea raid^H^H^H^HParty...
It's near impossible commanding a German cockroach to not spread, let alone fly. I mean, look at France; it's occupied Germany! and Brittain is Anglo Saxon germanic tribes but denies it by drowning themselves in English tea!
Hmmm... maybe that's why
Neat device, shame about the page author. Did anyone else notice that the mu in uFR-II was consistently rendered with an image instead of using µ?
And before the other /. grammar-nazi's get onto me about using uFR-II - have you tried posting an article to /. using µ? :)
Work? Ha! Getting paid to think up, design and build model planes with the backup of a large R&D budget... sigh, I knew I should have done something different somewhere way back when - but what?
...shoot it down with the sniper rifle!
I remember reading a book as a kid where a "mad" professor built a remote control flying dragonfly (as opposed to a non-flying one, duh).... Soe schoolkid got hold of it blah blah blah, anyone else remember the book?
Good afternoon Mr Gere.... Would you like the hamster or the helicopter today sir?
Surely da Vinci's patent has expired by now!
My wife and I think this is a faked film. Reasons:
1. Liftoff is not seen.
2. Blue screen of type used by filmmakers used for composite shots.
3. Second shot (after closeup) looks kind of fake. Of course, it could be due to mpeg-ization, but it still looked bad, like it really wasn't on her hand.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
- It's got an XML declaration and an XHTML doctype, but it's served as text/html
- It most assuredly does not validate as XHTML, containing more errors than content!
- It has two <head> elements , one embedded in the body.
I'd, er, enumerate the validation errors, but there are 338 errors in the markup. If they actually did serve it as an XHTML document, the browsers that can handle XHTML would refuse to parse it anyway.http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0819/epson 757.mpg n 766.mpg n 788.mpg n .htm
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0819/epso
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0819/epso
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0819/epso
A little device that could carry my 'sensitive items' in a little hop over the customs inspection station at night could be quite useful in some situations. It would fly for a few hundred feet and give off a little short-distance radio signal to allow it to be found after landing.
I toy with the idea of filling an inflatable life raft with high-pressure hydrogen. It would float in the air at night and be dark against the sky. A light propeller (fueled by the hydrogen in the 'air raft' would push it and an air foil system would guide it under the direction of on-board GPS.
It would carry a few pounds of sensitive goods through the rugged mountain passes between British Columbia and Washington State in a controlled drift about 10 feet above the treetops.
A 32 bit microcontroller would have its route mapped out and would work with the GPS to a landing zone of about one square mile where it and its cargo could be retrieved by a person in a all-terrain 4-wheel-drive.
ah, fantasy...
This appears to be a follow up of an earlier slashdot story.
I could deliver with this thing.
Or maybe I could just fly it into somebody's eyeball.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
...to use the wings as circuit boards in the next version? Thats a lot of flat space that might be able to do something else while it twirls.
Neil is that you? Yeah yeah, it's me... Neil...
As a NZ guest of the tokyo future creation fair, I get to see this thing for real sometime next week... expect to see some more pics later
Yeah - and I would have thought that ZigBee would be a more appropriate wireless protocol to use as well.
A sotry on newscientist a long while ago about a robot that learned to fly.
:-)
A genetic algorithm that judged the fitness rate of how high the robot was able to get for each generation of code.
Robot learns to fly
I thought of a very light weight helicopter with rotors that can hardly support thier own weight, but get straightened out by the G forces. Also the spin up speed for the rotors would be long, as the gearing system would strain the small motor.
However, when airborn with high enough rpms, small twists to the frame could give agile peformance.
About how useful this (cool looking) bot is: I expect to see some 'ferrying' a few grams of this and that between dorms on cold days at uni!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Its nice to see DaVinci designing again...
This bears a striking resemblance to his design for a "helicopter"
As they say, "nothing new under the sun".
I can't imagine much practical use, but it's still neat.
Couple the gizmo with some good AI software and it can turn into a mini RoboPet. It could use rechargeable batteries, have it's own pod where it could feed with energy... and with the help of a mini buzzer it can even sing. Add a little bit of LED technology and you could have you own voice activated firefly. All it takes is a little imagination.From the article:
:D
To top it off, Epson added an image sensor unit that can capture and transmit aerial images via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a monitor on land, and they also devised two LED lamps that can be controlled as a means of signaling.
Perverts around the world are happy!
Keith D.
The weak point of any ransom scheme is the money drop.
"Be at the the corner of 1st and Main at noon. Have six 3-caret diamonds."
Police could never track it and kidnapper gets away.
I mean, I saw this before
the pun is mightier than the sword
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
= 9J =
From the article: *2: Independent flight is the ability to follow a computer-programmed flight path