Slashdot Mirror
The Wasp Micro Air Vehicle
Victor Cheng writes "In developments that bring together a variety of technologies including robotics and digital imaging the Wasp Micro Air Vehicle is one of the Pentagon's latest tools currently in testing of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (although I'm thinking its not going to need a carrier to get this one up and flying). The 13 inch Wasp comes equipped with 2 video cameras, GPS and has a myriad of possible applications. Next time you hear something Buzzing around when you're at a family picnic you might think twice before swatting it could be an expensive action."
Question is, how close do you have to be to use it? I mean, it's got a whole bunch of applications, though it doesn't look very stealthy, other than it's size. The article(s) say that it's intended for use with ship-to-ship boardings, but nothing mentions it's actual operational range. I mean, if the thing isn't good for atleast 1500 feet (plus having enough power to make it through steel bulkheads if it has to go anyplace but topside), you might as well not use it. Also wonder how long the battery life is on that little gadget. I'm sure the US Navy thinks of them as disposable, so recharability isn't exactly priority, but with an electrical system sucking on power for both flight operations, two cameras, and an RF stream, it's got to have a nice big pair on it.
Next question, where can I get one and how much?
Informatus Technologicus
and you'll find this article (http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001084.html) which talks about an even stranger flying vehicle.
More seriously, I'm surprised by the size of it. It seems like an RC light powered plane with inbuilt gizmos in the wings - I had seriously expected the Pentagon to be a huge amount smaller than this, with a vague thought of hover. I guess without the wireless power (see the /. story, NASA prizes) available yet these things have to carry their own fuel, and then the structure needs to be larger and more supportive, enough physical strength to support power loading, and space for the gizmos. But... 13 inches. And since I don't have a concievable way of saying it without innuendo... that's BIG.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
- How recharge batteries in the middle of battlefield?
- What about wind? Make war only when no wind?
- My got - why do they test this on for the NAVY? I'm pretty sure, that range sucks (compared to old, but still usefull device called "radar"). I can imagine this usefull for street fights
With sub 2 hour endurance, the Nimitz will have to be tied up to the pier to make this thing useful.
I think a more viable role for it would be to spy on protesters right here in the good 'ol USA.
As for expensive, my park flyer does the same thing (well, almost) and it was $500.
This is old news and the size of these mini-UAVs (lets be honest about their application) is even smaller than the one in the article, just google it.
blah blah.
At 12 pounds I wonder how long time this can be in the air before it needs to be recharged?
Underholdning.info
This technology is not 'violent' per se, any more than the Internet is 'violence-based' just because the military had a (big) hand in building it.
---
Remember, it's never to late to have a happy childhood!
From the company which designed it in 2002
They are perfect for boarding a ship from a safe distance. A hostile ship that has been stopped knows you will blow them out of the water if your wasps are attacked. You could land your team on the deck with a chopper in relative saftey.
The most dangerous situations are when opposing forces are within close range of each other, the ability to "see" better in any situation is a distinct advantage.
Wind - Read what Sun Tsu has to say about battlefield weather.
Batteries - Handled by the supply line, if that is broken "feed" of the enemy.
Street fights - It works via preprogrammed GPS points that are probably not acurate enough (not to mention being shot at while you punch in the route coordinates). The video cammera on an assult rifle is a better idea. Could be usefull in a city wide seige, mortars, tanks, and many other longer range weapons at the front line could use a "swarm" to direct fire.
If you read between the lines it appears drones are already widely used in the middle east with varying degrees of "success". Some larger drones are armed and have reportedly been used in "targeted killings". The problem with using helicopters is that there is media everywhere when one is shot down. Nobody cares if an "experimental" drone is shot out of the sky (or swatted at the picnic table).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The same team that built this Wasp built a smaller (!) micro air vehicle a couple of years earlier. This paper describes the design and implementation of the project at a good level of detail -- enough to show the complexity and tradeoffs in design, but not so much to bury the reader in equations and minutia.
What fascinates me about MAVs is that you can do absolute cutting-edge research on a shoestring budget. Many prototypes can be designed, analyzed, built, tested, and thrown away.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
This story reminds me of the robot fly created by Ron Fearing of UC Berkeley and Michael Dickinson of Caltech some years ago. Check it out: http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/mm/spingar nkoff/flyorama/robofly.html
I saw a discovery channel special where they were talking about nifty tech on the battlefield and one of the things that was shown was a flying thing very much like this, and it had a self destruct button that would make it explode with about the same force as a hand grenade. Ouch. If you wanted a slightly more elegant solution, you could outfit it with an air gun and have it shoot tiny ricin poison pellets. Especially if you want to take an installation without having to scrub the people bits off the walls after you move in.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I seem to remember seeing on a show called, "That's Incredible" many years ago...and I mean many, that there was an army vehicle in development that was called, "The Wasp".
This "Wasp" however, was more along the lines of the old Dick Tracy trashcan flyers. "That's Incredible" even had footage of the vehicle in flight as demonstrated by Army personel. The intent was for rapid removal of injured from the battle field and for recon...mostly recon as I remember.
The details as I recall them are that the pilot stood in this large "trash can" like thing that had room for two personel (standing/limping). It could fly at tree top level at about 60 to 70mph. It was stated that the vehicle used the jet engine from a cruise missle.
The video they showed on the show showed the vehicle lifting vertically, sliding left, right and backwards as well as cruising at treetop level very quickly.
I thought that it was the coolest thing I had seen way back then. Does anyone else happen to remember this?
I worked for a company called Aerovironment over the summer that did a lot of research in this area (They won several DARPA contracts relating to these), and from I've seen, it is very difficult to make these smaller. Now, I am an electrical engineer and not an aero, so I can't really give details of the aero stuff, but you can get the idea...
An amazing amount of electronics has to fit in a very tiny area. Things like cameras, GPS, flight control, servos, batteries, etc... all add up. The batteries are probably the biggest weight on the plane. You also have to consider the effects like propeller wash on the airfoil, and how the small size will affect its handling.
It also isn't that practical to make them smaller for stealth, because like someone mentioned below, they are very quiet. Aerovironment has hand-launched planes that are much bigger than this (Something like a 4-5 foot wingspan) and after they are up a few hundred feet or so, you can't hear the electric motor anymore and you have to struggle to find it in the air if you don't know where it is.
The push to go smaller is to make it easier to transport and carry out into the field. With planes of these sizes, the plane and the base station could all fit into one breifcase instead of a few breifcases as with a typical hand-launched UAV.
Not they can't get smaller, but there are serious tradeoffs for doing so.