Tiny Flyer Navigates Like Fly

Assassin bug writes to tell us the Discovery Channel is reporting on a new ultralight autonomous aircraft that could be the next 'fly on the wall'. From the article: "The 10-gram microflyer, being developed by a team of researchers lead by Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, has a 36-centimeter (14-inch) wingspan. But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue."

Comments

Search and rescue?

[liliafan]

It is kinda cool that they have developed this, but:

But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue.

Who are they planning on rescuing? Commando Ants trained for search and destroy? I could even see this doing assasination missions, a little needle a nerve agent, but sorry search and destroy really?

Re:search and rescue?

[Anonymous Coward]

"sorry sir, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, the entire fleet was swallowed by a small dog."

Re:search and rescue?

[mr100percent]

Anyone remember the episode of the TV Show Get Smart? Control spends a million dollars building a robotic fly for infiltration and spying, and Max comes in and smashes it with a newspaper.

search and rescue?

[jszep]

or search and destroy?

Typo.

[Tackhead]

> The 10-gram microflyer, being developed by a team of researchers lead by Dario Floreano at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, has a 36-centimeter (14-inch) wingspan. But it could one day be shrunk to insect size and used for search and rescue.

Hmm. "Search and rescue". Silly Swiss, neutral, impregnably-defended, makers of great chocolate, but they can't even spell "surveillance" right on a grant application! Sheesh.

oh, the glorious misleading headlines

[Horatio_Hellpop]

"Tiny" Flyer ?? // 36-centimeter (14-inch) wingspan//

Sorry, but even most drunken sots would notice a fly with a *14-inch* wingspan.

Post this when the wingspan is 1/16th inch.

I can see it now..

[NorbrookC]

search and rescue..

"Well, we're lost. I hope someone is looking for us." (slap) "Damn bugs!"

Easier idea

[Dr. Eggman]

Why build a fancy flight system to be swatted when we could just take a real fly, attach 2 tiny cameras (four if they're small enough, one for each direction) and a little zapper to zap its brain when it goes the wrong direction we want.

Re:Easier idea

[suv4x4]

"Why build a fancy flight system to be swatted when we could just take a real fly, attach 2 tiny cameras (four if they're small enough, one for each direction) and a little zapper to zap its brain when it goes the wrong direction we want."

If a fly with 4 cameras, a zapper and an antenna flies in, won't you become kinda suspicious?

Yes...

[Wellington Grey]

"Indoor environments are really tough," said Erik Steltz, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley... For example, in order to zip around indoor obstacles -- walls, corners, bookcases, furniture, ceilings, etc. -- a flyer needs to see the objects and have the brain power to steer away.

Is there a different method used when outdoors? I've never been, so I don't know.

-Grey

Power?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that the biggest obstacle to making miniaturized robots useful is not how you guide it but how you power it. The article doesn't address that issue.

Not tiny

[Lord_Dweomer]

Story title is misleading. At 14", this is NOT tiny. It is on par with small toy airplanes.

Am I the only one tired of these science stories that sound cool...but then you read them and get to the part where they say "and one day in the distant future...asuminig we get funding which is the whole reason for this press release....we could POSSIBLY do X, Y and Z with this!"

Seriously...every time I read one of these and get to the "punchline" at the end I feel like I've been had for 2 minutes of my life.

Re:They'll Just Accept It

[aminorex]

That seems a fair description of the future, as far as it goes. But you left out Orwells "boot stamping on a human face".

Through the 20th century, power tended to centralize, inevitably. Technology is changing that. Now there is one fundamental struggle that underlies all human activity. It is not the struggle between Islam and Materialism, or the struggle between Marxism and Captialism, or the struggle between Rich and Poor, or the struggle between Democracy and Fascism. It is the technological race to develop effective weapons to support or to destroy the continuing centralization of power and control over the population. Obviously the vested interests of centralization are largely in control of the means of discovery and production, but the numbers of those devoted to opposing them are vast, and the need for organization is minimal. As long as the advocates of personal freedom are able to promulgate their ideas, their eventual success is therefore assured. Insuring that capability is therefore critical to the survival of value itself.