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Robot Planes and Helicopters Taught Aerobatics

Posted by Zonk on from the educating-the-bots dept.

holy_calamity writes "MIT and Georgia Tech researchers are teaching small robotic aircraft some impressive stunts. MIT's RC plane's can take off and land from vertical perches (video), while the Georgia Tech helicopter can land on slopes of up to sixty degrees, by flipping backwards into freefall as it lands (video)."

73 comments

  1. One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc

      Alan Szabo Jr

    1. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by chuckymonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That was amazing. The military needs to figure out how he does all of that. While a human would not be able to take the forces something acting like that would exert, a remotely controlled fighting craft would be incredible. Back on topic that's some pretty interesting stuff. Most UAV require a landing strip like an airplane to take off and land on, if they could just do what these do it would make them much more portable and much easier to use in the field. Amazing world that we live in these days. My dad couldn't imagine having a phone in his car when he was a kid in the 50's much less aircraft that could fly themselves around.

      --
      "Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
    2. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by MouseR · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Woah. Just, woah.

    3. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Some of the UAVs that you see in the media a lot like the predator and global hawk do need some space to operate, due to their scale. But I don't think it is safe to say that most UAVs are that large or require a runway. There is a whole range of Miniature UAVs that can do some slick stuff. I guarantee if you're seeing it on youtube and thinking of possible military applications, the military has probably already made that connection some time ago. There are a lot of people, some of them pretty smart, who have dedicated their lives to this kind fo thing.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    4. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by jcr · · Score: 4, Informative

      UAVs have to make a trade-off of size for endurance. A UAV like the predator can stay aloft for hours, but something small enough to hand-launch would be impressive if it could even carry enough fuel to stay aloft for half an hour.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    5. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have worked extensively with these type of things in Iraq. Most of the ones that are in use now require an airstrip minus a few of the really small relatively useless ones. What I'm interested in is using this type of thing on a larger higher endurance aircraft that can stay aloft for a couple hours or more so that what it sends back is useful for a while.

      anon for obvious reasons

    6. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How he does it? He pushes some buttons and control sticks.

      There is nothing magical about it. He's just translated the power of the human mind/body into a physical object like anything else. We currently don't have the technology to make a computer controlled craft that could do anything close to what was in that video because of the sensory requirements. It either requires a massive number of sensors on the craft (heavy, high bandwidth) or something that can simulate the human eye watching the craft (this would be limited to the short visual range like the video though; ie. useless for military UAV). So far we don't have anything even close.

    7. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by superwiz · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why is Wagner playing in my head while I watch this?

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    8. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by serbanp · · Score: 1

      Come on! This guy can't fly the damn 'copter in a straight line!

      Joke aside, Mr. Szabo Jr.'s fingers are really golden. I wish I could see them working the gymbals but it seems that the bloody cameraman finds every single time the 'copter to be more interesting than the hand work. That's a shame!

    9. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Sparr0 · · Score: 1

      *I* have built R/C planes of the hand launched variety (3-5 foot wingspan) that can stay aloft for 2+ hours on *BATTERIES*. And that's without taking advantage of thermals. What the military could do with a budget and (maybe) fuel cells would amaze you (based on the assumptions your incorrect post indicates).

    10. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Sparr0 · · Score: 1

      A full scale helicopter could not do the things in that video due to a lack of power. That is one of the major differences in scale model aircraft. In a helicopter or plane model that size, you can easily get many times the minimum required thrust, opening up a wide range of aerobatic maneuvers. I have seen 40 gram airplanes that produce 100+ grams of thrust (and can thus easily hover, nose-up). That model helicopter probably weighs something like 5 pounds and puts out at least 40 pounds of thrust (based on the angles required for the nose-up reverse-pendulum maneuver in the video). The same design scaled up for a real (read: armed) military vehicle would be lucky to produce 150% of its minimum hovering thrust (say, 15000 pound helicopter, 20-25k pounds of thrust at max throttle). Add to that that most real helicopters are not optimized for inverted flight and half the maneuvers in the video become even less plausible.

    11. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by jcr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      *I* have built R/C planes of the hand launched variety (3-5 foot wingspan) that can stay aloft for 2+ hours on *BATTERIES*

      That's nice. What was their on-board avionics complement like? How many cameras, and did you have visible light only, or IR and UV sensors as well? How about chemical sniffers, GPS, or encrypted and jamming-hardened radios? How about motion compensation? Autopilot if control link was lost?

      What you can build for hobby purposes, and what's practical for a military mission are very different things. Your R/C planes only have to have a receiver good for visual range (a couple hundred meters at most), and you don't even have any downlink.

      I've built R/C planes too, and I also worked on the ground control station for a target drone UAV many years ago. You're the one who doesn't know what he's talking about, son.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    12. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Sparr0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      onboard avionics consisted of just a three-axis gyro based autopilot (in case of control loss). cameras were medium-resolution still and low-resolution radio-transmitted video, visible light only (well, as little IR as I could manage, you know how CCDs are). gps was only for tagging with the camera, a small non-interactive reciever.

      oh yeah, and i flew well outside visual range. thats what the video camera is for. radio and reciever were tested to 1.5 miles, probably good to at least 2 on a good day.

      the army can have as many as they want for $2000 apiece. screw hardening, the enemy can knock down 99% of them and they will still be cheaper than any "real" military UAV ive heard of.

    13. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by jcr · · Score: 1

      Tell you what: file an unsolicited proposal with DARPA for a UAV with only a two-mile operational range, and let us know how it goes.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    14. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by mcrbids · · Score: 1

      Woah. Just, woah.

      The stunts themselves aren't particularly eye-catching. The first (landing the chopper on the slope) is similar to what I was taught as a pilot for emergency landing procedure on an upslope - approach on the fast side, then "pull back" to climb up the slope as close to the ground as you can without touching. As you climb, your airspeed will drop unusually quickly, and you'll "drop" onto the upwards slope.

      The latter stunt is proof that when you connect a very large engine to a very light airframe, you can do some "funny" stuff. It's basically hanging on the prop at 100% vertical. You can only do this when you burn 4-10x the fuel per hour that your average airplane does. There's a *reason* planes don't take off like this! (damned expensive!) But if you want to see what this looks like with a real pilot (instead of some model) go ahead and check it out!

      What's amazing here is that these stunts are being performed using NO PILOT and it's not remote controlled. It's a computer doing this!

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    15. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by mumblestheclown · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, basically all cool youtube videos involving aerobatics and remote controlled aircraft are due primarily to the fact that the craft have ridiculous power to weight ratios. These same power to weight ratios are not realistic for craft with real-world payload and/or endurance requirements at this time. More to the point, "the military" (by which I assume you mean "the US military") already has plenty of gadgets. We don't need more hardware dreamed up by middle-class SUV drivers in office parks in suburbs who are blissfully seperated from the realities of what their machines do. We need people (not necessarily in the military) who are more prepared to actually engage with the people of the world in a constructive way.

    16. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Cederic · · Score: 2, Insightful


      For tactical use, something small enough and cheap enough to have in a box in the back of the truck for immediate recce purposes might be of interest. A platoon commander would love to be able to answer "What's happening half a mile over there" at will.

      Of course, I'm mostly just guessing.

    17. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by chuckymonkey · · Score: 1

      Thank you for making assumptions about me. Too bad what you don't realize is what I've done and where I've been, Iraq...twice. Now, I've worked with helicopters, UAV, and many other really cool gadgets and I can tell you that something like what these are capable of would be a great boon. I do know that the technology for something carrying a payload to do this isn't there yet. That's the key word though, yet. What I was getting at as well is looking at how they have that helicopter and R/C plane configured to do this and maybe some research into ways we can make unmanned craft do similar things. What we soldiers don't need is some SUV drivers in office parks in suburbs who are blissfully seperated(sic) from the realities of what their machines do telling us what gadgets we do and don't need. Oh and yes my profile says ex-soldier, however I'm still in the national guard. Mountain combat as a matter of fact and a UAV that could take off like that little plane did as well as carry a useful payload distributed across multiple packs would be a huge boon to us.

      --
      "Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
    18. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by ozbird · · Score: 1

      That was amazing. The military needs to figure out how he does all of that.

      First, make your helicopters weigh only 3kg...

    19. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by Sparr0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      About as well as a proposal to equip soldiers with silly string would go. Laughed off out of hand, impossible to accomplish officially, but wildly useful when actually delivered at private expense.

      Screw the $2000 version. For $250 (each, in quantities of 20+) I can give you a UAV with a 30 minute flight time and remote video at a 1 mile range that will fit [no-tools disassembled] inside a shoebox for carrying*, with a MTBF of 1000 hours [in the air]. $10 each for sets of rx/tx crystals, leaving channel allocation as an exercise for the reader. $100 more gets you the transmitter (the radio control), a battery charger, and a video monitor, all of which fits in a second shoebox, but each unit only ever needs one of those (assuming the UAV itself is going to get lost on a regular basis). As a sibling post stated, I don't think any ground unit would not want to have that as a tactical option, and we spend more than that on a good periscope just for looking around a corner. "milspec" is fine and dandy for some things, but we suffer in wars like Iraq and Vietnam where the enemy can do more with $10 than we are willing to do with $1000.

      * - given a 14"x8"x6" shoebox... With a 3 segment foam wing that buys you you a 42"x8" wing, a 2 segment boom gives you at least a 32" long fuselage, and the rest of the box is taken up by a two-segment tail, the electronics and mechanical packages. It would carry 1Ah*11.1V in lithium batteries (oh no, a fire hazard!), run on a 5-7" prop geared down maybe 4:1 from a brushless motor. Control would be throttle+pitch+yaw, with a respectable amount of dihedral and COL/COG separation to avoid roll.

      PS: Could almost certainly do significantly better on the range with frequencies available to the military. 1 mile is easy with the public no-license-required bands here in the states, and trivial on ham R/C bands.

      PPS: Jamming will be a problem. Add $50 to the non-replaceable package cost to get a transmitter that can operate in multiple bands, have different planes for different bands (no extra cost). If XXXMHz is being jammed, fly something on YYYYMHz instead. If they manage to jam every available frequency... you're no worse off than you started. And you can probably get some sort of useful information out of the location of the jamming equipment (trivially triangulated).

    20. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by swillden · · Score: 1

      The stunts themselves aren't particularly eye-catching.

      You're looking at the wrong videos. The "Whoah, just whoah" was a response to this one, not the ones linked to in the summary.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    21. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by mcrbids · · Score: 1

      Ok, gotcha now. This is pretty !@# kewl. Now, picture that helicopter at 100% real size. Now picture yourself as a passenger in said aircraft. Then it's more like whoh, just WEARFGH.. BLEHWHAHAH...

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    22. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by swillden · · Score: 1

      Ok, gotcha now. This is pretty !@# kewl. Now, picture that helicopter at 100% real size. Now picture yourself as a passenger in said aircraft. Then it's more like whoh, just WEARFGH.. BLEHWHAHAH...

      No kidding. I was in the 19th Special Forces Group of the Utah National Guard, and I got some nap-of-the-earth helicopter rides during exercises that were better than any roller coaster ride I've ever been on, and that was straight and level compared to the mildest tricks Szabo was doing in that video.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    23. Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1

      I've often thought about this, and one potential problem I can see is lag and interference -- a split second of it and you could be eating dirt, unless you also had some sort of autopilot like in the video to hold/stabilise the aircraft.

  2. Not RC by SnoopJeDi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I see nothing that suggests that the MIT plane is remote-controlled. It was inspired by a pilot's skill on an RC model.

    Unless the controls are issued by a remote computer?

    1. Re:Not RC by SnoopJeDi · · Score: 1

      Yes, it certainly seems this way. It's not RC in the typical sense, though, and applying this kind of automation to UAVs, you'd probably be on the scale of a clever engineer being able to work the weight and space in for an onboard flight computer.

    2. Re:Not RC by HEbGb · · Score: 1

      These are almost certainly remote controlled; the algorithms are much easier to design/implement externally, before miniaturizing everything. It would seem like a big waste of time to do all that integration so early in the research. That is, unless these control systems problems are much easier than I suspect they are (or there are severe limitations outside of the demos).

    3. Re:Not RC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but a lot of academic robot research "borrows" heavily from the RC community and amazes people who have never seen this stuff. I worked on it for 5 years doing DARPA projects at a major university, and these RC guys know much more stuff then we did.

    4. Re:Not RC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless the controls are issued by a remote computer?

      Only when it's being observed (and thus damaged).

    5. Re:Not RC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was wanting to share the foamy flier feeding frenzy that our future robotic R/C LiPo plane overlords would be facing, but unfortunately that clip has never made it on YouTube. (Or at least under the most likely search terms.) It's likely to be hidden somewhere amongst the forums of wattflier.com, but I'm not about to make a long search for what might now be a dead link.

      But at least now anyone slightly curious about what I described may have a chance at finding it...

    6. Re:Not RC by djradon · · Score: 1

      It's probably better off as remote control... i.e., server-based command and control. It probably won't take too long to outfit this with a WiMaX radio or whatever the military's high-speed data signal might be.

    7. Re:Not RC by The+Raven · · Score: 3, Informative
      It is absolutely remote controlled. If you RTFA, it states:

      testing indoors with off-board control systems and sensors. "The bit in the air is the cheapest part of these experiments," he says.

      The controls, cameras, everything is not on the plane. The plane/heli are just simple cheap RC toys, controlled remotely by expensive processors and sensors.
      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
    8. Re:Not RC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They hired this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gulv_bvZS94

    9. Re:Not RC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Notice the IR motion capture cameras on the walls ? Now put those on a real battlefield. Pretty impressive anyway.

  3. I, for one, ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...welcome our small robotic aircraft overlords!

    But, I suspect that we'll soon be chased around by flying advertisements!

    [mechanical voice]: "Wait, Mr. Smith, stop running! I've got to tell you about Splam!"

    (Sound of one flying ad machine shooting down another)

    [second mechanical voice, swooping in]: "Don't listen to that guy! Splastic is the new Splam!!!"

    1. Re:I, for one, ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that they would use more targeted advertising.

      [helicopter outside your bedroom window]: Perhaps now is a good time to tell you about Viagra...

      [helicopter outside your bathroom window later]: Have you ever heard of Natural Colon Cleansing?

    2. Re:I, for one, ... by definate · · Score: 1

      Hey man, all of that extra stuff was great...

      But you had me at "I, for one, ..."

      --
      This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    3. Re:I, for one, ... by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 1

      Hopefully by then tasers will be ubiquitous. I bet one will be marketed as "The Ad Blocker".

  4. milestone by giampy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The videos are very interesting, especially the second one from the group of Jonathan How. The developmen of control laws that are able to fully control the aircraft flying in those conditions, (not to mention being able to handle the transitions between such flying modes) is a hard problem.

    This is due to the fact that the overall system is highly nonlinear, scarcely controllable, (since the control surfaces have little to no effect), and also not very well known in such conditions.

    Whenever they can handle this problem in a systematic and rigorous way, (that is without ad-hoc quick fixes), i'd say that a milestone in control science will have been reached.

    --
    We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
    1. Re:milestone by timeOday · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Whenever they can handle this problem in a systematic and rigorous way, (that is without ad-hoc quick fixes), i'd say that a milestone in control science will have been reached.
      The opposite may be true; I think it most likely this was achieved by machine learning rather than control theory using programming by demonstration, reinforcement learning, etc. Classical linear control theory is nice and formal, but formalisms can limiting rather than empowering when you fail to think beyond the narrow limits of what you are able to prove. In other words, in practice you might get a whole lot further by giving up on guarantees (given assumptions which are almost certainly unrealistic anyways); and using more "ad-hoc" methods.
    2. Re:milestone by djradon · · Score: 1

      Agreed, this is a beautiful A.I. challenge. (and a weird sociological development.)

      GP: Can you describe more what you mean by scarcely controllabe? Something's controlling the plane's movement, why couldn't it be receiving signals from an external controller (person or software)? Or do you mean those kind of maneuvers could only be done by a computer?

    3. Re:milestone by slashdot.org · · Score: 1

      The developmen of control laws that are able to fully control the aircraft flying in those conditions, (not to mention being able to handle the transitions between such flying modes) is a hard problem.

      This is due to the fact that the overall system is highly nonlinear, scarcely controllable, (since the control surfaces have little to no effect), and also not very well known in such conditions.

      What if you had a very high degree of positional awareness? Wouldn't that make it a lot easier? I'm asking because I suspect that is exactly what those red (probably LED based) lights around the room are for. Look at how they are pulsating in the slow motion video (towards the end of the youtoob clip).

      Just one possible scenario; Those lights look a lot like the Vicon motion capture cameras with LED rings. (although different enough, those are probably not actual Vicon cameras). The Vicon system can measure the position of a bunch of retro-reflective dots pretty accurately. In other words, it could provide pretty accurate absolute position of few key positions on the airplane.

      Not that that wouldn't be a cool hack, but to me would be really stretching the 'autonomous' part of the equation...

    4. Re:milestone by giampy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am not sure i'd call that AI. A number of animals like for example insects exhibit an amazing control of their body within a wide variety of situations, but "intelligence" in the usual sense does not have to be involved. I'd call it simply sensing, motion planning and control. By that i don't mean is a simpler problem than AI, (it may very well be harder), i just think it's different.

      Autonomous learning techniques can help, to a certain extent, but i personally think that they cannot do the whole job, as control theory cannot be completely bypassed. Animal brains have already in place dedicated motion planning structures, evolved trough billions of years, that allow them to do what they do. THen it takes a huge amount of trial and errors to perfect their "control system". However this is an open issue. We'll see.

      By scarcely controllable i meant that when the airplane is hovering like an helicopter its control surfaces (ailerons, stabilator, rudders) do not receive considerable air flow, and therefore you cannot really expect a substantial "return force" on the airplane by moving them. Witout these return forces, you (or whoever or whatever is trying to control the airplane) are very limited in moving the airplane around.

      By the way, the other poster (slashdot.org) was perfectly right, sensing (especially indoor without gps) is another huge challenge here. Machine vision (using the leds but eventually even using features extracted from pictures of the environment) can help.

      However, even with perfect magical sensing, the motion planning, guidance and control problems cannot be handled by "classical" control and require techniques that are currently on the very leading edge of modern control theory (robust, optimal control of nonlinear and hybrid systems and the like).

      G.

      --
      We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
  5. Can I get that software... by kclittle · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... in the flying car I made a $10K deposit on?

    --
    Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
  6. Mildly impressive by 4D6963 · · Score: 1

    That's nice, but I only find it mildly impressive. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's surely no major difference between the algorithm to pilot an RC plane/heli as shown in the videos and the algorithm to pilot a virtual plane/heli in a flight simulation.

    However, here are the nice news, that means that you can safely and precisely auto-pilot RC planes/helis, which could lead to interesting domestic uses. I could bet that within the next 15 years, every self-respecting Slashdotter will have a fully automated RC heli with a built-in camera and piloted over WiFi to do whatever nerds like us would dream to use that for. Having a tiny helicopter hovering over your face might be an interesting way to wake up, but it'd also be a good way to check out what the wife is doing while you're at work.

    --
    You just got troll'd!
  7. MIT's RC plane's what? by FliesLikeABrick · · Score: 1

    >>MIT's RC plane's can take off and land from vertical perches (video), while the Georgia Tech helicopter can land on slopes of up to sixty degrees, by flipping backwards into freefall as it lands (video).

    Maybe it is time for TPB to get RAIDed again?

  8. Convair Pogo by plsuh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just for historical reference, the Navy experimented with something like this back in the 1950's. According to the writeup from the Smithsonian, the Pogo suffered from a lot of control problems due to propwash buffetting near the ground at takeoff and landing. Back then it took a very skilled test pilot to keep it under control; modern flight control systems like those used to keep semi-unstable airframes (such as the F-16) in controlled flight must make similar VTOL handling a lot easier today.

    http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/convair_pogo.htm

    --Paul

  9. I wonder if this is the skilled RC pilot they saw? by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 1

    The article says the MIT research was inspired by a video of a skilled RC pilot. I wonder if it was this one?.

  10. Yeah, but ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... none of this beats the Predators 'cut power and dive straight into the ground' stunt.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  11. Does is scale? by throatmonster · · Score: 1

    Autonomous control of ultra-light, miniature craft like this is great. This may not be AI, but I think it's the path towards AI - overcoming one, then a few, then many challenges like this. But... for those that think this has relevance to craft that can carry real payloads, like people or bombs, slow down a bit. There are scaling problems that need to be overcome too.

    --
    All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
  12. Combine this with the fullauto shotgun helicopter by ttroutma · · Score: 1


    I'm scared of the capabilities of these things.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Po_acmAJnU

  13. do you still remember the air france crash? by TOI_0x00 · · Score: 1

    Computers and planes don't like each other too much http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJjsUix7dfA

    1. Re:do you still remember the air france crash? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is not a "fully automated" plane, and it is not "computers and planes don't like each other too much". It is a case of "computers and *pilots* don't like each other too much", where the pilot did not understand what the computer was trying to do, and ended up fighting it, instead of letting it save the day. PEBCAK.

  14. Military drones. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 1

    It would be very cool if the knowledge obtained from this could be used to fly unmanned drones around for military purposes. It would certainly save a lot of lives.

    1. Re:Military drones. by SirSlud · · Score: 1

      I think you mean a lot of lives on one side of a conflict.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    2. Re:Military drones. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, conceivably, a stockpile of nukes could save a lot of lives on both sides. Then again, that also has the potential to take all lives. Everywhere.

    3. Re:Military drones. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 1

      A matter/antimatter reactor could blow up the whole solar system. Then again, it could provide the warp engines required to build Star Trek style starships.

    4. Re:Military drones. by SirSlud · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about? Nukes dont exist to kill people, they exist to destroy infrastructure. The nuclear threat, as it was used was to destroy tactical military targets, not cause maximal human casualty lists.

      Unmanned drones don't do that unless they can deliver a nuke payload. If you want them to selectively take out individual targets, which seems way more feasible in the short term, you're not doing anything to destroy an enemy's capacity to keep fighting. You're just building resentment against folks who are being killed by proxy aggression.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
  15. I'm reminded of something here. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    They say all pilots dream of being birds. I'm not sure that's true, but in a way that's what happened to me.

    I was still in the glass box but in a way I was back out of it; my perceptual environment was no more real than the simulation I'd built inside but now the signals came from real sensors and cameras. I wasn't just flying the helicopter; I was the helicopter. The parts of my mind that weren't concerned with flying and navigation had been carefully edited away.

    I suppose that sounds horrible. It isn't. I have a job to do, an important job, and doing it makes me feel both proud and content. I'm not distracted by anything else. When I'm not needed in flight I sleep, more deeply and peacefully than I ever did as a biological human. And when I'm called I flex my rotors and dance with a speed and grace I could have only dreamed of as a human.
    -- Mortal Passage
    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
  16. Here's Another impressive autonomous UAV video by Mal+Reynolds · · Score: 1

    Nice achievements. But I really like the autonomous aircraft systems being built at BYU.

    The BYU autonomous aircraft can fly in precise aerobatic formations. And unlike the examples above, they BYU planes seem to have all of their autonomous control electronics on-board the aircraft.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfLwbW-R3IE

  17. Re:Combine this with the fullauto shotgun helicopt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They did something like that on a ST:TNG episode, but with floating orbs instead of helicopters, and lasers instead of shotguns. Wiped out the entire civilization. But who cares about that, the chopper in that video looked like great fun!

  18. Robot Planes and Helicopters Taught Aerobatics by dukeru · · Score: 1

    My only question is what day Skynet becomes self-aware and destroys the planet. I hope it's not next Wednesday. I have to bring the xmas tree out of the crawl space that day.

  19. 20 degrees? by v1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The second video says the best real helicopter can only land to 20 degrees. There are two things I have to ask about that and they both relate to why it works with the model.

    (1) how much of that limit has to do with the design of the model helis? I fly model helicopters, and they (tho not I !) are capable of inverted flight by pitching the main blade the other way. I assume the model in this video is using this method to drive the heli down and pressing it against the slope when it has touched down. It's quite possible there's a pressure switch on the bottom of the skids that jacks the pitch the other way when it makes contact with a surface. Not a bad idea really, and this change happens in a VERY short period of time. You don't see any full scale helis capable of inverted flight, no doubt due to the mechanical difficulty in making the main rotor able to support the weight of the craft in the inverted position. The fact that the video does not show the heli taking back off again makes me seriously wonder if there isn't a contact switch at work.

    (2) kinda dark in that video, I wonder what sort of surface they were landing on? Surely not velcro. Maybe a rubber mat? Probably a lot easier to do that, especially with a light craft, than on say a steep grassy slope or dirt hill. And what was on the bottom of the skids?

    I'd be interested to see some statistics on the power-to-weight-ratio and such comparisons between a model heli and a passenger heli also.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:20 degrees? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TFA says yes, velcro.

    2. Re:20 degrees? by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1

      I suspect it's because a fast approach would be required to be able to hold a steep flare position, and given how dangerous landing a big heli in stormy conditions on a ship is, it might be a bit too much for the pilot to handle. Without approaching in a flared position, the rotors would probably be too close to the deck to be safe, and I'm guessing that in big helis, harsh collective movements is probably more preferable than harsh cyclic movements. Especially when their tail booms are more like tinfoil tubes compared to RC helis.

  20. Scarcely Controllable by camperdave · · Score: 1

    Can you describe more what you mean by scarcely controllable?

    An airplane is controlled by movable flaps on the wings and tail. The pressure of the air moving against these flaps as the plane is flying causes the plane to change direction. See here for details. The key to how the control surfaces work is that air is moving over them. It's all about airspeed.

    The problem here is that when the plane is hovering nose up, there is no air moving past the control surfaces. Well almost none, the tail gets a bit of the propeller backwash. If the plane is in the nose up "hover" position, but descending, then the backwash is partially cancelled by the negative airspeed.

    Another issue is torque, or twisting power. As torque is applied to the propeller to get it to spin, there is an equal and opposite counter-torque that is applied to the body of the aircraft. Normally, the ailerons are used to correct this. However, when an airplane is hovering there is no airflow over the ailerons, and so they can't be used to correct the counter-torque. You can get a small amount of correction from the rudder, but it's usually not enough. When you hover a plane, it spins.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    1. Re:Scarcely Controllable by flyingV · · Score: 1

      However, when an airplane is hovering there is no airflow over the ailerons, and so they can't be used to correct the counter-torque.

      Not quite true here: in the video, you can see that the ailerons are being used to counteract the torque. The large deflection angles, though, do indicate that there is very little airflow over the ailerons.

    2. Re:Scarcely Controllable by camperdave · · Score: 1

      I've just re-viewed the video, and you are correct... for this particular model. The ailerons on most planes are at the wing tips. This particular model has ailerons that run the entire length of the wing, which will put them into the propeller backwash. This plane must be a stunt model.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  21. Probably fake by paffy · · Score: 1

    I spent 7 years competing with R/C airplanes and fly R/C helicopters as a hobby. I also spent some time developing a basic autopilot software. This kind of airplane weighs between 4-7 oz. People usually go to extreme measures to save 5 grams in order to make the planes fly better. It's very unlikely there's enough carrying capacity to drag around 6DOF gyros/accelerometers and data transmitter on that platform (and it's not visible anywhere on the airframe). If it was tethered by a cable (eliminating the need for onboard motor battery and positioning data transmitter), it would be more believable. The flying looks EXACTLY like a human flying including the throttle blips etc. Computers are much smoother with the throttle control and inputs. The predictor/corrector control loop just doesn't behave this way. The heli also flies with human like reactions behind it, not software. I've see good pilots land small helis on VERTICAL surfaces (landing on ceiling is much simpler though). I think Georgia University had a 40% Carden Edge 540 hovering autonomously couple years ago. The plane weighted around 40 lbs though, so it's much easier to load up with electronics.

    1. Re:Probably fake by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1

      If computers are always so smooth, then why does the tail of my RC heli sometimes act erratically if the gyro is not set properly? From what I've read in the comments (which isn't exactly reliable, I know), the heli is remotely controlled, but by a set-up of expensive, big computers, rather than a human.

  22. Very impressive... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...now let's see them do it with wind. Even in the feeble air currents of that room, you can see the R/C aircraft working to try and correct - in real world conditions that job would be *much* harder, particularly when you're talking about trying to land on rolling carriers (unless of course you expect the sea to be incredibly turbulent, but the air to be flat calm - somewhat unrealistic). This is a cool first step, but I'd wager they're a long way from turning this into something safe and reliable.

  23. Now if only Feron could learn to teach! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Glad to see for once that GA Tech's research is in the news. We host one of only 2 Rotorcraft Centers of Excellence in the nation right now, which may be why there haven't been so many advances in the area compared to other technologies. Anyways, we'd all been wondering what keeps Feron around, since he's a notoriously worthless/frustrating professor. The current Flight Dynamics class has the following (uncurved) grade distribution: http://www.ae.gatech.edu/people/eferon/AE3521/quizstat.jpg Sort of looks like a middle finger, no?

  24. Re:I wonder if this is the skilled RC pilot they s by JonHow · · Score: 1

    Hi - yes it was