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Unmanned Aircraft Will Test Air Traffic Control
coondoggie writes "While the skies aren't exactly buzzing with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) just yet, experts are warning their explosive growth will require military and public officials to address the issue sooner than they might think.
The four chiefs of service aviation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) branches told the Army Aviation Association of America's unmanned aircraft symposium last week that the military should crystallize combat air control regarding UAVs, while domestic authorities must work out access and use of UAVs in domestic airspace. "I'm surprised we haven't had a collision yet," said Rear Adm. Joseph Aucoin, director of the Navy's aviation plans and requirements branch."
Obviously these self-guided planes need some accurate image recognition coupled with the ability to know the location and trajectory of any other aircraft in the area and adding an AI to process the information and accurately judge the situation. Sharing this information between all those drone via wireless network would be very effective as well. - A network in the sky... OMFG it's gonna be Skynet - it's inevitable! Goddammit Sarah Connor! You've been KILLING machines in three movies now. Stop screwing around and get the frickin job done!
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Maybe I'm being naive, but what is the purpose of having unmanned aircraft? For non-combat flights, the weight of the crew+support (500-1000 lbs perhaps) doesn't seem significant in comparison to that of the craft+fuel+systems (10,000 lbs from the example in the article). In combat flights, the latency in ground based fly-by-wire must be significant enough to warrent having in-craft crew surely.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
When there are traffic UAVs overhead, I think I'll go back to building RC aircraft, but this time with a cam and real weaponry.
I'm afraid you're mistaken. How can you prove that this 'cake' isn't just another lie?
WOW. Talk about OFF-TOPIC. But let's cover what is perhaps the most salient point of your ramble:
People don't want to consider the possibility that their well-meaning thoughts are a joke and that a $200 truckload of rice would be of more use than Wi-Fi in the middle of nowhere.
Eh, that's a negative. If you want to see what foreign subsidies for basic items like food can do for (to) a local economy, one need look no further than Haiti.
Remember that the basis of economy is in commodities like food, clothing, and the like. These are the foundations of economy; everybody needs these items. And conveniently enough, they require very little economic infrastructure to develop. You plant seeds in wet soil to grow food. You spin fibers and cure hides to make clothing. Neither requires anything beyond 10th century technology to develop.
But subsidies short-circuit this basic economy. Your $200 truck full of rice (delivered for free) is cheaper than locally developed food. So, the very basics of the economy are devastated. Even such basic acts as growing a goat and feeding it garbage becomes not worth doing. The end result!? Nobody grows food, the population becomes less capable, they never develop the wealth necessary wealth to move into more advanced economy, and the area is now permanently depressed.
Take your $200 truck full of rice and cram it up your backside.
The OLPC provides the following REAL BENEFITS to the local economies:
1) It doesn't devastate the basic economy by its presence. Local folks can still grow food, dig ditches, and make basic clothing free of charge.
2) Due to its connection to the Internet, it becomes a replacement for an unlimited number of text books and reference material. Wikipedia, anyone?
3) Today's economy is not based on mass-based wealth, it's based on information flow. OLPC allows for the lowest-cost participation into this incredible world economy.
4) It provides the "disparity of wealth" scenario necessary for the impoverished to see that things can be better. Bill Clinton once commented on this: People who grow up in an "only-poor" neighborhood stay poor. The kids never see that there even is a world that's better, or at least, never see that they could ever have a part in it. Since they aren't exposed to it, well-off neighborhoods might as well be on the moon.
Children who are raised in a mixed neighborhood, with both poor and wealthy see the economic disparity, and are exposed to the culture of wealth. They have opportunity to better consider their position, and will realistically evaluate the costs of becoming wealthier. They are far, far more likely to decide that they don't want to be poor as adults and exert the appropriate effort necessary to make this happen.
By exposing the 3rd world to the Internet, where the wealthy are more accessible, more of the poor will not only decide on a better life, they'll have the means to do it, too.
Only history will tell if this project will really, ultimately succeed. But it's already succeeded at one thing: It's brought the cost of access to the most powerful information processing system ever devised to the lowest point it's ever been. The ripples of this will affect mankind for generations.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Those aircraft are very low weight composite aircraft with very thight energy budgets. Due to the composite parts, they are invisible to primary radar. Due to the energy budget, they cannot install an SSR transponder. In other words, they are completely invisble in case something goes wrong. (in which you cannot trust the transponder anyhow)
What you need in such case is a direct link to air traffic control to tell that your autonomious plane is lost so that they can clear a part of the airspace. Now, since your aircraft is no longer controlled by a "ground pilot", who is going to make the call?
One alternative is to let the ground station relay the aircraft position to ATC centers (air traffic control centers). However, current ATC systems are not built to accept this information, especially not when the number of users of UAVs increases.
From his perspective, I think it was more accurately a random topic.
"Aircraft six-niner-niner, please go to 5,000 feet heading two-zero-fiver and assume your place in the holding pattern. We will have a landing slot for you in three-zero minutes. I say again, we will land you it three-zero minutes. Over."
"This is Aircraft six-niner-niner.....I'll be back."
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Yes, when something goes wrong, as it always does, they certainly will test air traffic control.
threadeds blog
You do realize that, to fly an airplane, it's not even a requirement to have a radio?
General aviation is a strange economic fluke - it's a cesspool like backwater of technology, seemingly frozen at its hey day in 1950 or so. The most popular plane flown today is largely identical to its 1956 ancestor - the only real difference is in the instruments on the panel, and even then, most planes are sold with classic "steam guage" instrumentation. Changes to the airframe and body are mostly cosmetic.
It's an industry largely paralyzed by lawyers. Recently, the parents of a 1000-jump skydiver sued the aircraft manufacturer when the pilot flew the plane into icy clouds and crashed the plane because the wing de-icing equipment was overwhelmed. It's like suing Chrysler because the driver of the car drove it into a brick wall at 90 MPH, and the seat belts just weren't quite enough. Except in this case, Cessna will probably have to settle.
Private airplanes == Rich guys == $target.
As a result, nobody wants to develop any new technology because the technology, even if demonstrably safer, will still be sued if it should ever fail. (which it would, eventually)
If some kind of law was passed at the federal level so that aviation was held to sane liability standards, so that plane manufacturers actually had the free resources to develop better technology, then aviation would be more modern, cheaper, and safer for all.
Really, why is it OK for planes to fly without even having a radio? It's almost 2008, we should have planes with full, digital situational monitors that tell the pilot about any looming threats. If you spend $500,000, you can have that today, but it should be costing somewhere around a couple grand. Since the entry point for aviation is around $20,000 for a basic, 2-seat plane, this is a big deal.
If planes reliably had a situational-awareness monitor, UAVs would be a non-issue. We have the technology - your $300 Garmin has more than enough processing power for this and already has all the latitude/longitude/altitude information it needs to make this work.
So, why not?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Unmanned air traffic control.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
He's surprised we haven't had a collision, yet? Just how many of these suckers are we putting up every day? Even in the warzone?
expandfairuse.org
Dunno if this video is real, but it sure looks like it is. Near miss between a UAV and an Airbus A300.
For cargo planes at least, you can make a lot of savings if you don't have to support human survival on board. For example you don't need to pressurise the cabin (thus saving weight of air), nor provide toilets, sound insulation, heating systems, safety equipment etc.. With a redesign of plane you don't even need to provide standing room - you could fit cargo into a wing shape that didn't have the tube bit in the middle, thus making it more aerodynamic. You wouldn't be limited by how long people can tolerate being on board, so for cargo you could fly a plane say from England to New Zealand non-stop at a much slower speed, thus saving on fuel consumed, thus saving on weight of fuel you need to supply when you take off and so forth. It also becomes more economical to have smaller point-to-point cargo deliveries which don't incur the energy and handling costs of bringing a plane to land at a major hub, sorting the cargo onto an onward flight and shoving it back up in the air again.
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Come on, that's been known for years. In the 1982 film Annie, for example:
(Do I get bonus karma for backing up up my POV with a quote from a cheesy film?)
Let me get this straight:
I have to take off my shoes and leave my toothpaste at the gate when I fly but hundreds of hick sheriffs and other random yokels are going to be piloting sophisticated UAFs in the near future.
Is that correct?
It's not sexist. Part of the reason I enjoy speaking English more than, say, Portuguese or German (languages I'm also fluent in) is because there's no gender. Declining nouns/articles all the time in those other languages is a bitch, don't bring it here.
My mailman happens to be a woman. Mailman does't have gender, so that works out fine.
-Bucky
"I personally think that everybody that is in politics and that votes for a war would have to immediately join the frontline troops in that war or retract their votes"
Makes as much sense as having those vote who vote fund dogcatchers actually spend time catching dogs, or those who vote to fund stem cell research actually have to spend hours in the lab looking over data. That is: no sense at all.
Substituting children? It already is not permitted.
Let me phrase it in terms you may understand. Computers can generate food, food in most cases does not, it simply feeds today and makes the production of food pointless, economically speaking. However you are not actually seeing the real truth here, these computers are not sent as a replacement for food; they are sent in addition to any other aid that is sent. The only way you can rightfully say that they are wrong to send these laptops over there is if you can either prove that it's decreasing other types of aid or you have a better way of stimulating their economy (the main goal of this laptop project) that you can prove is more efficient.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I can assure you that no "hick sheriffs and other random yokels" will be flying any University Affiliated Facilities.
The first post already mentioned Wikipedia etc., namely the fact that there isn't much Wikipedia material in the languages of many impoverished people. Project Gutenberg isn't going to help a classroom of third-graders in need of instructional material in their own language.
The only effect the OLPC project could have on these peoples if it were meant to flood them with Wikipedia-like resources for classroom use is language imperialism. There's nothing wrong with learning English, but for a language to survive the vast majority of classroom instruction across a community must be done in the native language of the community. The OLPC project has, though, given admirable attention to indigenous language issues.
What is giving this issue legs right now is the resistance of the Navy and Air Force (OMG! No more golf course warriors!) to the Army's emerging control of the UAV assets in its battlespace. It doesn't mean that what the Navy is saying is wrong, exactly, but they need to declare their agenda to provide a context for evaluating their statements.
--
phunctor
I can't help wondering if the people starting the OLPC project have read Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age"...
This is so incredibly screwed up that an article like this comes out and everyone is talking about ATC being screwed up.
There are reconnaissance aircraft flying over us, spying on us. The Russian Bear isn't doing this. The Red Chinese are not doing this. The Islamic Fundamentalists are not doing this. Our own government is doing this. And we have become so blase about this that we can ignore it as a problem and blame ATC for not being ready to handle our own government's airborne domestic spying program.
Wow.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
Wish I had mod points- an excellent discussion. In addition, the OLPC has brought this discussion to the forefront- without the project nobody would be having these discussions. Would anyone argue that distributing OLPC among the poor of the Americas, Europe and industrialized Asia would be useful? The red herring raised as an objection to the OLPC always seems to be some hypothetical starving African in the bush- that's pretty much a very small demographic among the computer deprived.
I was really glad to hear students in Alabama (http://www.jasonbradbury.com/jason_bradbury/2007/11/latest-developi.html) will be getting the OLPC. I was stationed in Montgomery, AL- not exactly the third world but there's a DoD school on the base. I found out why during orientation to the area. I actually though the Montgomery school (on the other side of the base fence from the DoD school) was the relic of the old DoD school and asked why it hadn't been demolished already. It was that bad. An OLPC won't give the students who had to attend that school better teachers, books or buildings but it might give them a better view of the wider world.
Private aviation is the exclusive province of the overly wealthy. There's no reason these self-absorbed douchebags should be able to pollute the environment with their aerial SUV while the rest of us get treated like criminals at the airport. Ground em now and forever, and STOP THE NOISE!
Tell that to the kid with the BIG belly. Son, your belly won't hurt after you get a look at this OLPC. OLPC? Why, it's better than food. You can use it to surf the net, you can use it to do your spreadsheet calculations, you can use it for your x-mas mailing list, and yes, you can even sell it for parts to get some money to fed that funky belly of yours.
It's my contention that the last U.S. fighter pilot has already been born. There will always be pilots, because we humans like to fly, but the last tactical air support/combat air support pilot for the U.S. has been born.
Doesn't the FAA already have procedures in place for unmanned research balloons? I'd think the issues would be similar.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Ah... I would have to disagree. Have you looked at the current fleet of modern GA planes? They are mainly composite construction now. Structurally the "average" GA airplane today is almost nothing like it was 40 years ago. Avionics of course are absolutely new with weather and GPS. Aerodynamic designs are based on wing plans from the 80's or early 90's usually now. In back country craft the landing gear designs and/or materials are very new.
What you said about old designs is like saying cars are the way they were 50 years ago...
There are a lot of old planes flying yet and the industry almost died about 20 years ago, but technology revived it, and GA is probably the least stagnant of all of aviation in terms of introducing new tech.
"If planes reliably had a situational-awareness monitor, UAVs would be a non-issue. We have the technology - your $300 Garmin has more than enough processing power for this and already has all the latitude/longitude/altitude information it needs to make this work." That BS, what you are asking for is something we can't even do reliably in 2-dimensions on the ground, and might be worse than nothing if people stop using their eyes and looking for the millions of current "UAV"s that are currently out there - geese, etc. that could destroy your plane.
Its ok for planes to fly without a radio because they are in airspace and conditions where they can safely do so. What do you care then?
"Language imperialism"? WTF?
Since forever, learning the language of the more successful has been key to improvement. This is why English itself borrows so heavily from other languages. If learning English opens the doors to many resources to enrich knowledge and culture, that's a good thing. What you seem to be advocating is some kind of language ghettoization.
Rich
What is a UAV but a remote-control airplane, albeit much more expensive, complicated, and less likely to be in the control of a 10 year old. As such, it would make sense that it wouldn't need regualtion under the FAA, unless it was extremely large.
To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were capable of staying awake long enough.
Did you miss the "There's nothing wrong with learning English" in my post? It's possible for a community both to learn English and to preserve its native language, you just have to ensure that schooling fulfills both needs.
I don't think there is value in having a huge number of languages. IMO languages mutate rapidly enough as it is. Their value is in communication so their is little point to preserving every idiom ever spoken.
Bringing this back to air traffic control imagine if pilots over the US spoke 200 languages and every little airport in the country needed to be able to speak to any pilot. Chances are you would drop the number of connections and go Language A > generic > Language B because for most things close enough works just fine.
Languages serve for more than what you would consider communication. They serve to preserve cultural traditions (poetry and song don't translate so well), maintain a group identity, and give people a sense of connection to their ancestors (important in most non-Western countries). And though it might be easy for you to claim that all we need is English, I do field work in places were the local language is highly threatened, and the people there regularly tell me that the loss of something so precious to them hurts greatly.
Oh, probably. But not very many I'd guess. OLPC is a computer that is designed to provide cheap, effective computing in countries without a first world infrastructure. I have my doubts about it as an educational tool. But if I were looking for a computer to help with running a village store or garage or other local business someplace where news arrives on the afternoon bus (assuming that it doesn't break down again) and the power line (if any) is more or less a joke, an OLPC would look to be ideal. If you ask me, the third world could probably use as many insults like this as the first world can contrive.
If it actually is an insult then I'd imagine that they won't buy them.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Why do death penalty advocates mostly oppose abortion while vegans mostly support it?
Because death penalty advocates eat babies, not fetuses.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
you got it... all current UAV's Run VFR or Visual Flight Rules when they are in the states or over Civilian(non Combatant Areas) and they are required to stay under a 10K foot ceiling every aircraft has to "Maintain VFR" when in the 0-10k foot Altitude range.
There's a big reason called fear.
In the typical post 9/11 scaremongering, you can bet that at least several paranoid idiots will be afraid that if UAV has a facility to give its position and can react to instruction sent by aircraft controllers,
there will surely be some pedo-terror-pirates that will use it to subvert the system and drive the UAVs into collision with some target, think of the children !
Or something along these lines.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This has been recognised as a problem for many years. NASA's aeronautics side was going to look at UAV operations in the National Airspace (NAS) under a program called ACCESS-5 (IIRC). ACCESS-5 was canceled sometime after early 2005 though.
The OLPC is premised on the fact that it replaces expensive hand me down textbooks with digital info. Right now, most third world textbooks are hand me downs from other countries, likely not in their native language, out of date, and beaten up.
The OLPC has digital textbooks. Not only can all textbooks be carried back and forth on that five mile walk between home and school, but the only hurdle to being up to date and in the native language is the initial writing, not the cost of printing and the cost of distributing.
This is a HUGE gain financially, and having the possibility of up to date books in the native language is beyond a price comparison.
The OLPC is a win even if you ignore the advantage of inquisitive minds exploring far beyond what is in textbooks.
Infuriate left and right
Also, what's the comparison? There is no comparison...it is strictly relativistic. Such arguments make no sense to anyone with above-average abstract intelligence. I guess that's why they all voted for that mentally-handicapped clown in the White House - and no, I don't believe retards should be prez.....
Treat it like bandwidth: give the UAVs 5000-5500 feet, and tell the passenger traffic not to cruise there. Then let the UAVs smack into each other all they want. You still have risk during a passenger aircraft "pass through" and while the UAVs climb to cruise altitude, but that's easier to manage than a fly-wherever-you-want policy.
Some people place great value on Culture, Religion, and Language but they are also the root causes of most of the worlds abject poverty. It's not that English is a better language based on it's syntax so much as it's speakers. From an efficiency standpoint I think Spanish would make a good universal language. Anyway, when given the option to live in abject poverty or give up your culture most people chose to give up their culture because it's not really that important to them.
PS: I am not suggesting the world would be better off filed with mindless drones, but the world is shrinking and over time some cultures are going to die out. EX: In 200 years having 10 kids will probably be vary rare, 200 years ago 10 kids was not that uncommon is this really a bad thing?
"I don't think there is value in having a huge number of languages...Their value is in communication"
There is no guarantee that English/Spanish/Chinese/whatever is the most efficient or effective language of communication.
SURELY NOT!!!!!