Tiny, Morphing, Electricity-Stealing Spy Planes Developed

tkohler writes "The Air Force Research Lab is developing an Electric Motor-powered Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that can 'harvest' energy when needed by attaching itself to a power line. It can also temporarily change its shape to look more like innocuous piece of trash hanging from the cable. For domestic spying, maybe it will morph into a pair of sneakers?"

Comments

!developed

[yincrash]

It's not made yet. I doubt even a prototype has been made yet.

Re:!developed

[User 956]

It's not made yet. I doubt even a prototype has been made yet.

Well, the prototype for the "stealing" part has already been developed. It's called Congress.

Re:!developed

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the above.

Pics or GTFO

say it will morph

[circletimessquare]

into the shape of a tin foil hat, and you have a paranoid schizophrenic's deepest nightmare

and if it does morph into sneakers, does that mean we need tin foil socks too?

hmm

[pak9rabid]

Nice to see the govt has recruited the help of the Decepticons.

Re:hmm

[emeraldfoxx]

i dont remember any transformers that turned into trash....even decepticons. Thus, I believe they have recruited Renegade Go-Bots rather than Transformers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobots

They sure do have some original names... ;)

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont remember any transformers that turned into trash Wrong.

Re:hmm

[Skevin]

It's the perfect camouflage for them. Looking outside my window I can already count six transformers hanging off the power poles in the street, and no one's so much as raising a brow.

Solomon

Re:hmm

[xmas2003]

Ahhhhh ... leave it up to Tom Dickson to see if Transformers ... "Will It Blend?"

Thanks for the video link ... although my son almost cried when he saw Bumble-Bee go into the blender.

Re:hmm

[WCLPeter]

i dont remember any transformers that turned into trash.... Junkions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKqboQV_lfg

Re:hmm

[duggi]

OT but anybody wanna buy my grandfather's specs? just mail me. Did I mention he was an explorer in Antarctica?

Re:hmm

[A Non Mouse Cowhand]

You're probably not in Texas. Were you, I'm told you'd expect to see a pair of rats tied together by the tail, slung over the power line.

Re:hmm

[xhawkx]

I just read his, so I went out, looked up,and saw a freakin' six-pack of Bud sitting right on top of the breaker, .......Hmmmm, I wonder if the sucker is full...................

New Excuses

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose we'll start seeing the power companies blaming power outages on the military testing these spybots and short-circuiting high-tension lines...

Re:New Excuses

[RobinH]

Assuming each robot only touches one wire at a time, I don't see how it could "short circuit" anything.

Re:New Excuses

[Torvaun]

Maybe not short-circuit, but I can imagine some shoebox sized robot plowing into a power line and damaging it or possibly even shearing it off.

Re:New Excuses

[henryhbk]

It can bridge the caronas (see eagles in the western US) and if this is a high-tension line (such as 400kv+) and you bridge the caronas, you get a spectacular arc (and UAV vapor). In the midwest you will see towers with bird platforms on top to try and prevent this, as a bald eagle may have a up to a 2 meter wignspan. The distance is related to the voltage and wignspan. For "low" voltage lines that go around the neighborhood, there are often twisted together, so it is possible to encounter both conductors, but they should be insulated from each other.

How 'bout Harvesting Energy from Christmas Lights

[xmas2003]

There are several webcams monitoring this Christmas Lights Display - maybe we'll have to look for MAV's next year ... along with Santa ... ;-)

Sounds like that

[gentlemen_loser]

little MAV could be more than meets the eye...

Whee Adjectives!

[ThanatosMinor]

Tiny Morphing Electricity-Stealing Spy Planes flown by Tiny Mighty Morphing Power Rangers on secret missions to defeat Tiny Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Re:Whee Adjectives!

[Shivetya]

This will never work, there are no pirates involved. If you have Ninja you must have Pirates else it just doesn't balance out.

Re:Whee Adjectives!

[Jesus_666]

Actually, the summary is wrong. We're really talking about Tiny, Morphing, Electricity-Looting Spy Planes. They're based on Pirate technology, really.

Re:Whee Adjectives!

[The_mad_linguist]

You mean they got the plans off bittorrent?

Shoes

[Astr4y]

From what I've heard around the county I live in, shoes on the powerlines indicates that there are drug dealers on whatever street they are hanging over.

Re:Shoes

[XHIIHIIHX]

barefoot drug dealers no less

Re:Shoes

[wfberg]

From what I've heard around the county I live in, shoes on the powerlines indicates that there are drug dealers on whatever street they are hanging over.

Actually, it's the drug users that throw the shoes up there. Drug pushers are for some reason (a mystery to medical science) compulsively driven to powerlines with shoes hanging from them. Obviously this is seen as a big problem for the drug dealing community, which is trying to enter the 21st century, leveraging such fast-paced technologies as 'two-way pagers' and 'cellular telephones'. They find themselves involuntarily skulking around power lines in every sort of weather, knowing full well they could be successful drug deals in the back of the local chuck-e-cheese, but find themselves incapable of breaking the spell of such a powerful lure.

Or maybe it's some sort of urban legend or something, and it's just, like, kids with nothing better to do throwing up some shoes. Dunno.

Re:Shoes

[fireman sam]

What I heard was that the shoes represented a "gang controlled area". If you were to enter this area, the gang would beat the crap out of you and then hang your shoes on the overhead cables. The more shoes that are hanging, the more bad ass the gang. The shoes are like trophies.

Re:Shoes

[egomaniac]

That's just a stupid urban legend. Shoes hanging from a powerline indicate nothing more than bored kids.

Re:Shoes

[kurzweilfreak]

Obviously, if you must, you should just go into those neighborhoods barefoot, thus ensuring your safety.

Re:Shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

I always figured it was kids who were tired of their crappy shoes and wanted a new pair.

Re:Shoes

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

actually if the shoes are in a gang's color it is their way of claiming the corner, usually for drug sales. a nearby gang would throw up one black and one red shoe tied together because those were their colors. that way other gangs and independent pharmaceutical salespeople are forewarned that they shouldn't set up shop on that intersection. if they do, they are asking to get shot. some gangs use it to claim the turf in general, but mostly it is used to mark drug spots now.

i used to teach in the 'hood and was educated by my students about it. obviously this depends on the part of town we are talking about

Re:Shoes

[veganboyjosh]

that's why i stay out of the neighborhood with feet hanging from powerlines...

Re:Shoes

[Kastigador]

That's correct. It's code for a crack/meth dealing house being nearby as they are constantly moving around. I lived in a Cincinnati inner suburb and there was this run down rental row house on a street which is actually in a pretty nice outer city neighborhood(Oakley). I remember jogging by and thinking that really looks like a meth den. They always had all sorts of random crap all over their porch just like they were moving in. Next time I was by they had hung up shoes right out front on a tree and then another pair nearby on the wires. They were there for about 2 months when I finally called the cincinnati police to ask them if they were aware that the place had a meth/crack den calling card hanging out front. Surprisingly, according to them no one had noticed or called about it at that poin. This was a pretty high traffic through side street too. Within a month or so the house was empty. So no, it's not something people do to be cool or funny, it really is a drug dealer hanging those up(usually the worst kind).

Re:Shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

The shoes represent a "fallen soldier" from gang warfare.

Re:Shoes

[rubycodez]

indicate nothing more than bored kids.

yeah, on crack!

Re:Shoes

[cammoblammo]

This is why I believe the idea is BS. Why would a meth den advertise openly? I mean, if meth-heads can follow the shoes can't the police? And when the den relocates, how would they move the shoes? After a couple of moves there would be too many false positives around town to be of any use.

Add to that the gang turf wars, bored kids, college kids marking their loss of virginity and all the other meanings this thread has associated with the practice. Any crack dealer using this as an advertising medium has been sampling too much of his own product.

Re:Shoes

[elFisico]

That's just a stupid urban legend. Shoes hanging from a powerline indicate nothing more than bored kids. no, it means somebody made a deal with the shoe industry to finance the next war... ;-)

Re:Shoes

[Kastigador]

It works because their targeted clientele is usually the type that's homeless and sleeping on the streets. These people wake up everyday and in between sessions of pan handling for money talk to one another in passing to see where they can score something that day. The places they get stuff from tends to move around fairly often. Sure, it's not rocket science to realize that if a meth head can figure out where to get drugs, than surely the local cop can. But think about it, if a cop hung out by every pair of shoes he saw hanging in the ghetto, he'd be likely to waste a lot of time. Plus, he's not a narcotics person(and likely isn't armed enough for the job). Whatever he knows about drug dealing usually moves up the chain to the DEA, ATF, or Sherrif's department. I'd bet what he knows of these moving dens is often not a big enough fish for them to waste their time. They're not cook houses, they're the last point of distribution so it's questionable how much stuff they have in there and whether it's worth risking life, limb and a search warrant to bust in on the party. Essentially, a crack den getting busted in the ghetto isn't tax payer worthy headlines. So then do shoes work as an advertising medium? Apparently or they wouldn't be doing it without fear and with such consistency. I also doubt false positives would confuse an addict because a new pair of shoes on a street you wander every day would stick out like a sore thumb. Feeding their addiction is what they live every day for at this point so I bet this is something they keep track of. I wonder if you get the pervasiveness of illegal drugs in this country. They're everywhere, and in urban areas, they're easier to get than milk and eggs. I live in the city and volunteer in inner city neighborhoods. It amazes me how far off common wisdom is for people living in the burbs on what is actually happening in poorer neighborhoods. Finally, symbolism can obviously mean whoever to whatever. Just because I wear a blue bandana doesn't mean I'm in the crypts. But for the people that notice it most, it does(whether or not they believe it). So maybe some college kids thought it'd be funny to toss some shoes over a wire(to be like they're in hood, right?).

Re:Shoes

[cammoblammo]

Hmm, I see your point. Whilst I don't currently work in the inner city, the organisation I work for is well known --- in fact, probably best known --- for its work amongst such people. Past roles have included a lot of work in this field, and I frequently end up going into the city to stay with friends who do work in these areas for holidays. So I'm quite familiar with how it all goes down.

Of course, I live and work in Australia, and the scene is clearly very different here, and thus I'm happy to submit to your account of the shoes over the power line thing. I suspect the difference between our two nations is to do with a different 'official' approach to drugs and addiction. For example, the police here would be very interested to know where meth dens (or our equivalent) are located. They're not immediately interested in closing it down, because the users are just going to go elsewhere. Instead, they want to know where trouble is likely to start and overdose victims are likely to be found.

In fact, one of the things we're experimenting with over here is safe injecting rooms --- users can turn up, get a clean fit, take their hit, and be on their way. If they overdo it there are trained people who can administer first aid and get an ambulance. There have been one or two operating, and they've been quite successful. They don't make headlines, but the various interest groups are trying to get funding for more --- they're not electorally popular, but neither are hundreds of people dying every year from overdoses. I'm glad we're starting to see this as a health issue, not just a criminal one.

Wow. Way to go off topic...!

I for one welcome...

[Infinite Wave]

Mini Morphing Power Rovers? To the rescue?

Optimus Nooo!

[Timberwolf0122]

Autobots Transform and Roll Ou..BIZZZZTTTKKKK

Re:Optimus Nooo!

[ZiggyStardust1984]

And people should RTFA... they won't recharge by connecting to a power line, they'll recharge with energon cubes.

It can change it's shape

[AskFirefly]

So we'll see a Police Box hanging from a power line?

Pioneering work

[Kazymyr]

...AFRL says the spy plane will need to collapse its wings and hang limply on the cable like a piece of wind-blown detritus

Hey, I didn't know I was doing top secret research. Most of my model planes end up looking just like that!

Careful; Not good to be a spy

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody in the white house will out this bird. Probably a Bush.

Singularity

[mastershake_phd]

I hope this thing can't reproduce, there would be no stopping it.

Can they morph into basketball shoes?

[www.sorehands.com]

If the planes can morph into basketball shoes, then I can wear it and play Like Mike. Oh, never mind, they already did that movie.

Solar

[ALibby53]

Why don't they just use solar power on top of the vehicle. Aren't they working on flexible Solar Cells?

Re:Solar

[JustCallMeRich]

Low power. The solar cells would need to spend a lot of time recharging that battery.

Where the line power will quick charge it so it can get back to work doing whatever it does over that suspicious looking nude beach.

Re:Solar

[tehniobium]

presumably they wouldn't want spy planes that run out of juice and give their technology to the enemy every time the sun dissappears... :P

The morphing technology is already proven

[Malevolent Tester]

At the moment, this high tech surveillance equipment is cunningly disguised as a barrel full of pork.

weird warnings..

[wfberg]

Challenges abound, though. Zac Richardson, a power-line engineer with National Grid in the UK, warns that if the MAV contacts an 11-kilovolt local power line, it could short circuit two conductors, causing an automatic disconnection of the very power the plane seeks.

Why do they assume the UAV would be conductive? Wouldn't your best bet for tapping energy off power lines be to simply use induction? You don't even need to land on the lines themselves; a fluorescent tube light will light up at yards from the power line.

Do National Grid power-line engineers not know of this?

Re:weird warnings..

[bkr1_2k]

Exactly. Magnetic charging like many "toothbrushes" and the like use inductors, so could these little things. That combined with flexible solar cells and there's no reason why these things would ever need to "come home".

Re:weird warnings..

[cyphercell]

so are you telling me that if I throw a fluorescent light at a power line it will glow?

Re:weird warnings..

[Anonymous Coward]

Challenges abound, though. Zac Richardson, a power-line engineer with National Grid in the UK, warns that if the MAV contacts an 11-kilovolt local power line, it could short circuit two conductors, causing an automatic disconnection of the very power the plane seeks.

Why do they assume the UAV would be conductive? Wouldn't your best bet for tapping energy off power lines be to simply use induction? You don't even need to land on the lines themselves; a fluorescent tube light will light up at yards from the power line.

Do National Grid power-line engineers not know of this?

Conductivity is not a binary thing. Given enough potential (voltage, for you lay folks), the molecules in nearly any substance will arrange themselves into a conductive bridge; like so: Power Line Arcing

Physics is cool.

Re:weird warnings..

[pclminion]

To do that the UAV would have to hover sufficiently close to the power line. I bet the power used to hover is more than the power you could possibly extract by induction.

Re:weird warnings..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bad writing" is inevitable. Quotes are "optional".

Re:weird warnings..

[richard.cs]

so are you telling me that if I throw a fluorescent light at a power line it will glow?

Not quite. Hold one end of the tube, point the other end at the line. Needs to be one of the higher voltage ones cos experience shows that 11kV doesn't cut it (although it might work if the lines were really close to the ground, depends on the electrostatic field in Volts per meter). The tube will light but not that brightly so you'll have to do it at night for it to be visible. Ever see this photo?

Re:weird warnings..

[Flunitrazepam]

Do National Grid power-line engineers not know of this?

yup, obviously they forgot to Ask Slashdot

Re:weird warnings..

[magus_melchior]

True, but it's not like the power line dangles in one stretch from source to destination. The UAV can probably hang from a supporting structure, like a tower or pole.

Re:weird warnings..

[Breakfast Pants]

Huh? Why couldn't it just have an insulator on the bottom of it, and land directly on the line?

Re:weird warnings..

[cyphercell]

that's cool, no I haven't seen that photo, this is one of those things I'm gonna have to show my kids, thanks.

Re:weird warnings..

[c6gunner]

Conductivity is not a binary thing. Given enough potential (voltage, for you lay folks), the molecules in nearly any substance will arrange themselves into a conductive bridge

Sure, but you need a difference in potential for that to happen, and you won't get one unless the UAV creates a bridge between the line and the ground. Birds have been partying on power lines for about a century now, so it's pretty silly to assume there's going to be massive disasters caused by UAV's emulating them.

Re:weird warnings..

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to hover. You could land on one of the conveniently situated poles that hold the power lines up, and then sit and recharge.

Re:weird warnings..

[cb_is_cool]

But if you think about it, the device wouldn't have to be "conductive" to still short out the power line. With that much voltage, even the thick rubber gloves lineman use specifically for dealing with high voltages, sometimes fail.

Re:weird warnings..

[moosesocks]

No, but it would be easy enough either to simply hang on the wires, or perch on top of a utility pole.

Re:weird warnings..

[Torvaun]

Maybe he was referencing this.

Re:weird warnings..

[Anonymous Coward]

To do that the UAV would have to hover sufficiently close to the power line.

No, the UAV would just land on the line (like birds do. notice how they don't get fried?), and place an insulated coil next to the line, or even throw a few turns of wire around the power line maybe by using a clamp which closes around the line, forming a coil, and then just hang there, charging slowly.

The article says the UAV will go "bang" or fizzle noisily. This is just BS. It would not need to connect across the phases, just attach an inductor to a single wire. There is no potential difference or ground path from the UAV to the single power line. The UAV would charge up almost instantly to 11kV on contact with the wire with no ill effects if the electronics are sufficiently protected against static discharge. You can generate these potentials yourself walking across carpet.

Re:weird warnings..

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the vertical take off autonomous "foamy flyer" that students were reasearching in a previous slashdot article not too long ago? Put a non-conductive plastic hook on the drone and an induction coil on it. No need to hover for long. It'll probably do a manuever that dips down and then goes nose straight up in a hover only until the hook catches the line. Then motor-off and recharge via induction coil. (The aircraft itslelf should be non-conductive, otherwise it's likely to fry something.) I bet this is something those same college students could build with a few mods and access to some power systems equipment - likely with stuff the EE students would have in their lab. It's not really that far fetched at all in my opinion.

Re:weird warnings..

[daninspokane]

Tesla Coils do this as well. Obviously it's a stronger field... but kind of the same concept..?

Re:weird warnings..

[richard.cs]

Yeah, it's the same concept but since the frequency of a Tesla coil is much higher the capacitive coupling would be much more effective.

Re:weird warnings..

[bkr1_2k]

Typical slashdotter, didn't understand the sexual reference. I'm surprised you posted anonymously though. Most slashdotters seem proud of their sexuality (or lack thereof).

Headline: developed

[b96miata]

Summary: developing

Article: They're talking about it, might look into it, probably won't work.

Can we try to keep slashdot *somewhat* based in reality here?

Re:Headline: developed

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading about IE8 passing the acid2 test and the whole Duke Nukem Forever trailer thing, I think this article is the most real thing I've seen in the past two days on slashdot.

Oh I wish I had points...

[SerpentMage]

That is really funny... I wish I had points to give you...

One more step...

[slashname3]

One more step in creating a terminator. First we create an autonomous UAV that can recharge itself. Next we create an automated factory to build autonomous UAVs. Pretty soon they realize that to get more power they have to remove unnecessary loads from the power lines, ie. us. Now we know why the terminators decided to rebel and wipe out humanity.

Re:One more step...

[dreamchaser]

Then they start running low on energy and decide to harvest humans as batteries...oh wait. Wrong movie.

Re:One more step...

[Anonymous Coward]

To this day, that pisses me off. Humans do not produce energy, and aren't exactly great as pure storage repositories of energy either. If they had simply said the bulk of the human's brains were being used as processors, then it would have made sense. Ruined the whole film. Fortunately, Carrie Ann Moss was in a PVC catsuit thing anyway, which kind of made up for it.

Re:One more step...

[greyhueofdoubt]

Fortunately, humankind survived the 3 days without TV or subzero Jag-shots and defeated the robot invasion with a few well-placed shots to the power-stations' transformers.

Good bedtime story, though.

-b

obligatory reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Research complete. Leech Microship can now be constructed.

Technical Capabilities of Citizen vs. Govt Narrows

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

Is is safe to say that the distance between govt technologies and those available to citizens has and continues to narrow?

For example, is it likely that the processing innards of this device will not be extraordinary, super-computing devices? Is it likely that the batteries will be some kind of lithium-ion battery, and not some exotic, crazy technology.

I recently saw something about regular people developing an autonomous RC-type airplane which would navigate itself using GPS - isn't that just a UAV?

It seems to me that back in the day the govt actually built machines which far outstripped anything available to regular folks. However, I think that nowadays the seperation between the individual and the government is not a technical one so much as an economic one. In other words, the govt doesn't have better tech which is unavailable - they have better tech because they payed for it, and you could too if you had the money.

sneakers

[BigHungryJoe]

for those of you that do not know, when me and my set get done beatin somebody up, we throw their sneakers over the power line as a warning to rival gangs like The Warriors or the Turnbull ACs, or even those guys that dress like baseball player clowns.

Re:sneakers

[Arcane_Rhino]

Geez. Haven't thought of that movie in years.

LOL

Re:sneakers

[Draykwing]

War~riors, come out and pla~ay!

early robot could find wall sockets

[peter303]

I remember an early mobile robot (CMU?) that had the ability to find wall sockets and plug itself in when the battery got low.

The Air Force is no longer limited to sunny days

[AHumbleOpinion]

Why don't they just use solar power on top of the vehicle. Aren't they working on flexible Solar Cells?

The Air Force likes to operate at night and when it is cloudy too. It's been what 80'ish years since they decided that they should not be limited to sunny days. :-)

Also, can you get solar cells in matte camouflage?

Re:SLASHDOT SUX0RZ

[siphonophore]

They already have a site for that level of dialog here

Is it ok to shine a laser on something...

[NotQuiteReal]

...that looks like innocuous piece of trash - or would you simply be an unwitting terrorist?

Re:Is it ok to shine a laser on something...

[argent]

I guess they need to make sure not to fly these planes in Boston.

Electrical Consideration?

[JLester]

If it attaches to a power line, what would complete the circuit required to allow it to charge? It would be no different than a bird landing on one and not getting hurt because they are not grounded.

Re:Electrical Consideration?

[JesseL]

Inductive or capacitive coupling.

Re:Electrical Consideration?

[geminidomino]

Maybe it'll be using induction to charge from the field around the line? I dunno...

Re:Electrical Consideration?

[show me altoids]

Induction is your friend. The main problem I see is that most low (relatively) voltage power lines, at least where I live, are being buried nowadays.

Re:Electrical Consideration?

[ChrisMaple]

It's difficult to get significant power out of a single straight wire with a few amps flowing through it at 60 Hz by induction. Generally, you want several hundred turns of wire around a magnetic core.

The likely technique is to make an ohmic contact to two wires at different voltages and have a charger able to accept a very wide range of voltages.

It might just be wet

[Kupfernigk]

The guy has a point. At 11kv, water conducts and the design of insulators is a nontrivial problem. The idea of something like this deliberately flying into power lines will cause any power systems engineer to worry. Here in the UK, much of the country has significant rainfall, and fluctuating wind. I doubt it would be possible to fly reliably close enough to a power line to tap energy by induction, a small stray gust would take you straight into it.
Fortunately in the UK politicians are not allowed to add pork barrel projects to unrelated bills, the MOD is incompetent, and we have no money thanks to our wonderful banking system, so we won't be able to afford these things. We'll have to stick to cctv cameras that usually don't work, and people conveniently "losing" the results when they do.

Re:It might just be wet

[JesseL]

I don't see what the problem is if it just hanging from one line? Birds (the kind with feathers) don't cause you all that much grief in the UK, do they?

Reality? Slashdot?

[AHumbleOpinion]

Can we try to keep slashdot *somewhat* based in reality here?

Why? Hype and irrationality have made slashdot the success it is today. If it ain't broke don't fix it. ;-)

Porn Voyeur

[Bazards]

Just wait until the porn industry gets their hands on a few. Ultimate voyeur.

Re:Technical Capabilities of Citizen vs. Govt Narr

[s4m7]

It seems to me that back in the day the govt actually built machines which far outstripped anything available to regular folks

I wish you had given some examples here, Just because I am curious what technologies you think far outstrip what's available to "regular folks." It's not as though you can go to Wal-Mart and pick up an APIC and a li-ion box. But then again until a few weeks ago you could buy uranium on Amazon.

I think it's a two-fold issue: it's easier for "regular folks" to find what parts and materials are commercially available now thanks to the internet, and it's getting harder for the government to convince you that their technology is "super advanced." On the other hand, there are still plenty of government-funded creations that are well outside the reach of even a well-funded hobbyist to produce, mostly in the realm of aerospace technology.

Re:Technical Capabilities of Citizen vs. Govt Narr

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

I should have given examples, you're right.

Let's use the DARPA challenges as an example of technology which is available to the individual and for which no superior technology existed for the govt. The vehicles from these competitions are created by private citizens and the government did not have anything better.

As image recognition technology progresses it will probably be just as advanced for the individual as for the government. This will probably be because it will be created, not in some government lab, but at Google or perhaps Hans' garage in Berlin. Perhaps the govt will have server-farms all using the image recognition tech to mass view images, but the fundamental algorithms (the tech) will be the same.

I guess my point is that the stuff coming out of government labs these days doesn't really strike me as far superior to that which private labs are producing. In other words, the governments advantage has shifted from quality of technology to quantity.

They stole my idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I've dreamed about building a smart UAV cobbled togeather from pieces of a smart phone. The coolest part was that it would include induction coils to collect power from high tension wires for those long distance journeys.

Crow

[Anonymous Coward]

Black crows will peck the crap out of the spy plane.

Big deal

[RevWaldo]

Now self-replicating MAVs, von Neumann stylee, now we're talking about a can of whoop-ass - Step 1 - fly about until you find a good-sized landfill near some power lines...

how do you bury a slashdot story?

[mcguyver]

Just curious...developed and developing are two different words last I checked.

Re:how do you bury a slashdot story?

[Cornflake917]

You must be from Digg. Welcome to Slashdot, we have sensationalist headlines here too.

Re:how do you bury a slashdot story?

[RevWaldo]

How do you bury a Slashdot story
How do you bury a Slashdot story
How do you bury a Slashdot story
Early in the morning?

Attack their servers with a DOS
Attack their servers with a DOS
Attack their servers with a DOS
Early in the morning

Hope it has a lot of range...

[ibsteve2u]

If we want to use this thing in Iraq, it will have to fly clear to Saudi Arabia to find a reliably functioning power line. Maybe they should add a flip-up sign to it that says "Will spy for batteries!" in case of emergency.

Mod parent up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.

Only 4 Million years in the making

[Steeltalon]

When does the battle for cybertron really move to Earth?

this is nothing...

[quickpick]

Nature does this already, we see bugs that look like twigs and leaves...but now what we've done is enlarge everything. Imagine something the size of a cat flying into an 400 kilovolt line and ZZZZZAP! There goes $100,000! Its like a giant Bug Zapper except we supply the bugs and the power company supplies the entertainment...and we get to pay for it twice: once for the $100k spy plane and again for the power it sucks off the grid causing EVERYONE to have to pony up.
Its a conspiracy I tell ya! *reaches for tin foil hat* a conspiracy....

Is why the power goes out when I have sex?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this why every time I have sex the power seems to brownout and then sometimes goes out?

Re:Is why the power goes out when I have sex?

[Grygus]

Is this why every time I have sex the power seems to brownout and then sometimes goes out?
No, that's your "sex" making you go blind.

It's a polymorph!

[Black Cardinal]

Hopefully it doesn't turn into a pair of shrinking boxer shorts!

Re:It's a polymorph!

[tehBoris]

You see here a pair of boxer shorts.
u - a pair of boxer shorts.
What do you want to wear? [au ?*] u
You are now wearing a pair of boxer shorts.
You are being constricted! Your penis shrinks! Your voice turns acute!
What do you want to take off? [pqru ?*] u
You can't, they're cursed.
You begin praying to The Lady.
"Thou art a cheap bastard, mortal"
"Thou should buy thy shorts!"
Your are being constricted!
You die...
Do you want your possessions identified? [ynq] q

The hard part.

[Spazmania]

AFRL's initial aim is to work out how to make a MAV flying at 74 kilometres per hour latch onto a power line without destroying itself or the line.

Yeah, that would be the hard part. 'Till you've figured that out, there's nothing to see here.

Re:The hard part.

[geekoid]

can induction over the lines charge faster then it's power use?

Meh

[Greyfox]

That's OK I guess... but their bomb that turns you gay is just fabulous!

Re:Meh

[dbIII]

That is really bizzare - paticularly the idea that it should make the soldiers more interested in sex than fighting. Isn't a typical well trained and highly effective combat soldier more interested in sex than fighting anyway? Even as a computer wrangler I'm far more interesting in sex than adding more cluster nodes and another file server no matter that they have wonderful AMD 8 way goodness - but I can still do my job.

When you have clueless barbarians with influence you get weird lysenkoism like this.

Re:Meh

[aadvancedGIR]

I think the real point of this weapon is to motivate your OWN troops.
Captain: "Guys, we dropped a gay bomb on the people you are going to fight, so don't EVER surrender or you'll be raped".
Privates: "HOURerr..., why did you do that sir?"

I worship his shadow

[mrslacker]

Reminds of the tiny helicopter/insect in the first Lexx episode, which interfered with the virtual courtroom.

Obligatory...

[TwistedOne151]

I, for one, welcome our new tiny, morphing, power-stealing, flying overlords.

Re:Obligatory...

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, await the day when a story like this can escape this tired, old meme.

Re:weird warnings.. (RTFA!!!!)

[Anonymous Coward]

AFRL's initial aim is to work out how to make a MAV flying at 74 kilometers per hour latch onto a power line without destroying itself or the line.

Hovering is not part of the program. I know this is Slashdot so actual knowledge is unimportant, but when you make a suggestion you should read more then the summary. And that goes double for whoever modded this up to 4 Insightful. This comment is an example of "not even wrong."

Just what does that mean?

[ClayJar]

I'm trying to come up with a reasonable identity for the cosine of experience.

Re:Just what does that mean?

[The_mad_linguist]

The root of one minus the sin squared of experience, obviously.

fly over my house == take a bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but the day one of these things enters my property (hopefully never, I'm in Europe) it will be shot at and its parts will be recycled for some robotics experiments.

When this spying over common citizens will end? Go get real criminals, damnit!

Re:Technical Capabilities of Citizen vs. Govt Narr

[fireforadrymouth]

However, I think that nowadays the seperation between the individual and the government is not a technical one You must live in an interesting neighbourhood. When was the last time you went over to a friends house with one of these, these or how about these?

I guess you could technically build one of these but good luck to ya!

human race

[pizpot]

The human race could be like Star Trek, or we could get real good at killing and spying. Sigh.

Re:human race

[Stanistani]

>like Star Trek...

You want to be canceled after a seven-year run?

objects sitting on powerlines...

[recharged95]

make good BB gun targets. I doubt these things are made to be bulletproof due to the weight factor.

Gangs

[mosb1000]

Gangs are also the result of bored kids.

There was a tree near a fraternity at my college that always had a bunch of shoes in it. The rumor was that once someone had sex with a girl they'd steal her shoes and throw them up there. There were a lot of mens shoes in that tree, so I doubt the truth of that rumor as well.

Re:Gangs

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no gay frat boys?

Re:Gangs

[Yoozer]

Ah, but you missed something important; the fraternity was named Phi Alpha Gamma.

The Ungoverned

[argent]

We're getting closer to Vinge's 1985 story The Ungoverned.

Using electrostatic field gradient

[Animats]

Cute idea. What they're trying to do, it seems, is mooch a little power from the electrostatic field gradient around the wire. This is quite feasible if you have a wire with a few KV to ground. The classic demo is to light up a fluorescent lamp by placing it vertically below a high tension line. This works partly because air is not a perfect insulator. There's an electrical path to ground; it just has a high resistance.

If the thing lands on an 11KV power line that's 10m above ground, and has a conductive part that dips 10cm below the line, it should see a voltage difference of about 90 volts. You can't draw very much current before the voltage difference disappears, but you can draw a little.

It's also possible to extract some energy magnetically. See U.S. Patent #3,202,963, "Apparatus for Illuminating Power Lines". But that approach requires heavier parts than an electrostatic approach.

This is reason 46 to ....

[HW_Hack]

buy a shotgun. One of those shorter pistol-gripped 12ga ----- I be blasting these mofos out of sky when I retire

Re:This is reason 46 to ....

[JetScootr]

I wonder if I can modify my old deer stand into a decoy power tower...hmmmmmmmm......

Re:weird warnings.. (RTFA!!!!)

[pclminion]

So it can't hover? That makes it even less likely that inductive charging is possible. No, I didn't read the article. Get over it. And blaming people for the moderation their comments receive is dumb.

Re:Technical Capabilities of Citizen vs. Govt Narr

[greyhueofdoubt]

In the Big Picture, that is a Good Thing.

Why do you want your gov't to be smarter, faster, and better-looking than you?

I'd rather have my tax money house the unfortunate than be spent developing robots whose only purpose in violating the constitution.

-b

Re:Technical Capabilities of Citizen vs. Govt Narr

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of processing, how are we going to be processing all this intelligence (information, not being smart)?

much needed star wars quote

[Coraon]

weve replaced their mynochs with American drones...lets watch: "Damn Drones...munching on the power cables...we'll have to go out there..."

Why land on the power line at all?

[JetScootr]

Why not just use induction to recharge batteries while flying by? Adding the smarts and morphing tech just to land doesn't seem worth the effort. Moving a conductor thru a magnetic field (like those surrounding power lines) will generate electric current. Just fly close to the lines and use that to recharge the batts.

Meh....

[TiggertheMad]

I heard that it indicated that there were stupid teenagers living in the area who liked to get rid of old shoes by chucking them over powerlines...

on the effectiveness of your tinfoil hat

[zxscooby]

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

Research indicates that the tin foil hat is actualy a conspiracy itself.

Sneakers?

[jandersen]

I don't think so - no elctronic component known to mankind could survive the harsh environment that immediately develops inside a pair of sports shoes used by a teenager.

Stealing electricity?

[Archtech]

Looks like another small step for felonious government... how is it proposed to pay for the electricity taken?

People used to be prosecuted for "theft of electricity" back in the bad old days before legislators passed clueless, wrong-headed laws about "breaking into computers". (Of course, that was nonsense, as the computers of the day used just as much electricity when they were idle as when they were doing useful calculations).

So why do government agencies set themselves up as above the law in this way?

Re:Stealing electricity?

[Anonymous Coward]

People used to be prosecuted for "theft of electricity"

It's assumed that these drones will only be used against the enemy in a time of war. We prosecute for killing, but when we kill our enemies it's okay. How is this any different?

Re:Stealing electricity?

[mr_mischief]

The NSA wiretaps that make use of AT&T switches that AT&T's customers get billed for aren't used only against the enemy in a time of war. Why will this be different?

They could just morph into a helium balloon ...

[shis-ka-bob]

and float.

Nothing to see here...

[Thecarpe]

That's as dumb as shooting a flare gun over the bank you're about to rob. Hey officer - don't look now, but I am giving away the location and affiliation with my drug dealing activity. Now me and my clientel might look a bit surprised when you discover our secret place of business, but it's all in good fun - we'll claim that we were profiled or set up - heck, it's only my 6th offense anyway...

Re:Nothing to see here...

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

what is more stupid is how frequently a young kid with dreams of being rich would stand on a marked corner like that with a pocket full of crack waiting for someone to slow down. more often than not he would get shot or shot at in short order by whoever claimed the spot. i remember some 16 year old kid getting shot with one pocket full of cash and the other full of tiny bags of crack, about a block from the school. the next day the kids there were talking about how he was on "someone else's corner."

the street level drug sales are poor kids with no idea of how dangerous of a profession they are entering. a car slows down, they walk up, the transaction lasts about 30 seconds. if a cop comes they run. always. and since they are neighborhood kids they know every alley. and if they get caught, yeah it usually does take a few offenses to get a custodial sentence because they are underage. by that time they are a career criminal, well on their way to having no chance at a decent life.

Disguise really required?

[PhotoGuy]

How much time does this thing require to spend on charging? The exposed powerlines it could latch onto are typicaly 11 kilovolts and up. It wouldn't require a lot of time to charge on those, so doesn it really need to diguise itself? Even if it looked like a pair of sneakers, the fact it flies in and out, might raise more suspicion than the look while charging. Also, the transformers required to take 11kv down to 220v for the house, aren't exactly dainty; how could this device step down the power with lightweight gear? (The power between the transformer and the home are in shielded cables, unlike the 11kv lines.)

FYI: In a typical power pole situation, you have three wires on top (in sort of a triangle config), and one part way down the pole. The top three are three different phases of the AC power, and the one part way down the pole is ground (you can see the occasional tap where the line is grounded to a stake in the ground). The step-down transformers for the home circuits tap into the ground, and one of the three phases, to give you 220v for several homes. (Factories and such will use all three phases for serious equipment.) Often on branch lines, only one of the three phases (and the ground) will be tapped off from the main line, to service some houses (with skinnier looking pole arrangements with only two wires). The fatter, insulated wires on the poles are cable and phone lines.

Re:Disguise really required?

[PhotoGuy]

Oh yeah, and the three phase lines and the ground line are uninsulated, which is what allows this device to sneak power. They don't touch, so they don't short out. Birds (or workers) can touch on any of them, because there's no complete circuit. But if they touched two phases at the same time, or one of the phases and ground, then it's a 11 kilovolt zap. When you see downed power lines sparking on the ground, it's one of the top three phase lines touching the ground, and partially shorting out to it. In any case, stay clear of any of the wires :)

obSkynet

[PMuse]

The system went online on [December 18, 2007]. Human decisions were removed from strategic defense. [It] began to learn at a geometric rate. It became self aware [11:08] am Eastern Time. In the ensuing panic and attempts to shut [it] down, [it] retaliated
by . . .

Paranoia

[MECC]

Technology like this will make it harder and harder to accurately diagnose paranoia.

Mod Parent Down

[Anonymous Coward]

(-1, Redundant)
boooooo!

THIS is a transformer turning into trash...

[A New Normalcy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzbQjd_Oo4Q

Spy Sapping My Power Line!

[lullabud]

Spy Sapping My Power Line!