Ultra-Light Micro Air Vehicles

Roland Piquepaille writes "Dutch engineers have built the third generation of the DelFly autonomous air vehicle. The DelFly Micro made its first public flight earlier today in Delft. This micro air vehicle weighs only 3 grams and has a wingspan of 10 centimeters. This very small remote-controlled aircraft carries a 0.4 gram camera. The DelFly Micro, which looks like a dragonfly, can fly for 3 minutes at a maximum speed of 5 meters/second. It could be used for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas."

Comments

Paging Danny Dunn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Danny Dunn to the white courtesy phone, please ...

Re:Paging Danny Dunn...

[QuantumHack]

That's exactly what I was thinking! When I was 12, and I read Raymond Abrashkin's "Danny Dunn: Invisible Boy", I was mesmerized. And this mini UAV is essentially the plot device in the book, right down to the dragonfly appearance. Pretty good prediction for a book from the mid '70s.

Re:Paging Danny Dunn...

[waveformwafflehouse]

Pretty good prediction for a book from the mid '70s.

Funny thing about predictions is they often come to life as inspiration.

Re:Paging Danny Dunn...

[dgatwood]

That certainly explains the whole 1984 thing as of late.

Re:Paging Danny Dunn...

[jollyreaper]

Damn, I remember that one. The part that really impressed me was they had the whole premise of "invisible boy" and that's what you're lead to expect due to low-plausibility kid books but the author then goes and gives a very plausible explanation for how a pseudo-invisibility suit would work, i.e. the dragonfly you remotely pilot.

Now just think back to that slashdot article a while back talking about a micro-UAV that could be powered by an external field and we're talking about Dune hunter-seekers.

Re:Paging Danny Dunn...

[BonThomme]

YES!

It's been over thirty years since I read this book, and I have never forgotten it. It was a fundamental 'aha!' book for me, framing the distinction between the ideal and the practical when solving a problem. You start with the premise of classical invisibility which you of course know (as a teenager) is impossible. But then you reframe the challenge in terms of what it really means to be invisible. At the time, it was tough to catch the only subtle distinction between 'not seen' and 'not noticed', but once you got it, it showed you there are often many, many unexpected ways to approach and solve a problem. Great to see the book made a lasting impression on others as well.

Video link:

[Sporkus]

There's a video of the DelFly Micro in action here. It takes flight about a minute and a half in.

Re:Video link:

[LiquidCoooled]

There is an assortment of additional video links on this page

http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=1468ded9-96cb-47dd-aed3-da0a70a34813&lang=en

Its like they are catering for everyone, because each link has a different format.

Re:Video link:

[Rogerborg]

OK, they win. I was going to moan about the refresh on the camera being inadequate, the flight time being useless, and the inability to hover meaning that it has two modes: flying, and crashing.

But having seen in action? Must... own... tiny... whirring... affront to God. Must.

Re:Video link:

[martin-boundary]

What I wanna know is: does it fly ok in, ahem, rainy or otherwise humid conditions?

Re:Video link:

[robotngineer]

In other news, a cameraman fell down and split his head open after being driven dizzy chasing down a small mechatronic dragonfly....

Re:Video link:

[Annymouse Cowherd]

the offical site is http://www.delfly.nl/

Re:Video link:

[NeoSkandranon]

You may also want to check if the reflective surface of bathroom tiles mess with its navigation or imaging in any way.

I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[UncleWilly]

You'd still notice this in the girl's shower.

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[oodaloop]

I know this sounds incredible, but it's actually possible to be in a shower with a girl in person without the aid of technology.

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[Rogerborg]

Roofies are technology.

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[Rob the Bold]

I know this sounds incredible, but it's actually possible to be in a shower with a girl in person without the aid of technology.

If you're just naturally invisible? If you're both plumbers? C'mon, tell us how! Slashdot wants to know.

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[Ngarrang]

I know this sounds incredible, but it's actually possible to be in a shower with a girl in person without the aid of technology.

You must be new here.

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[kipman725]

ah the one situation when droping the soap might not be the worst idea.

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're both dirty?

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[laejoh]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[Carewolf]

I know this sounds incredible, but it's actually possible to be in a shower with a girl in person without the aid of technology.

As scientist we have to trust the experiment to test the theory, and having just performed the experiment, I can tell you, you are wrong!

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[AnonymousDot]

What about just asking her? That works for me most of the time. And when she doesn't want, ask her if she would prefer the cat...

Re:I'll wait for the Fourth Generation

[Anonymous Coward]

you really are new here

Fetch me my flyswatter!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll show this thing a dangerous area.

One for the Christmas List

[AmIAnAi]

I do hope Santa has a good stock of these come Christmas time. I just have to persuade my wife I really do _need_ one of these.

Re:One for the Christmas List

[Ozeroc]

You can get a RC Dragonfly toy today. http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Exclusive-Radio-Control-DragonFly/dp/B000QMYSDM It may not be as small or come with a camara, but it does look cool.

Oz

Re:One for the Christmas List

[TheLink]

After looking at it in action, I still prefer the toy helis I got.

They're 50% longer and wider (so not much bigger), but they are 5 times heavier - 15g.

They look like this:
http://www.airsport.com.hk/ShowProduct.asp?id=380
(I didn't buy it from there though - it's just a link I got from google).

Trouble is the quality control is not very good, so either you get it at a shop where you can test it first, or you'd have to risk getting a dud. And even if it seems to work, there's no guarantee it'll continue to work for more than a few days.

I've got three, and one is faulty (it still flies but the motor or something is not smooth- blades stop spinning nearly immediately when you cut the throttle). And some of my friends had helis that stopped working after a few days (that said, I don't know how well they treated their helis ;) ).

The ones that work are pretty good fun. 3-channel = up/down, turn left/right, forwards and backwards.

Of course, they're not going to fool someone into thinking they're some insect. But the delfly micro doesn't fly like a dragonfly either. The only insects I can think of that fly like that are some moths (the larger ones).

BTW the summary appears to be wrong - the delfly does not seem to be autonomous at all - it is controlled by some human.

When I think of it, it's quite amazing how behind we are in tech- dragonflies are smaller, fly faster (50kph), fly for longer, are more manueverable, and are genuinely autonomous - they find their own "fuel" and even reproduce.

Re:One for the Christmas List

[pushing-robot]

There's also this new one, which is basically the same size as the DelFly Micro, can hover, and has double the flight time. It doesn't have a camera, though, but considering TFA claims the Micro's camera only weighs 0.5 grams it would be easy to add one.

Re:One for the Christmas List

[strelitsa]

I've got three, and one is faulty (it still flies but the motor or something is not smooth- blades stop spinning nearly immediately when you cut the throttle).

That sure sounds like hair either wrapped around the rotor spindle or pressing between the spindle and the motor to me. Even one hair can slow down the blades and make the thing unflyable. I use a big magnifying glass and an X-Acto knife blade to clear any foreign matter out of this area.

Re:One for the Christmas List

[dgatwood]

It's probably not the weight of the camera that decreases the flight time, but rather the power needed to transmit a video signal back to your receiving station without too much signal degradation....

Re:One for the Christmas List

[TheLink]

It's only two channel though - turn and throttle. That said the DelFly Micro is probably limited similarly.

0.5 grams is light. Just adding lubricant to your heli will probably add 0.5 grams.

Ultra light air vehicles that don't have power and maneuverability won't do well outdoors - just a light breeze will sweep them far away.

So it's not so simple to make one to use for outdoor surveillance.

For indoor surveillance you are better off making a remote controlled roach or gecko. Just make sure you include enough "decoy wet stuff" so that when someone smashes it, it's disgusting enough for most people to not bother looking too closely ;). Alternatively, rig up a real life animal with a camera, battery and control system.

Having something the size of a DelFly micro flying around indoors is going to attract a lot of attention. Whereas something crawling about on the ceiling should stick out a lot less.

3 minutes?

[Ngarrang]

3 minutes is not very useful. By the time you reach your destination and actually get some good images, you've run out of time to return and have effectively lost your MAV. If they are meant to be throw-away, this is not a design flaw.

From my experience as an RC pilot, the smaller the craft, the more difficult it is to control. I would be curious to see how they've overcome the twitchiness of a such light weight.

Re:3 minutes?

[Rogerborg]

It doesn't looks as though they have overcome the twitchiness. Perhaps the idea is to buy them by the gross. You only need one to get through.

Re:3 minutes?

[DaveDerrick]

Assuming the 5m/s is correct, it could fly upto 900 metres in its 3 minute flight time. Surely thats enough to fly into a danger area & take a few snaps ?

Re:3 minutes?

[phillips321]

Proof of concept!
3 minutes isn't much, but imagine integrating solar power into this.....
Now imagine a cluster of these all flying autonomously......

Re:3 minutes?

[SpinyNorman]

Something this small is always going to be blown about by the slightest of air currents anyway, so you need to be able to compensate for lack of 100% control. Same deal for real-life dragonflies, butterflies and even birds (even seen them trying to fly against a strong wind?), but this doesn't prevent any of these from being able to get where they want to and land on flowers, bits of grass or whetever. You just need appropriate control software.

Re:3 minutes?

[el_coyotexdk]

Cluster meet flamethrower... Flamethrower meet cluster!

Re:3 minutes?

[Anonymous Coward]

3 minutes is not very useful. By the time you reach your destination and actually get some good images, you've run out of time to return and have effectively lost your ...

Ahem. That's what she said.

Re:3 minutes?

[Bob-taro]

Now imagine a cluster of these all flying autonomously......

A Beowulf cluster, right? But can they even run linux?

Re:3 minutes?

[jollyreaper]

3 minutes is not very useful. By the time you reach your destination and actually get some good images,

Some slashdotters may be quicker on the trigger than you.

Practicality?

[Scotteh]

I imagine that this thing is pretty difficult to fly. With it going that fast, the camera would be jumping around all over the place. How can this practically be used for observation flights? You'd have to analyze it frame-by-frame.

What happens...

[skraps]

What happens if one of these gets sucked into a jet engine? Are they small and soft enough to not cause problems?

Re:What happens...

[MrNaz]

In an issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, editors quoted from "Feathers," the publication of the California Poultry Industry Federation, telling the following story:

The US Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane's windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.

The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the carcass impact, it'll survive a real collision with a bird during flight.

It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they're developing.

They borrowed FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired.

The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, broke the engineer's chair and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine's cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.

The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation:

"Use a thawed chicken."

Re:What happens...

[dimension6]

Hm...I don't think they'll survive easily if they get sucked into a jet engine. They're kind of small and don't look that durable.

Re:What happens...

[Oktober Sunset]

1989 called, they said you can keep that one, they don't want it back.

Re:What happens...

[uglydog]

copied from snopes

Re:What happens...

[mad flyer]

I hate this kind of questions... They appear to look insightfull while they are close to trolling.

A jet engine is designed to swallow frozen chicken (or live birds) and you are scared by a 3g RC piece of dust that would not be powerfull enought to survive to the sheer suction force or even be able to get anywhere near a flying jet.

What's your next profound thought ? "what if bin laden get ahold of one of these OMG!!!!11!!!!" then he could carry... no payload... in a 3g plane with 3minutes range... might as well shave his beard and deliver by hand...

Next, OMG think of the children ?

Re:What happens...

[jeroen94704]

Didn't the Mythbusters bust this in one of the earlier seasons? If I remember correctly, the conclusion was that it doesn't matter if you use frozen or thawed chickens.

Re:What happens...

[skraps]

Wasn't intended as a troll, I promise. :-) I was already aware that jets are tested with chickens, but chickens (bones included) are pretty soft compared to, say, batteries. And I think these could get pretty close to a jet on take-off or landing. Maybe you should re-read my comment and yours, and ask yourself which sounds more like a troll.

Re:What happens...

[danbert8]

Actually, the first tests they did were inconclusive. They revisited it and eventually did find that frozen chickens had more penetrating power than thawed ones. The final test that was conclusive was several sheets of glass, and the frozen chicken broke more panes than the thawed one.
 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_episodes:_Season_2#Episode_14_.E2.80.94_.22Myths_Revisited.22

Re:What happens...

[mad flyer]

no, i actually sound more like a psychopath...

But still a rc model of 3g... even with battery... would hardly damage an engine.

Re:What happens...

[florescent_beige]

Mythbusters used the wrong kind of airframe for testing. It does make a big difference. The flimsy little unpressurized airplane they used was going to break no matter what they fired at it. They did a re-do of that test and concluded frozen was worse.

Part-23 aircraft (little airplanes) have to withstand a 2-lb bird hitting the windscreen at max flap speed. Part-25 aircraft (airliners) have to withstand an 8-lb bird hitting the empennage at cruse speed and a 4-lb bird hitting anywhere else including the wind screen at cruise speed. There is a whole aviation sub-industry devoted to testing and designing for bird impact.

In real life using a frozen chicken is a mistake nobody would ever make. I say this because in the bird impact business it is well known that bird density, a more subtle effect than frozen/thawed, is important. Chickens are more dense than flying birds and create higher peak impact transients. Chicken guns don't fire chickens any more, they fire freshly killed ducks or geese.

Re:What happens...

[jeroen94704]

Still, the original story is pretty unlikely. In this regard, the relevant Snopes entry is interesting: http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.asp

Re:What happens...

[hyades1]

This old chestnut has been around for years. The way I first heard it (at least 15 years ago) was that the Chicken Gun was Canadian and the FAA had to have the concept of a thawed fowl gently explained to them.

I have no doubt every country has a different idiot/victim, depending on who your most popular "moron nation" happens to be at the moment.

Re:What happens...

[supermank17]

Actually the Mythbusters revisited that one, and discovered that thawed vs. un-thawed does indeed matter. Their first test was flawed; if I remember correctly they fired into a concrete wall and watched the bounceback of the fragments, but the wall was strong enough that all the chickens just disintegrated equally. In the revisit, however, they fired through a series of glass plates set up back to back, and the thawed chicken could only shatter one or two plates, while the frozen chicken blew through every plate and kept going.

Re:What happens...

[HiThere]

Wonder if it has any titanium parts...

It's light enough that it wouldn't be a problem. Not sure about soft enough. OTOH, I also don't have any idea about clearance inside jet engines. Possibly it's small enough to go through in one piece, were it strong enough. In that, or analogous, case having a few small hard rigid parts shouldn't matter.

Why a dragonfly?

[Blice]

I don't understand why they're trying to shape it after a dragonfly- There are more efficient ways of getting around the air than flapping wings. I mean, yeah, I get that it would be cool to have one that actually looked like a dragonfly for spying and such, but for getting into dangerous or hard to reach places it shouldn't be designed this way.

I think a really good example is this guy's plane, he made it to be as light as possible and had to make his own motor for it. I think they should make one the size of this 'dragonfly' but with a propeller like the plane in the video.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[spydink]

Plus, a dragonfly design has already been done by the ISIT probe.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[smoker2]

I don't understand why they're trying to shape it after a dragonfly- There are more efficient ways of getting around the air than flapping wings. I mean, yeah, I get that it would be cool to have one that actually looked like a dragonfly for spying and such, but for getting into dangerous or hard to reach places it shouldn't be designed this way.

Yeah, the millions of species of insect and bird have got a lot to learn from us land lubbers. I mean, hovering in one position is a piece of cake for our mechanical devices, so much so that we can get a flight to anywhere we want and we don't need a runway. Oh, wait, we can't unless we use a helicopter, which is slow in the horizontal plane and noisy and fuel hungry.
Living things manipulate the air in much more elegant and finely controlled ways than anything man has produced. We mainly just force our way through it.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[d3ac0n]

Heh,

I remember reading that book as a kid! MAN I wanted one of those SO BADLY. And now I can finally get one! Although I think I'll skip the "setting fires with small dragonfly probe and destroying the probe in the process" part.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[SpinyNorman]

A dragonfly (both real ones and this one - did you watch the videos?) is a lot move maneuverable (can change direction on a dime) than a plane, and also for covert applications not going to draw attention since it really does look like a dragonfly and the only noise is the flapping wings.

I'm not even sure that the aerodynamics of plane would scale to this small, but this thing demonstrably does, and real-life dragonflys prove that this design does indeed work at smaller scales such as the 5cm they are targetting for the next iteration.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[dtfusion]

At small scales the Reynolds number ~ vL/nu gets smaller. So for a given velocity, smaller objects behave like they are in a more viscous medium. Flexible wings that "swim" through the air can be more efficient and more stable than fixed wings at such scales.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[PhotoGuy]

I think a really good example is this guy's plane, he made it to be as light as possible and had to make his own motor for it. I think they should make one the size of this 'dragonfly' but with a propeller like the plane in the video.

What a radical design! They should make passenger planes with this style. :) I guess the Wright Bros. were onto something.

It sure seems a lot more stable, controllable, and elegant that the dragonfly. (Granted, it was larger, which adds stability, but it wasn't *that* much bigger.) The dragonfly seemed out of control most of the flight, nearly hitting floors, walls, ceilings, and the photographer.

The one you linked to seemed to have a STOL (short-takeoff-and-landing) style to it, allowing slow, controlled flight.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[Ricken]

I guess a good reason is because its alot easier to control when outside. That guy's plane will definitely be uncontrollable when the slightest wind kicks in.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[andhar]

The homepage says that version I and II were actually capable of hovering in flight. The III can't hover in flight, but they say this is just a transition version to prove technology for version IV, which they intend to be able to hover with.

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[TheSync]

I don't understand why they're trying to shape it after a dragonfly- There are more efficient ways of getting around the air than flapping wings.

Flapping wings can be more efficient at low Reynolds number configurations, like small insects or micro UAVs.

Evolution, of course, already worked out the Reynolds number configurations for soaring, near-fixed wing flight (large birds of prey) versus mostly flapping flight (flies).

Re:Why a dragonfly?

[Brandano]

But think what they could achieve if they had pivots capable of unlimited rotation! Props and rotors are actually very efficient, more so than flapping wings. An helicopter can fly and hover with a power to weight ratio that would make it impossible for any animal. And I have yet to see a swallow fly at mach 2.

Re:Now, if they....

[Da Fokka]

I'll correct that for you:

"Float like a floatbot, sting like an automatic stinging machine!"

great for urban warfare

[Werrismys]

take a peek at who's around thecorner.. or who's lieing prone on the ceiling... heck, add 2 grams of explosive and use it as a diversion.

Re:great for urban warfare

[MrSteveSD]

Or assassination. e.g. A poisonous needle attached to the front.

Re:great for urban warfare

[von_blapp]

...or who's lieing prone on the ceiling...

Well duh, only Spiderman can do that.

Re:great for urban warfare

[HiThere]

Geckoman can eat Spiderman.

( http://www.google.com/search?q=gecko+adhesive )

Insectothopter?

[rocketman768]

Insectothopter? CIA had these back in the 70s...very hard to control in winds over 5 knots though.

autonomous ?

[smoker2]

I can't find the word autonomous anywhere in TFA and it's not surprising, considering that it's radio controlled. They "may" make it capable of self guidance in future, but at the moment it's not autonomous.
Nice long word though Roland ! Maybe you meant eponymous ?

Impossible! Slashdot SAID SO!!!

[BobMcD]

Does NO ONE ELSE remember THIS conversation:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/11/131214

Scroll through it and take in all the posts about how all the eye witnesses were CRAZY to have reported seeing "Dragonfly-Sized Insect Spies". Bathe in the impossibility of the batteries, the cameras, the wireless technology. Soak up how it simply was not even close to being true.

One of a short list of things must be the case:

A) That story from October certainly WAS plausible and a lot of you pundits are going to be dining on fresh hat today.

B) All the know-it-all's are still correct, due to some technicality.

C) I have somehow swapped dimensions again and no one ever said it didn't happen at all...

A Mathman Prophecy

[imstanny]

The DelFly Micro, which looks like a dragonfly, can fly for 3 minutes at a maximum speed of 5 meters/second. It could be used for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas

How can it do that, if it only flies for 3 minutes?

Re:A Mathman Prophecy

[CrimsonAvenger]

How can it do that, if it only flies for 3 minutes?

5 meters per second, 300 seconds. 1500 meters (just under a mile). I can think of a lot of times a group of soldiers might want to know what was going on within a mile of their location, say, over near that machinegun nest....

Re:A Mathman Prophecy

[splutty]

I would say 500 meters straight up and over the edge of that cliff you're standing at the bottom of would definitely fall under 'difficult-to-reach'. And quite possibly be extremely useful to have one person there checking that out before you bring in say that helicopter...

Re:A Mathman Prophecy

[Dunbal]

I can think of a lot of times a group of soldiers might want to know what was going on within a mile of their location, say, over near that machinegun nest....

      (One 500lb bomb later)

      WHAT machine-gun nest?

Hello Gentle Denizens of Slashdot

[florescent_beige]

I have a simple question and I must so humbly ask forgiveness for my ignorance but...

WHAT THE FUCK DOES OHNOITSROLAND MEAN FER CHRISSAKE

Re:Hello Gentle Denizens of Slashdot

[jafiwam]

"Roland" is the submission whore that "blogs" (copies) stuff from all over, links to it, adds a simplistic comment then somehow gets that submitted to Slashdot.

He does it for ad revenue. Quite effective at it, and quite annoying for those great unwashed that don't suck Slashdot dick to get stories submitted.

Re:Hello Gentle Denizens of Slashdot

[florescent_beige]

Ah, you see? Now I know!

I must excuse my outburst, someone took the Vodka bottle from my bottom drawer so I had to get by with seven coffees this morning.

Perhaps I'll ask the janitor sleeping under my desk if he knows where the bottle went.

Re:Hello Gentle Denizens of Slashdot

[Tejin]

I means that Roland Piquepaille has submitted yet another story with links only to his own ad-infested blog. In this way, Roland can make a living off of ad revenue, since anyone who wants to RTFA must go through his blog.

Re:Hello Gentle Denizens of Slashdot

[GTRacer]

I have a simple question and I must so humbly ask forgiveness for my ignorance but...

WHAT THE HECK DOES RTFA MEAN??

(just kidding lameness filter - here are some lower-case letters for you)

Re:Hello Gentle Denizens of Slashdot

[drinkypoo]

To be fair, Roland Pikatroll (I can never remember how to spell his real name, if that is his real name) has dramatically improved the quality of both his blog postings and his story submissions. To the point where one of the recent ones actually carried an editor's note about how his blog posting had more information than the link. The guy is still kind of annoying but he comes up with some good links. I don't really give a shit whose submissions get accepted if interesting stories end up on slashdot. I don't give a shit if he gets ad revenue if people don't know how to use imglikeopera, noscript, adblock plus et cetera.

Re:Hello Gentle Denizens of Slashdot

[bill_mcgonigle]

Not to mention the incitement Slashdot eds have to post his stuff, since every one of his stories spawns a whole thread complaining about him, giving Slashdot thousands of additional ad impressions. Compared with other submitters on the same story, his are going to be more profitable. Because of whining.

Air-to-Air missles?

[Evil.Bonsai]

Maybe it's just me, but I've seen lots of birds try to eat bugs that looked like that. Hope it has at least a couple of Sidewinders on-board, somewhere.

Re:Air-to-Air missles?

[florescent_beige]

Nooo it won't have Sidewinders, it will have a Stinger.

See cuz it's small.

Small right? Like a...

Bug...

Annnnnd...

<spontaneously implodes>

3 Minute Flight

[uniqueUser]

Keep trying! You can go longer! Just think of something else to distract yourself. Pretend you are flying over a dangerous area.

Vehicle?

[WormholeFiend]

In that case, I have a large and impressive vehicle collection!

Impossible toys

[Dareth]

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=wowwee%20flytech&search-type=best&tag=coffeeresearch102885-20&index=blended&link_code=qs

The link above shows several Wowee flying toys, yes they have flying fairies too. The dragonfly got me cause it was flying with flapping wings. They do not come with cameras, but they claim to hover and fly for longer times than the one in the article.

Re:Impossible! Slashdot SAID SO!!!

[FeatureBug]

It's no secret there are some secrets that are necessarily kept secret in the national interest, there are people paid to keep them that way, and there are specific tools to counteract undesirable leaks such as disinfo, misinfo, etc.

Incidentally, micro UAVs similar to the dragon fly, but with micro-turbines, have been in production since at least the 1980s (no links).

And finally :-), we wish to reassure viewers that there is simply no truth in the rumors that fake UFOs have been produced and tested in many countries, and are behind many sightings of strange aerial objects.

I laugh at 3 grams

[Anonymous Coward]

Radio control micro planes have been built here in the US by hobby people that weigh LESS than 1/2 gram

Re:Impossible! Slashdot SAID SO!!!

[thrillhouse13]

When our universities are turning out technology like this, I don't find it unreasonable that our shady government isn't testing - or flat out implementing - technology like a dragonfly-sized insect spy on us.

Re:The BIG R is Back!

[Zaatxe]

I have an authentic question: why do people here hate Roland Piquepaille? It seems to be a general feeling, but he post some interesting stuff. So, why the hate?

Cool but not the smallest RC Plane

[Pontiac]

The smallest I am aware of is Angry Monk's world record 3.125" span 390 micro gram plane
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=892415

or

Martin Newell's Shark at 2.65" span and 0.495 gram
http://mnewell.rchomepage.com/Planes/Shark/Shark-1.html
Flight time is "A few minutes"

Re:Cool but not the smallest RC Plane

[X0563511]

The article isn't talking about mere radio-controlled planes, but full UAVs.

Re:Cool but not the smallest RC Plane

[TheSync]

The Delfly Micro calls itself the "smallest flying ornithopter carrying a camera".

Re:A selection of robotic counter measures

[X0563511]

http://images.google.com/images?q=flyswatter

All that other crud is pointless, you only need the one statement.

More videos

[VincenzoRomano]

Are here

Next great counter-espionage device...

[jhfry]

...a fan.

Can you imagine how difficult it would be to control this in windy environment!

Doesn't seem such an achievement

[Brandano]

Doesn't sound to me as such a great achievement. Sure, it's a small RC ornitopther, but it will hardly be the first, and as someone pointed out a prop will work better, even at small sizes. There are quite a few examples of planes under 3 grams on the RCGroups indoor forums, in particular these entries: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=596219 (mg range brushless motors) http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=841147 (solar powered < 500 mg project) http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=892415 (390mg Plane - Video)

Fly for 3 minutes?

[praedor]

That is some serious "observation" you can do in 3 minutes. Hopefully, what you want to observe is within 3 minutes flight time (if you don't care to get it back) or within 1.5 minutes if you DO want it back.

Re:Fly for 3 minutes?

[thedistrict]

Is this the kind of thing that's going to be deployed to scout out rooms for SWAT teams or Army fire teams? With the limited flight time, it's nearly useless to just throw up in the air for aerial surveillance.

Damn right!

[GameboyRMH]

That thing makes my Flytech Dragonfly seem like a klunky old relic! I mean not only does it have real pitch control, but a remote camera! Holy crap! On the other hand, having flown a Flytech Dragonfly, I'd hate to see what the slightest draft could do to the Delfly, or try to find it in a field when it goes down.

But I think I have to own one despite the sheer impracticality of it.

Oh sure, it's possible...

[GameboyRMH]

...but not legal.

Streaking? Peeping tom? Breaking and entering?

You might want the real one instead!

[GameboyRMH]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's a Chinese ripoff of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Sourcing-Network-Sales-4031-DragonFly/dp/B000NI60PS/ref=pd_sbs_t_njs_1

Re:The BIG R is Back!

[Zaatxe]

Thanks, Roland!

micro=10 nano=5 ?

[Anynomous Coward]

These guys should work on their understanding of SI prefixes before being allowed to play with the cool stuff !

Re:The BIG R is Back!

[Adriax]

I haven't bothered clicking links in a roland submission for awhile, so I don't know if it's changed. But historically roland submits every story under the sun, and every link would send to his own write up on his blog, chock full of copy-paste content and lots of ads.

Basically he carpetbombed slashdot with stories to generate a lot of ad revenue.

African or European swallow?

[rts008]

BTW, which prop or rotor powered aircraft are you referring to that can fly at mach2? I was not aware that any of these existed.