Stanford's "Autonomous" Helicopters Learn

An anonymous reader writes "Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by 'watching' other helicopters perform the same maneuvers. The result is an autonomous helicopter that can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own. The stunts are 'by far the most difficult aerobatic maneuvers flown by any computer controlled helicopter,' said Andrew Ng, the professor directing the research of graduate students Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, Timothy Hunter and Morgan Quigley. The dazzling airshow is an important demonstration of 'apprenticeship learning,' in which robots learn by observing an expert, rather than by having software engineers peck away at their keyboards in an attempt to write instructions from scratch.'" The title of the linked article uses the term "autonomous," but that's somewhat misleading. The copters can't fly on their own, but rather can duplicate complex maneuvers learned from a human pilot.

Comments

Autonomous

[Anonymous Coward]

They still are autonomous. Would you call people non-autonomous because they learn from other people?

Autonomous kdawson

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably didn't learn a language on your own either but we think you might be autonomous.

Jut because the robot's have learned by watching an expert doesn't make them not autonomous. People learn by watching experts as well ... ok so maybe only some of us do

If the robots are capable ( and according to the article it seems they are ) of independent flight then they are autonomous.

Re:UCAR

[lordofwhee]

There's a HUGE difference between a robot that can manage to land on a fixed point on an object, and a robot that can actually LEARN how to land on that object. Remember, these robots know nothing. Not how to fly, not how to land, nothing, except how to learn.

Not Autonomous? FTNWYWCBED*

[Somegeek]

From the 2nd paragraph of the article:

"The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own."

From kdawson's summary:

"The title of the linked article uses the term "autonomous," but that's somewhat misleading. The copters can't fly on their own, but rather can duplicate complex maneuvers learned from a human pilot."

How in any way do you come to that conclusion based upon the data in the story?

They CAN and DO fly by themselves. Out of the lab. In varying weather conditions. Constantly making adjustments for wind gusts, etc., none of which is being controlled by a human.

And then the wisecrack about their AI? It uses an algorithm to study commands sent to another helicopter, studies the results, figures out what the goal of the commands was, and is able to implement those goals, on its own, more accurately than the original human pilot. That's not a strong AI?

Can we please get some editors that understand what they are reading?

*From The Not What You Would Call Brilliant Editing Department

Re:Not Autonomous? FTNWYWCBED*

[BitZtream]

And then the wisecrack about their AI? It uses an algorithm to study commands sent to another helicopter, studies the results, figures out what the goal of the commands was, and is able to implement those goals, on its own, more accurately than the original human pilot. That's not a strong AI?

Heh, the summery is just an example of ignorance. A human being does the EXACT same thing. The main difference being that when I put my aircraft into the air, I can redefine the programming very quickly without outside intervention. Currently the AI that has been developed works against a known, set collection of goals.

One could argue, that in the military, that may be more useful than an actual person in many cases. The person my have a conviction that prevents them from carrying out the mission, for instance, a child on the battle field my prevent them from firing a weapon, even though the result of not firing means that thousands of people die elsewhere.

Personally, having not served in the military, I can not comprehend how a pilot ( and I've always wanted to be a fighter pilot mind you ) or any other military personal can actually take someone elses life. I know plenty of men and women do it on it often enough to know that you can overcome that and justify the action to yourself, at least long enough to do it, but lets face it, no one that I would want in our military should be able to take a life and NOT feel something is wrong.

To be clear, I do not fault those people who serve at all, I hold them with the highest respect because they do a job that I do not believe I could do, nor do I really WANT to do, I just want to play with the aircraft :)

So ... if this AI is a little 'dumb', it may make things a whole lot better in the end. Of course, the other side of the argument, and the side that I'm on says that the human decisions made during combat help prevent us from being walking evil. It is that ability for us to keep our morals in check and consider more than just our assigned goals that keeps us different from machines and makes us, to our knowledge, unique, for good or bad. It is ALSO that ability to adjust our goals based on the situation that makes the difference in a war.

If you turn all wars into battles between machines, its simple a contest of production and resources in which case its likely you can just decide the outcome in advance and save the resources. So do you do the Warcraft Rush, or do you camp and stockpile?

Fortunately, I can't imagine that it will even end up that we have computers doing all the work for us as those in power tend to not want to give it up, even to their computerized slaves.

Re:youtube "rc helicopter".

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Why not? The tails on pretty much all RC helis are already controlled by a computer and they work very well. You can also get auto pilot systems that will hold the heli in a steady hover despite crosswinds etc. It might be a while before they can do the chaos maneuver a couple of feet off the ground like in that video, but there's no reason it can't be done -- not reason they can't do it even better.

Re:Not Autonomous? MOD PARENT DOWN

[CompMD]

The helicopters can NOT fly by themselves "out of the lab." They are remote control helicopters with a few extra gadgets. In particular, they would include potentiometers to measure control surface deflection, digital servos, an AHRS unit, a data acquisition system, and a small autopilot computer based on a PowerPC, XScale, ARM9, or similar low-power CPU. The autopilot computer contains the definition of the control system, which is a set of nonlinear equations defining the dynamics and flight control of the helicopter. To perform a maneuver, the pilot moves the his controls which feed inputs to the control system. The servo outputs are based upon the equations defined by the control system. By recording the control inputs, accelerations, servo locations, and control surface deflections for a given maneuver, an autopilot program can be defined to fly the helicopter autonomously. Here's where AI comes into play. As the helicopter flies autonomously, there will inevitably be oscillations in the motion of the helicopter, since the human pilot that trained it cannot be perfect. However, by analyzing the feedback from the AHRS, servo locations, and control surface deflections, the control input gains to the autopilot program can be modified to give the helicopter a smoother flight by damping the unwanted oscillation induced by the autopilot attempting to reproduce the maneuver. It doesn't figure out the goal of the commands, it damps oscillation induced by the flight control system by figuring out what causes it. Its just math.

Re:That's exactly how Terminator got started

[palegray.net]

I believe we're simply starting to see the more obvious signs that our species is performing its pre-programmed task exceptionally well: outdoing ourselves. I choose to view this situation optimistically; we're already beginning to converge with silicon-based technologies, and further developments along this line show great promise for the evolution (convergence?) of our species.

We stopped evolving along a "natural" biological path a long time ago; what differentiates us is our ability to store, analyze, and transmit information. The increasing influence of computing and networks in our lives is no more than the natural extension of what our relatives in the distant past were doing when they first scratched symbols in the dirt.