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MIT Researchers Develop Autonomous Indoor Robocopter
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at MIT's Robust Robotics Group have developed a robotic helicopter capable of autonomously flying inside buildings or other GPS-denied environments. It has an on-board camera and a laser scanner that maps the local environment. The video talks about search-and-rescue and civil engineering applications, but it also brings somewhat scary reminders of Minority Report to my head. How long till I see one of these chasing me down a dark alley? The team's website has more videos showing earlier stages of the project."
Article just has some videos, but here's a few pictures of it.
And I suggest a good behaviour when they fly in - otherwise these machines will come in.
Baseball Bat 1, Helicopter 0.
Now, adding GPS to the sharks IS a great idea, though!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Oh, so that's why my brother is having trouble getting his remote outdoor helicopter to properly maintain position for over a few seconds.
If he would only do it indoors in a large structure! ...with multiple props.. /sarcasm ;)
I love the length of outdoor shots. Looks pretty par to me.
Well, if we could just get the MIT team to put some blades on them we can make them into the Manhacks from Half-Life 2. Forget your baseball bat just bring a crowbar.
Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.
All that's needed is the saw blades.
> How long till I see one of these chasing me down a dark alley?
Carry a tennis racket. Or just throw a rock.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Very cool! Now they can make a roomba that can clean my stairs!
before they strap a Google camera to the things and start taking pictures of every corner of every building that doesn't have:
User-agent: * /
Disallow:
in it's robot.txt file.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Once Microsoft starts developing and deploying these, you'll learn to run and hide when you hear helicopter sounds.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Noise and power source are massive problems that aren't likely to go away. The real problem with all non airfoil type hovering vehicles is always going to be a power source dense enough. There are actually a number of ways to propel them if energy wasn't an issue. The robotics are impressive but it'll always be a boat in the basement until these issues are addressed. They used gas as fuel obviously for this test but you have the noise factor. Electric would be quieter but then you have battery weight. Even with Moeller's Skycar I think his 400 mile estimates are very unrealistic. Vertical take offs are always going to take a lot of power as does hovering. Cool stuff but I'll be far more impressed when some one can keep a device this size flying for 6 or 8 hours. 5 minutes with electric and 15 minutes on gas is probably the norm right now so there's a long way to go before we have to worry about Minority Report.
And follow what the people you elect have done and then support and advocate those that have the true intrests of the people at heart rather then just voting for the guy giving you 300 dollars or makes you feel good for a bit like Santa Claus but has no real plan.
But nah, lets fear tech, that is so much cooler then just making sure those who would abuse power, don't get into power.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
^
Not only can they fly, but they can do e-commerce!
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
"scary reminders of minority report"? What about scary reminder of fast rotating blades at neck altitude? People are in indoors too, and laser mapping or not, inertia and shit happens.
I am imagining a future where parts are very cheap, and then someone crosses these with these D:
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
I wouldn't turn around right now, if I were you...
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
How long till I see one of these chasing me down a dark alley?
That depends on what you were planning, citizen.
...is an autonomous publicity machine. God some of their stuff is just so embarrassing. It seems like the people who really can engineering good robots, like Raibert, just leave and form their own company.
Forgot about Minority Report. Does anyone remember Defense Play?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094981/
How many other cheesy 80's movies have come to pass? When's my Johnny 5 come alive?
This is interesting, although by using a quad-rotor helicopter, they seem to have mostly solved computer vision problem rather than a control system problem
Quad rotor and coaxial helicopters are very stable and have gotten pretty popular as entry-level helicopters because they are so easy to fly. The downside is that they don't really have the efficiency characteristics to fly outdoors like collective-pitch (e.g. like real full-size) helicopters.
Since the focus of the challenge was to fly indoors, using a quad-rotor is the natural choice. I'd like to have understood better how other teams failed and what kind of helicopters they used.
Collective-pitch helicopters, on the other hand, are extremely difficult to fly. Until the Stanford Autonomous Helicopter (http://heli.stanford.edu/), I believe no autonomous control system has been able to successfully fly one, even for very simple maneuvers.
Please tell me it uses a small wooden crate for tomatoes for an ammo box.
That's almost as good as the Bladestar, available now for only $24.95 Yes, an indoor helicopter with radio control and collision avoidance for $24.95. WowWee manages to produce incredible capabilities at very low price points.
The MIT thing is neat, but it's mostly possible because IMU units and laser scanners are finally small enough for this.
The time-of-flight laser scanner thing has been frustrating. That's what you want in a robot; they're just too expensive for volume or hobbyist use. 3D LIDAR scanners have been around since the 1980s. For a long time, the SICK LMS devices, which worked well but were both bulky and expensive, ($9000), dominated the field. The DARPA Grand Challenge resulted in the Velodyne scanner, which was 3D (the SICK units are line scanners), but that cost $50,000 - $100,000.
There's no fundamental reason why the things should cost that much, except that they are produced in small volumes. Back in 2004, I dragged a venture capitalist down to Advanced Scientific Concepts, which has a $100,000 flash laser rangefinder with a custom imaging chip. That thing should cost under $1000 in quantity, and eventually it should cost like a webcam. But ASC was selling only to the military, and they weren't thinking in terms of a volume product. It was too early, though; no volume market was on the horizon.
When robots at the Roomba level get laser rangefinding and a decent IMU, they'll be able to navigate without getting lost or stuck. An automatic vacuum with enough smarts to do the job right could take over much commercial floor care.
Why make a robocopter if it is not also a dildocopter?
Did no one else see this vital application use?
For the past 20 years or so, anytime you needed a robocopter chasing someone down a dark alley, computer graphics was the answer. But how cool would it be to do this as a practical effect with no wires involved? Of course, people are so used to CG effects that they'd probably think the real thing looked fake.
P.S. Michael Bay can shove this robocopter up his ass. And I seriously hope he does.
"How long till I see one of these chasing me down a dark alley?"
Don't worry, I'm sure some day some brilliant underground scientist will re-discover the baseball bat.
Why a helicopter when you could use a blimp type device? Million times easier and more stable. And less fragile or dangerous.
so Microsoft Federation Police Department is going to deploy these to look for WGA violations? good! now Joe User will BEG to get linux installed.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
When tennis rackets are outlawed, only outlaws will have tennis rackets.
'Cause you just know it would be satisfying to smack one of these ten-thousand-dollar UAVs down to the floor and stomp it, good.
Mikrocopter
or UAVP
Both stuffed full of open source goodness and well within the abilities of most Slashdot tinkerers to build.
Use your crowbar and smash those drones, Gorden!!