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U. Penn Super Quadcopter Learns New Tricks

Posted by timothy on from the hit-squads-want-these dept.

Freddybear writes "University of Pennsylvania's GRASP lab posted new video of their scary fast maneuverable quad-rotor drone. It can now fly through openings (hoops) which are themselves moving." The entire list of GRASP projects is worth crawling through.

7 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Killing me in my sleep? by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It does make a distinct sound and sounds like that in a war-zone can have a terrifying effect, psychologically on enemy troops.

  2. Re:Killing me in my sleep? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They could use it to track autonomous Audis, better than crashing helicopters.

  3. Manhack by BradleyUffner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Reminds me of the Manhacks from Half Life.
    http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Manhack

  4. While impressive by oneofthose · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think it is important to note that they use fairly sophisticated (multiple times more expensive than the drone itself) motion capture equipment to locate and control the drone.

  5. Re:Killing me in my sleep? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Informative

    Also: did you see what it needs for navigation? Bright red lights as landmarks, brightly colored hoops.

    It would need much more sophisticated navigation in order to operate outside its little custom-made "cage".

  6. No reason it can't be fully mobile by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    Very nice. For research purposes, they're using a cheap copter and expensive fixed motion tracking gear. That saves money during debugging crashes. It doesn't have to be that way. With a slightly bigger copter they could carry around 3 axes of fibre-optic gyro, good accelerometers, and a good dynamic GPS. Expect to see that soon, with DoD funding.

    Robots are going to have faster reflexes than humans. Humans are stuck at 200ms or so, while computers get faster.

  7. Re:Killing me in my sleep? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, imagine being killed by a flying army of vuvuzelas. Yech.

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