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Army Tests Autonomous Black Hawk Helicopter
An anonymous reader writes "A specially equipped Black Hawk was recently used to demonstrate the helicopter's ability to operate on its own. In the first such test of its type, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research's Development and Engineering Center, based at Redstone Arsenal, flew the Black Hawk over Diablo Mountain Range in San Jose, Calif. Pilots were aboard the aircraft for the tests, but all flight maneuvers were conducted autonomously: obstacle field navigation, safe landing area determination, terrain sensing, statistical processing, risk assessment, threat avoidance, trajectory generation and autonomous flight control were performed in real-time. 'This was the first time terrain-aware autonomy has been achieved on a Black Hawk,' said Lt. Col. Carl Ott, chief of the Flight Projects Office at AMRDEC's Aeroflightdynamics Directorate and one of the test's pilots."
Skynet. That is all.
That means that when the US government sends them out on domestic civilian pacification/suppression/reconnaissance missions, the people can shoot them down without feeling bad about killing people. It's too bad the government does not share such reluctance.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I saw these at a kiosk at the Mall the other day.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
including the use of weapons? (Next logical step)
Cue heart attack of pilot followed by crazy AI. Ha, jigabachis were the first thing I thought of too.
I am sure there will be many posts about 'big brother' and the evils of the government, but I have to say....cool.
I have always been interested in robotics. This is just amazing to me. We have moved so fast (in regards to computing), I can only imagine what will be common place in the next decade.
p.s. It would be awesome if they posted the algorithms they used for this. I won't hold my breath.
This is sort of scary to me. It is as though we're living in the age of SkyNet yet most of us don't know it.
My first thought is "So what?" Granted, pretty darn good for a first test. But these were very ideal looking conditions. Try it in real world conditions and then get back to me. Cloudy days, rain, fog, high winds, snow and ice, sandstorms...I'd bet any of those would throw this thing for a big loop.
I can see you at Kitty Hawk. 'Pretty darn good for a first test Orville, but blah blah blah'.
Where's my $100 plane ticket to Australia?! (Note: far from Kangaroos at this point.)
Ok, I'm seriously missing something. Is that my paranoid gene? So all tech now will be bad, because all tech can be used to kill people? Seriously?
Come on, idea of Internet was conceptually concieved by military for communication infrastructure to survive localized nuclear attack! So it must be bad too!
I'm the only one who sees beneficts of this, or drones... Or Slashdot has long time ago lost it's common, humor and cool head senses and I'm preaching to wall here?
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Good for them. Maybe they can use this to finally get the Osprey to fly as well.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Well, given how massively complex and difficult it is to fly a helicopter, the fact that it didn't go spiraling into the ground (which I'm sure the human pilots would have tried to avoid) -- I think any form of autonomous flight is pretty impressive.
I'd call that pretty impressive -- automated terrain following in a helicopter isn't exactly an easy task.
I'd be willing to bet this falls into the more skillful end for even human pilots, and that even doing it under ideal conditions isn't exactly easy.
Of course, this is just the next in a long line of steps towards Skynet becoming self aware. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
All looks military grade but this bathtub cork on a cheesy chain attached to the scanning thingy (LIDAR?)...huh?
4wdloop
I thought that the moment I saw this headline. Wonder is they'll give it the undercarriage weapons array that the ones in the show had.
Turning the other cheek only works if the other party is a 60 lb unarmed girl. I think it is very good that you are living in such a nice padded coccoon that you can actually believe that pacifism is a viable strategy. It shows that the police and military are successful in keeping you a safe and insulated mommy's little baby with no real word experience, but one day, when you venture out of the basement, please don't go anywhere with grafiti on a wall, stick to the major shopping mall food courts and you should not come to any harm.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
This is well and good, but what happens when a Marine types 'FLY HARD' into the console and hits return?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7783335/ns/us_news/t/reckless-pilots-problem-us-military/
I'd call that pretty impressive -- automated terrain following in a helicopter isn't exactly an easy task.
Balancing standing on two wheels with high center of mass is a very difficult task for a human, however Segway does it easily with very primitive microcontroller.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Turning the other cheek
Hey, look everyone, a Christian who happens to be a complete fuckheaded warmonger! Who would have thought of such thing?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Notice the display in the corner of the video - just like a video game.
Just FYI, the video games emulated the HUD's not the other way around. But more to the point, so fucking what?
Why did this AC get marked insightful while the other guy who pointed out that military tests have been VERY favorable to the objects being tested for...ohh... I'd say the last 80+ years?
What the military considers a "test" and what happens when you actually use the thing in combat conditions have been shown time and time again to be nowhere close, this goes all the way back to the mark 14 torpedo in WWII that the military said passed all the tests with flying colors, yet in reality if the thing didn't just blow up in the middle of the water because the magnetic exploder was faulty it would go completely under the target since it ran as much as 25 feet too deep or it would just clang against the hull of the ship since the contact fuse was also shit. the only good thing about it was when the damned thing turned on you you at least had just as much chance as the enemy of it turning out to be a dud, which is why we only lost two subs to it.
So if anything those ratings should be reversed, as its pretty common knowledge that with the DoD and the defense contractors so chummy the tests are rigged as much as possible to give the thing being tested a favorable outcome, be it giving the Patriot a low flying level target coming in at a known height and trajectory,, similar conditions being given to the Phalanx, hell I could sit here and list weapons that passed military "tests' with flying colors only to turn out to be crap in the field all day, its not exactly like this is a revelation here.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well, given how massively complex and difficult it is to fly a helicopter, the fact that it didn't go spiraling into the ground (which I'm sure the human pilots would have tried to avoid) -- I think any form of autonomous flight is pretty impressive.
Not really. Military helicopters have long been able to self-stabilize. Apache is rumored to do it. Comanche definitely does it. Is it really that more complex to control a helicopter than a quadcopter? It's more complex to build, certainly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But if they don't have pilots who are they going to make contenders in an execution that's fronted as a TV game show?
The control algorithms, IMU processing, hell even very good terrain data are all openly available. Some time in a engineering library searching papers will even turn up reams of applications to helicopters specifically.
Even very good image systems are available.
What's changed is the processors to make use of all those are both rediculously cheap and light.
Human pilots.. your time is coming.
..don't panic
Or sometimes last-minute changes to production are made that completely invalidate the tests.
Take the M-16, great in final tests, but soldiers were dropping like flies in Vietnam because their rifles were jamming. Turns out the Army chose a different powder manufacturer for production cartridges, and this caused fouling and corrosion of the chamber and barrel, and increased the rate of fire beyond design specs.
How is this a bad thing? War pretty much consists of killing the other guys while keeping your guys from getting killed. The more you can protect your guys, the more you are likely to win.
GPS, FLIR, radar, night vision, space rockets, jet engines, all brought to practical reality for military use then later transitioned to benefit civilian life.
This is history. Even the Roman roads were built for the troops, not civilian commerce.
Until it gets captured, reprogrammed and sent back.
Anyone remember the Terminator Series? That was a big thing for the resistance, capturing Skynet weapons intact, or rebuilding one working one from multiple broken ones, and reprogramming them to aid in attacking Skynet.
There is a difference between pacifism and non-interventionism.
As has been pointed out by the AC, Guess who has been going around slapping other people's cheeks and giving pretty bad excuses for doing so? Are you SERIOUSLY surprised when those people start slapping back after getting slapped for 40 years? The US government continually operates on the idea that, "The best defense is a good offense." That may work for sports, but it's a lousy military strategy and national defense policy.
We need to stop interfering in their affairs, let them govern themselves and within a generation they will be back killing each other as they were before we intervened. Anyone that bothers to come around the world to attack us will be little more than a lethal nuisance that is easily dealt with by law enforcement.
Hey, look everyone, an Atheist who happens to be projecting onto others.
Well, I'm not saying the testing was rigged by any means. And it really is impressive that it worked that well for the first big field test. I'm sure there were many issues in the initial lab tests.
What had triggered things in my mind was when we first went to Iraq under Bush senior. Our tanks were shut down because they didn't want them sucking in all the sand into their air intakes. Same with our jets...sand would've trashed those engines in a heartbeat. And our advanced weapons couldn't "see" targets due to blowing sand. Yeah, they were good systems, and NO system will function in 100% of conditions. But they were tested under pretty ideal conditions. Our military at the time was built for open land or forestry type conditions. No one ever thought about the effects of tons of blowing sand. No one thought about "How are we going to get this 70 ton tank across a river bridge built to hold small pickup trucks?"
This was a very impressive feat. I can't argue that. And I'm sure more testing is to come. But I call it a very first test. Throw more harsh conditions at it and lets see how it goes.
Any idea which is the only country in the Americas has not been involved in a war in the last half century? Costa Rica, which has no military.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
How is war a good thing?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
But don't you see? That is part of the problem, the DoD and the MIC are so in bed together that they make these tests a bad joke! They test it in perfect weather, not too hot, not too cold, on some nice green grass covered testing range, with a target that they know EXACTLY what its height, speed, and direction are gonna be then they say this "proves" the thing is capable when in reality you are more likely to win the powerball than to get those exact conditions in combat.
I'll never forget what they did for the Phalanx CIWS "tests", they had it on a single ship, in perfectly calm water on sunny days, with a single target that would be coming in on a known trajectory and at a known speed...what EXACTLY does this prove? Nothing, that's what it proves, it proves nothing! it would be like proclaiming you had made the perfect sniper rifle because the shooter hit a 5 foot target from 1 foot away. I mean look at the ocean, lots of weather shifts, often choppy seas, and in practically every battle I ever heard of you have multiple ships on the water and multiple targets coming in, so the "test" was about as worthless as it could possibly be. Sure enough when actual conditions are used it was found the Phalanx CIWS got scores as low as 30% depending on the weather and the waves.
So its NOT that they run into some unforeseen condition, although one would have a hard time explaining how nobody was testing for conditions seen in the middle east with it being such a hotspot, no its the fact that they test NOTHING in their supposed battle simulations, because they put so many favorable conditions out there for the weapon being tested it would be damned hard to fail much less find any real weaknesses with the weapon. that is why I find it VERY telling when they say a weapon failed testing, because with the DoD and MIC in cahoots that means even with them rigging the test like crazy it STILL couldn't pass so it has to be an uber shitty design to not pass the Mickey mouse tests the DoD approves of.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It was kind of a good idea to keep Hitler from taking over Europe and killing all the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals.
When you have to go to war, it's a very good idea to make sure as few of yours as possible die while killing theirs.
You make valid points. Are they in bed together? Don't honestly know. Would it surprise me? Not really. And I'd imagine some of the weapons makers come up with the tests themselves. It passes, I'm more likely to get DoD funding to keep paying the bills. It fails, I've burned a ton of money.
Still, I'll give some benefit of the doubt simply because there's no proof otherwise. I still call this a very initial test under prime conditions. That it works at all really is impressive. I won't argue that. Great engineering went into this. I'll be interested to see where this develops in the next couple years. But I do hope "nastier" tests will come.
Look up "defense industry revolving door" into the search engine of your choice, you'll find all the proof you'll need. its no different than how the member heading a committee on ISP regulations quit after passing a VERY favorable to ISPs bill to go and work for Comcast, or how more than half the lobbyists in Washington are former congress critters, look that up and you'll see a pattern going back decades of those in charge of testing and procurement retiring only to go work for the defense industry. Hell look up the history of the B-2, the company just cut a check to every member of congress (that came out to less than 8% of what they made on the sale) even though a stealth bomber in an age of ICBMs really didn't make sense.
At the end of the day until we see some tests comparable to what you'd see in battle I'd argue these tests are worthless. Just look up at the incredible score that Patriot got during its tests, in the field it was found to get maybe 30%, and even that is doubtful as the Scuds were so old and the metal so thin they began to break up during terminal phase so there is no way to tell if the patriot actually hit anything or just blew up in the debris falling behind the warhead. I also find it telling in their so called tests nobody had even bothered to leave the systems on for a week, if they did they would have found the memory leak in the software that caused the Patriot to get more inaccurate the longer it was left on.
so I'll reserve judgement until we seen some real battlefield tests, although sadly by then the contractors will have already made their money and if it turns out to be a dud we're just stuck with it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Actually the Iraqi SCUDs broke up because the Iraqi engineers lightened the missiles in order to increase the range.
A Soviet SCUD-B had a range of about 190 miles and a 1700 pound warhead.
An Iraqi Al Hussein had a range of 400 miles and a 1100 pound warhead
The breakup on reentry didn't hurt accuracy all that much, since a SCUD-B has no terminal guidance anyway and it made it hell to try to hit because you had a long stream of wreckage acting as chaff and hiding the warhead.
One good place to watch is "BlacktailDefense" on YouTube. he's not 100% right on everything, nobody is always right, and goes a little loony tunes on the Depleted Uranium = RADIATION OMG.
One good series is "The Secret History of Artillery in the Vietnam War" which shows how the US has and continues to have a serious inferiority in artillery and an over reliance on air power.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ehxKHhUBc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ3lyhJbyUA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igxFBObUZ-4
He also has a series on the Sargent York fiasco.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TanFPsRaeto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNBswoOal7w
He has LONG series on the M1 Abrams, the M2 Bradly, and the Stryker series of vehicles. Again, he's not spot on with everything, but he's pretty good. Some people accuse him of being a Mike Sparks Alt, but Sparks has a very abrasive/distinct personality when writing online. If you don't agree with him 100% then you're an idiot and he tells you. It is quite exasperating, a lot of his ideas seem worth looking into, but he has to have everything be some grand plan rather than separate building blocks people can use to fit the situation.
Thanks for the links Crosshair, i bookmarked them so I can watch 'em when I'm off work. But honestly those videos i doubt I'll find surprising, we have been seeing the same shit since WWII, where an inferior design gets babied through testing and bought (for an insane profit for the contractor) only to find out its completely worthless in the field, the Mark 14 torpedo just to give one example. That thing was so shit the sub drivers could hear the things clanging against enemy hulls so would have to just empty racks and fire huge spreads just in the hope that even one wasn't a dud. you look at reports and there was plenty of cases of subs firing a dozen of them at an already damaged and slow moving target and all 12 would just clang and drop, not a single good one in the bunch.
Only now it is a hundred times worse,as all the mergers and consolidation means you have a handful of corps who ALL know how to play the game like a harp from hell. The only thing that has saved us is the fact we've been going up against primitives using old Soviet hand me downs, if we ever had to go against another equal like we did in WWII we'd get slaughtered. Most of our planes are 30+ years old but the DoD won't allow the purchase of new proven F teen series because their friends are making out like Gods on turkeys like the F-35 which is obvious that like the F-22 is gonna end up another billion dollar boondoggle that will end up with only a handful built, meanwhile any future enemies can pick up a new SU-35 for $30 million flyaway and a new MiG 29 for less than 60 million, and unlike our techno-turkeys the Russian and Chinese planes are easy to fly, easy to maintain, and easy to afford.
But the simple fact is our procurement and R&D has become a bad joke, with companies paid hundreds of millions even if we cancel the contracts, so where is the incentive not to pad the bill and just push out junk? And as long as the DoD is in bed with the MIC things will never change, we'll keep buying fighting weapons built for a cold war that hasn't existed in 25+ years and designed for battlefields we'll never fight on. Hell what good is stealth when our enemies either fight from caves with IEDs or like NK are using 40+ year old Soviet hand me downs that frankly the F-4 wouldn't have a problem dealing with?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.