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Fully Autonomous Flapping-wing MAV Is As Light As 4 Sheets of A4 Paper
Hallie Siegel writes "According to its developers, the DelFly Explorer is the first flapping wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that is able to fly with complete autonomy in unknown environments. Weighing just 20 grams and with a wingspan of 28cm, it is equipped with an onboard stereo vision system. The DelFly Explorer can perform an autonomous take-off, keep its height, and avoid obstacles for as long as its battery lasts (~9 minutes). All sensing and processing is performed on board, so no human or offboard computer is in the loop."
I can fly when I'm only three sheets to the wind.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
This is very cool. They could probably sell tens of thousands to kids (like me) if they need money.
In anticipation of the coming holy war, may I fire the first nuke by stating categorically and unequivocally that metric paper sizes are the correct ones and everything else is stupid.
Sorry, it's just that I've always wanted to push that button.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
How much does it weigh in a sane unit like dynes?
They don't even say what weight paper they're using, so the mass could be off by an order of magnitude if you use the wrong one.
Knowledge Brings Fear
Looks like a project from MAKE Magazine.
Very cool, and I assume that in a few months I'll be able to buy this from a kiosk at the Mall.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So, how much wind can they take before being hopelessly blown off course?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
20g, so that's 4 nickels according to how an old roommate weed dealer calibrated his scale.
How much does it weigh in a sane unit?
Approximately 4.3 nano-Libraries of Congress.
4 sheets of A4? How much is it in a sane unit?
We are talking about 2.75577828e-9 of a fully loaded jumbo jet! Wow, that's light!
If you need area, it's 0.0000152737 of a football field.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Assistant professor demonstrates useless device.
Where are the news here?
You mean weighs as much as 1 sheet of A2 paper...
My other sig is extremely clever...
20g, so that's 4 nickels according to how an old roommate weed dealer calibrated his scale.
...
Sure, AC. Sure.
We believe you, really! It was your, uh, "roommate" with the side-biz.
...at there is no mention of military applications in the article anywhere.
Fully Autonomous Flapping-wing MAV
WTF does its guidance have to do with its propulsion method...?! (Seriously, assholes [editors!]!)
ok, so these guys took the idea from Aerovironment, gear mechanism from Festo, and the latest openCV optimization to create something that avoids static objects in a still wind environment. And of course made it into a PhD project.
And I like the "crowd over a concert".... Yeah... I'm sure the stereo will work well among all those lights air currents, and people.
Pssssh, get rid of all those silly metric units like Dynes and A4 paper. A large number of us here are in the good ol' US of A and hereby demand that this be rewritten in terms of Imperial or US customary units - how about sheets of Letter paper?
This was the first thing I thought of.
Okay... so maybe I'm the fan. Still found it hard to ignore that Delfly sounds like an abbreviated form of "Delta Flyer".
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Imperial, huh? Okay... If the measurement they gave in grams in the article was precise, you can take your pick of imperial measurement here... either 308.65 grains, 11.29 drams, 12.86 pennyweights, or 15.43 scruples.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So, it can turn on, fly at a certain height, and avoid things - all for 9 minutes. I mean, yeah that's sorta cool how they utilize the stereo vision, and that it's got the ability to slow one if it's "wings" in order to avoid things. But it looks like it's only going to work indoors, with all fans off. Being that there's no way to control it, seems like it'd be less than entertaining, other than to present to an unsuspecting audience, like slashdot. Other than that, troll me into oblivion, I suspect it's lame.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Not sure I want anything fapping around my backyard, thank-you-very-much.
Have you every calibrated a pocket scale, bazmonkey?
It's built on Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. DELF(t f)ly is a really cool name!
I read that it was equipped with an on-board stereo system. That would be one funky bird.
These could be used to create those flying paper airplanes that took the elevator in the ministry of magic in the Harry Potter films. MAV swoops in, hovers over your desk, and bam, fully autonomous pink slip for spending all day on slashdot!
Buggerit, Millennium hand and shrimp!
Good point. A4 is only a dimensional size, nothing to do with actual mass or weight. Are we talking about the kind of paper they print phone books on? Or is it a heavy card stock or bristol board which isn't too far removed from being considered cardboard instead of paper?
Four sheets of A4 is one sheet of A2. If you are going to go ISO 216, you might as well go whole hog.
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Indoors stereo vision is so hard that if the DelFly actually navigated by stereo vision, this alone would be truly groundbreaking. Especially given the limited processing power on this thing. However, judging by the papers publicly available, the actual collision avoidance on the DelFly seems to rely on optical flow, and complementary, a new model of texture analysis called "appearance variation cue". Both of which do not inherently rely on stereo vision. I might be missing something from the more current papers though.