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Mark and Joel Make Autonomous Drones in Their Spare Time (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the when-a-drone-hits-your-eye-like-a-big-pizza-pie-that's-a-lawsuit dept.

Mark F. Brown and Joel Rozenweig build autonomous drones; that is, drones that don't need an operator every second. You tell the autonomous drone, "Pick up package # 941A at the loading dock and deliver it to 451 Bradbury St.' and off it goes. It's going to be a while yet before that happens, but one day....

Back in the present, dronemaking is still a hobby for Mark and Joel, something they do for fun after spending their workdays as software engineers at Intel. Joel says there is 'remarkably little' crossover between their jobs and their hobby, and that (so far) Intel has contributed little beyond some Edison modules (which you can buy for less than $50) and travel to the Embedded Linux Conference, where they gave a talk accompanied by these slides. NOTE: We have a little bonus for you today. We try to keep videos to 10 minutes or less, but we have no such constraints on transcript length. So if you want the 'full' version of this interview, please read the transcript.

17 comments

  1. Why is this news? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 2

    Is it because they are programmers or because "drones"?

    I build fly and program quads there's really no mystery to them. Seeing how most of the flight controllers are built off flyduino you can add all the juicy stuff to them same as arduino, like object detection/avoidance and of course most fc's come with a gps module of some sort and are capable of flying a predetermined pattern using way points programmed into the fc software.

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    1. Re: Why is this news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      You've been modded Troll. I modded you up one point so now you are Score:0, Troll.

      Troll in this case = "brought up a point the slashdot editors don't have an easy answer for". You know, the minimal rock-bottom standard for journalistic integrity is to disclose any financial relationships between the publishing site and the subjects of the story.

      That's if they continue to insist on referring to themselves as "editors" anyways. Perhaps "firehose jockeys" would be a more appropriate term? After all, editors actually, you know, copy edit, correcting obvious spelling and grammatical errors using the command of the English language that an actual editor is expected to have as a minimum standard of competence. Why, they often even perform the most basic fact-checking before putting something before a large audience! Oh and they don't use their infinite mod points to cover up anyone who questions the shitty job they constantly do or the possible financial motivations for why certain otherwise uninteresting -- and hardly novel -- posts make it to the front page while others don't.

    2. Re:Why is this news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2007: http://robots-everywhere.com/portfolio/navcom_ai/

  2. THE WHISTLE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kill the audio from the drone.
    I am old enough not to hear sounds over 18Khz, but the drone makes an awful sound. Could not listen to the interview because of it. It's like scratching nails on a chalkboard. Horrifying...

  3. How is this different? by sizzlinkitty · · Score: 1

    I'm in the planning phase of building my first uav (skywalker x-8) that will have autonomous flight capabilities. How does this differ from some of the other autonomous platforms that are already on the market like openpilot and the stuff 3d robotics offer?

    1. Re:How is this different? by MagicRuB · · Score: 1

      The difference is they are reinventing the wheel. This has already been done on open hardware and open source projects like RPi /w NAVIO and BBB /w PX4. So they wanted to use Edison, I get that, but what you do is slap the NAVIO on an Edison shield from Sparkfun and maybe write a little glue logic driver and you call it a day. They are duplicating sensors because they can't read the data stream and they intentionally choose to go with a closed-source one. They blame compass noise on building re-bar and telephone poles and didn't mention the 4+ spinning magnets that are a few centimeters from the compass sensor. I smell incompetency. Their time would be *much* better spent contributing to an opensource project like PX4/ArduPilot where all these problems have been solved and most work these days are focusing on high level stuff which is their goal in the first place.

    2. Re:How is this different? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The difference is they are reinventing the wheel.

      Yes but if we are all honest enough to admit how plainly obvious this really is, then how do these guys get their 15 minutes of fame? That's what counts, you know. It's the Facebook generation. They need the casual, hollow attention of strangers who will never know them in any meaningful way!* Asking them to actually do something to deserve it is soooo unfair!

      * After all, intimacy with real people who actually know you and have real reasons to care about you is terrifying to the children of divorce most of you really are.

  4. Why should Intel fund their hobby? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe Intel should pay for computer engineer's gaming pc's?

  5. 941A? by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

    The allusion in 451 Bradbury St is obvious to me, so now I'm wondering whether there is some significance to #941A? Have I just had my geek card revoked for not knowing it?

    (Most /. readers will be aware that the allusion is to the novel "Farenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.)

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  6. Directors mode on Parrot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's a feature of most big drones, e.g. Directors mode on Parrot drones, you program in the flight details, landing, any special camera moves (Directors mode is focussed on photography), then send it off.

  7. 941A by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe the reference is form 941A - a U.S. tax form number.

      So maybe the joke is, "pick up tax form, deliver to the burn pile"?

  8. Anyone else read that as... by captjc · · Score: 1

    ... Mike and Joel Make Autonomous Drones in Their Spare Time?

    Well duh, Cambot! Joel, alone, must be a robotics and AI genius to create Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Crowwwww!

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  9. Intel advertisement? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a Platinum Sponsor of the Embedded Linux Conference, Intel managed to get several speakers assigned to this conference including these. It is clear the project does not add anything substantial to the open source community. It simply demonstrates the Intel Edison platform. So, it is an advertisement for Intel.

    Nevertheless, congratulations to Mark and Joel! It takes effort to ramp up on this technology and they chose the hard path (even if reinventing the wheel, so to speak) just to prove they could do it.