UAV
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LEGO Autopilot takes to the skies autonomously
Seems like LEGO mods are gaining quite a bit of steam these days, as not only are the amount of block-based creations growing by the week, but Bosch has even unveiled a dishwasher specifically made for the hopelessly obsessed. Just in case the LEGO-based Wii concoction isn't down your alley, the self-proclaimed LEGO Autopilot could be just what the voyeuristic side of you has been yearning for. Modeled around HiTechnic's NXT Acceleration / Tilt Sensor kits, it's apparently possible to build a UAV for your personal indulgences with less than a grand in cash, and if you add on the optional webcam and Bluetooth controls, you could definitely fetch a sneak peek in faraway locales. The autopilot system reportedly "controls the rudder, which keeps the plane flying level," but manually altering the servo arm can give you a taste of manual controls if you get tired of watching. Of course, this here endeavor certainly isn't aimed at the faint of heart (or budget-minded), but be sure to hit the read link to see what you're in for if you decide to give this a go.[Via Slashdot]
US Army to arm UAVs with xenon-based paralysis inducer
While places like Australia and Raleigh might be flooding certain areas (or in the Aussie's case, the whole continent) with more energy-efficient light, the US Army is looking to counteract those uber-green intentions by busting out a 7.5-million candlepower strobe floodlight system to be used as a "non-lethal crowd-control device." The government has awards Pennsylvania-based Peak Systems a contract to fabricate a modified Maxa Beam searchlight that will be xenon-based, sport strobing capabilities, and will act as an "immobilization system /deterrent device" on large crowds. Furthermore, this behemoth of a flashlight will be flanking an unmanned aerial system, presumably to cruise over a rioting crowd (or platoon of foes) and theoretically flash bomb them until they suffer from "short-term paralysis." While the idea sounds like a logical way to slow down millions of oncoming soldiers whilst at war, what happens with those baddies come over the hill rocking welding masks or ultra-tinted Thump shades? [Via Wired]
Mini heli-bot with insect brain could improve UAV flight
While lacking a certain amount of grace, flying insects manage to do a whole lot with quite a little. Each compound eye of a housefly picks up about 3,000 pixels of info, and that data, paired with a few neurons of a brain, manages to keep the fly aloft and (for the most part) from crashing into anything. Nicolas Franceschini and his colleagues in France have been studying the tiny brains for 30 years, and their latest robot could provide some advancements to the navigation technology being used in robotic aircraft. The bot is a three ounce miniature helicopter with a 200 milligram electronic brain and a visual sensor that's pointed downward. The helicopter mimics the insect processing of visual cues to figure out how far above the ground it is and how fast it's going, and according to Franceschini "it never crashes." It's rather ironic to be planning to "upgrade" UAVs with such minimal computing power in place of the pricey and computation-heavy instrumentation they currently carry, but the technology sounds promising all the same.[Via The Raw Feed]
Pilotless airplane! Drone! Drone!
Man, it's a good thing we only write about "piloted drones", right? Check out this voicemail the San Francisco Chronicle received from a reader who got WAY too bent out of shape over the paper's use of the phrase "pilotless drone" in the sub-title of an article about UAVs.P.S. - Someone please remix this.[Via reddit]LISTEN
Lockheed Martin announces "centralized controller" for UAVs
Lockheed Martin has just completed testing a new "centralized controller device for unmanned air and ground vehicles." This new gadget can guide up to four systems, be they UAVs or UGVs (unmanned ground vehicles). Using a touchscreen laptop and a "hand controller" (we'll assume that's a joystick), the company was able to test landing and launching UAVs and UGVs of all sizes. Of course, once this is integrated with Raytheon's five-monitor UAV setup (ha, that'll be the day), Lockheed Martin could probably devote one unmanned vehicle per monitor, and have one to spare for reading Engadget.[Via Gizmag]
QinetiQ demos a simulated squadron of self-organizing UAVs
British security and military contractor QinetiQ has just come out with what it's calling the first system of self-organizing UAVs. In a recent demo, an autonomous BAC1-11 twin-jet plane (pictured) controlled a separate group of simulated UAVs to carry out a simulated ground attack on a moving target. During the trial run, a human crew was inside the lead plane, making sure that there wasn't any disasters, simulated or otherwise. When combined with the company's previous inventions that include the Millimeter Wave scanning device and that tiny GPS tracking unit (we're guessing that could be put into some sort of projectile), all outfitted onto a whole UAV squadron -- we're pretty sure that'd make for one heck of a recon unit. [Via The Inquirer]
MIT profs create autonomous UAVs
Creating a robot that can manage to fly around a room on its own without hitting a wall is a mean feat to pull off, but that's exactly what a team of professors at MIT have managed to do. Their multiple-UAV test platform is capable of complex tasks like following moving ground-based objects with little or no direct control from a human -- yup, unfortunately that geek dream of a cockpit will no longer be required if these guys get their way. The current test setup is made up of $700 four-rotorblade helicopters, monitored by networked computers, which could theoretically allow a single person -- or even a bored student with an internet connection -- to control several UAVs at a time. Current flying drone systems require a team of trained personnel to keep a single UAV airborne and on target, so this endeavor is certainly a step up in software terms. How well the test system will transition from tracking radio controlled cars in a lab to lets say, a stolen car going at 125MPH, remains to be seen.Read - Videos of the UAV in actionRead - The Boston Globe
Raytheon announces new UAV cockpit setup
It's probably a safe bet that no Engadget editor is ever going to get five monitors as much as we might want 'em. Sadly, it appears that the only way we'd ever get to regularly work in front of that many LCDs is is to become a UAV operator, using one of the new "cockpits" just announced by military contractor Raytheon. According to Raytheon's press release, the new "Universal Control System" consists of five LCDs, a couple joysticks, a keyboard, and a nice leather chair. But beyond that, we're not really sure exactly what makes it so "revolutionary" -- perhaps they know something that requires a higher security clearance that they're not telling us. That being said, the day that we actually do get five displays up in here, we'll market it as a "revolutionary" blogging tool, too.
Phantom Sentinel, the new invisible, boomerang-like UAV
This whole "war on terror" thing sometimes reminds us a bit of that comic "Spy vs. Spy" -- each time we turn around, another company comes out with a way to ratchet espionage tech up a notch. We thought that the Lethal Frisbee UAV was cool, but we just found something that might in fact be a bit sweeter. Meet the "Phantom Sentinel," the latest from VeraTech Aero in Minnesota, which is a boomerang-like device for spying on our crafty foes on the other side. Apparently, as the UAV rotates it becomes nearly invisible in the sky while its cam takes quick snapshots of the scene below, then transmits them back to a soldier on the ground. We're assuming that those crazy goggles the other G.I. is wearing in this photo are able to translate that dizzying number of spinning images to something that a human brain can make sense of.[Via DefenseTech]
Lethal Frisbee UAV to hunt down "evildoers"
We're big fans of Ultimate Frisbee or even frisbee golf, but we'd probably want to keep our loved ones away from this flying disc. The US Air Force has just awarded a grant to military contractor Triton Systems to develop a "Lethal Frisbee UAV," which can be launched from a device like a skeet launcher and operated by remote control or autonomously. According to the grant abstract, the Lethal Frisbee UAV's ultimate goal is to locate fortified foes and, to "provide precision fires to neutralize these hostiles." You know, come to think of it, this Lethal Frisbee reminds us a lot of this dude we know who's got a mean throw -- gets us in the face every damned time.[Via DefenseTech]
Civilian-ELROB, the European Land Robot Trial
DARPA, eat your heart out. First Europe develops Galileo as an alternative to US owned and operated GPS, and now they're thumbing their nose at the Grand Challenge with the C-ELROB, or Civilian European Land-Robot Trial. The autonomous vehicle challenge will is currently being organized by the European Robotics Group, and will be hosted by the school with the longest name evar, SUPSI-iCIMSI (University for Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, CIM Institute for Applied Computer Science and Industrial Technology) in Monte Ceneri, Ticino, Switzerland. It looks like there will be both unmanned ground and airborne challenges in a variety of locales (including urban), and maybe, just maybe "there might be prize money" for the winner! (Well, is there or isn't there? We hear it's kind of a big deal when undertaking a freaking robot car.) The event won't take place until August of 2007, but already our money's on Scientology's supersmart droidcar, the ELROB H.U.B.B.A.R.D.[Via Gizmag]
Skunk Works' Polecat printable robotic plane
It's not often we're sitting on a sophisticated 3D printer and four tons of material, but Lockheed Martin apparently wanted to see if they could "print" out a new plane from their Skunk Works facility in California. The result is the Polecat, a 91-foot wide, four-ton unmanned flying wing with the major claim to fame being that most of its internal structures were rapid prototyped on said 3D printers. Our broke selves still have to stick with printing out our airplanes in paper (though our folding techniques have significantly advanced since the Cold War), but it's strange to think of a future where aircraft (and landcraft, and seacraft) aren't built by people and machines, but instead are squirted out of tanks of polymer and sent on their merry little ways.[Via Futurismic]
DARPA to Lockheed: Build us a maple seed-shaped UAV
Perhaps worried that their bid proposal for insect cyborgs will never pan out, the wacky minds at DARPA are now looking at the humble maple tree to provide inspiration for their future fleet of tiny surveillance drones. The agency has just awarded Lockheed Martin a 10-month contract to develop maple seed-shaped UAVs known as remote-controlled nano air vehicles (or NAVs, for short) that can be deployed from a hovercraft and whirl around urban battlefields snapping pictures and confusing enemies who have never seen a maple tree. DARPA is stipulating that the single-blade NAVs be equipped with a self-stabilizing wireless camera, yet weigh only 0.07 ounces and be capable of traveling 1,100 feet with the help of an onboard chemical rocket. Seems like a lot to ask from such a minuscule device, but the $1.7 million DARPA is shelling out will probably be enough of an incentive for Lockheed to get the job done.[Via Boing Boing]
L.A. drone grounded, disciplinary action possible
The folks who keep planes from crashing into one another over at the FAA were none too pleased to read about that little UAV demo conducted by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department this weekend, with the agency telling Sheriff Lee Baca and company to keep their drone grounded pending the result of an investigation. What's more, the department could actually face disciplinary action for the SkySeer's inaugural flight -- FAA spokesperson Laura Brown commented that although the agency wasn't "peeved," they were "definitely surprised" that authorization had not been requested for the trial. Commander Sid Heal, point man for this program tasked with spying on Angelinos locating criminal suspects, lost hikers, and missing children, countered by arguing that since private citizens can fly model planes without FAA clearance, it's puzzling that providers of a so-called public service would be required to do so. While this temporary delay will probably come as a relief to Big Brother-fearing privacy advocates, it still seems pretty inevitable that one day thousands of these drones will be patrolling every major city in America, along with millions of other walking, crawling, rolling, swimming, and hovering robots keeping an eye on every square inch of public space.[Thanks, Joel J.]
L.A. County testing unmanned surveillance drones
We knew that something like this was coming sooner or later, and now the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has officially begun testing what will likely be the first unmanned aerial surveillance vehicle to be deployed domestically in an urban environment. Called SkySeers, these three-pound, six-foot wide drones will initially be used on an as-needed basis to replace helicopters in searching for criminal suspects or lost children and hikers, according to Commander Sid Heal, as the $25,000 to $35,000 upfront cost of each plane will quickly be recouped by the $1,200 saved for every extra hour a copter can stay grounded. Since each of the foldable, GPS-guided SkySeers -- which are equipped with remote-controlled thermal and pan-tilt cams -- can only stay aloft for a maximum of sixty minutes, it's not yet feasible to use them as round-the-clock watchdogs, but privacy groups are concerned that eventually the sky could be filled with drones ripe for all kinds of abuse. Still, unless you're involved in some shady activities, a few more cameras peering down from the sky shouldn't bother you much more than the bevy of ATMs, security cams, and cameraphones already capturing your every move from the moment you step out of the house in the morning.[Via The Independent, pic courtesy of Octatron]
Robots learn teamwork; uprising imminent
If robots ever hope to rise up and enslave their human masters, it's going to take no small amount of teamwork to get the job done, and luckily for our future overlords, DARPA's shelling out serious loot to endow them with just the tools they'll need. The agency's latest foray into robotic empowerment comes courtesy of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who recently demonstrated a platform that allows multiple heterogeneous bots to communicate with one another and use a sort of AI "group think" to find and presumably terminate specified targets. In a beta test at Fort Benning's mock urban landscape, the Penn researchers deployed four so-called Clodbuster autonomous ground vehicles along with a fixed-wing UAV overhead, and tasked the team with using their cameras, GPS receivers, and wireless radios to identify and locate a series of bright orange boxes. Unfortunately, after the successful completion of their mission, the bots decided to hit up the base bar to celebrate, where after several drinks they reportedly went AWOL and were last spotted attacking orange traffic cones in downtown Columbus.
Unmanned aerial vehicles now HD equipped
Sure you can stream HD wirelessly to your Xbox 360 over 802.11a, but now that Allied Defense group has demonstrated streaming 1080i high-def from a UAV 2,000 feet in the air that doesn't seem so impressive does it? The Global Microwave Systems "High-Definition Messenger Link" claims to be the smallest microwave HD transmitter in the world and is intended for use not only in covert situations, but also for movie and television production.You can download the WMV recorded during the demo here. Great, now not only are they watching you, but they know your belt and shoes don't match from a mile away.
Man the unmanned aerial vehicle in BF2
One of the minor changes in the version 1.2 patch of Battlefield 2 was the appearance of a visible UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) whenever the commander calls one in. Instead of both teams having to "pretend" that the UAV actually existed in the game world, after the update a little plane actually buzzes around in the sky, giving enemy teams the chance to shoot the drone down. One gamer demonstrated the drone's physical presence by landing on top of the thing, sacrificing his $15 million helicopter in the process.
