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The Military Toys Privacy Technology

Tiny, Morphing, Electricity-Stealing Spy Planes Developed 163

Posted by Zonk from the go-go-gadget-gadgetery dept.
tkohler writes "The Air Force Research Lab is developing an Electric Motor-powered Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that can 'harvest' energy when needed by attaching itself to a power line. It can also temporarily change its shape to look more like innocuous piece of trash hanging from the cable. For domestic spying, maybe it will morph into a pair of sneakers?"
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Tiny, Morphing, Electricity-Stealing Spy Planes Developed More

Tiny, Morphing, Electricity-Stealing Spy Planes Developed

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  • !developed (Score:5, Informative)

    by yincrash ( 854885 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @05:44PM (#21770940)
    It's not made yet. I doubt even a prototype has been made yet.
  • into the shape of a tin foil hat, and you have a paranoid schizophrenic's deepest nightmare

    and if it does morph into sneakers, does that mean we need tin foil socks too?

  • hmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by pak9rabid ( 1011935 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @05:45PM (#21770950)
    Nice to see the govt has recruited the help of the Decepticons.
    • i dont remember any transformers that turned into trash....even decepticons. Thus, I believe they have recruited Renegade Go-Bots rather than Transformers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobots [wikipedia.org]

      They sure do have some original names... ;)

      • Re:hmm (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20, 2007 @06:16PM (#21771490)

        i dont remember any transformers that turned into trash
        Wrong. [youtube.com]
        • Ahhhhh ... leave it up to Tom Dickson to see if Transformers ... "Will It Blend?"

          Thanks for the video link ... although my son almost cried when he saw Bumble-Bee go into the blender.

      • Re:hmm (Score:5, Funny)

        by Skevin ( 16048 ) * on Thursday December 20, 2007 @06:26PM (#21771602) Journal
        It's the perfect camouflage for them. Looking outside my window I can already count six transformers hanging off the power poles in the street, and no one's so much as raising a brow.

        Solomon

    • The system went online on [December 18, 2007]. Human decisions were removed from strategic defense. [It] began to learn at a geometric rate. It became self aware [11:08] am Eastern Time. In the ensuing panic and attempts to shut [it] down, [it] retaliated
      by . . .
  • There are several webcams monitoring this Christmas Lights Display [komar.org] - maybe we'll have to look for MAV's next year ... along with Santa ... ;-) [komar.org]
  • little MAV could be more than meets the eye...

  • Whee Adjectives! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ThanatosMinor ( 1046978 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @05:47PM (#21771000)
    Tiny Morphing Electricity-Stealing Spy Planes flown by Tiny Mighty Morphing Power Rangers on secret missions to defeat Tiny Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Shivetya ( 243324 )
      This will never work, there are no pirates involved. If you have Ninja you must have Pirates else it just doesn't balance out.
      • Actually, the summary is wrong. We're really talking about Tiny, Morphing, Electricity-Looting Spy Planes. They're based on Pirate technology, really.

  • Shoes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Astr4y ( 962460 ) <kyager AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday December 20, 2007 @05:48PM (#21771008) Homepage
    From what I've heard around the county I live in, shoes on the powerlines indicates that there are drug dealers on whatever street they are hanging over.

    • Re:Shoes (Score:5, Funny)

      by XHIIHIIHX ( 918333 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @06:05PM (#21771296)
      barefoot drug dealers no less

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fireman sam ( 662213 )
        What I heard was that the shoes represented a "gang controlled area". If you were to enter this area, the gang would beat the crap out of you and then hang your shoes on the overhead cables. The more shoes that are hanging, the more bad ass the gang. The shoes are like trophies.

    • Re:Shoes (Score:5, Funny)

      by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @06:09PM (#21771390)
      From what I've heard around the county I live in, shoes on the powerlines indicates that there are drug dealers on whatever street they are hanging over.

      Actually, it's the drug users that throw the shoes up there. Drug pushers are for some reason (a mystery to medical science) compulsively driven to powerlines with shoes hanging from them. Obviously this is seen as a big problem for the drug dealing community, which is trying to enter the 21st century, leveraging such fast-paced technologies as 'two-way pagers' and 'cellular telephones'. They find themselves involuntarily skulking around power lines in every sort of weather, knowing full well they could be successful drug deals in the back of the local chuck-e-cheese, but find themselves incapable of breaking the spell of such a powerful lure.

      Or maybe it's some sort of urban legend or something, and it's just, like, kids with nothing better to do throwing up some shoes. Dunno.

    • Re:Shoes (Score:5, Informative)

      by egomaniac ( 105476 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @06:33PM (#21771726) Homepage
      That's just a stupid urban legend. Shoes hanging from a powerline indicate nothing more than bored kids.

      • Re:Shoes (Score:4, Informative)

        by YouWantFriesWithThat ( 1123591 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @07:16PM (#21772342)
        actually if the shoes are in a gang's color it is their way of claiming the corner, usually for drug sales. a nearby gang would throw up one black and one red shoe tied together because those were their colors. that way other gangs and independent pharmaceutical salespeople are forewarned that they shouldn't set up shop on that intersection. if they do, they are asking to get shot. some gangs use it to claim the turf in general, but mostly it is used to mark drug spots now.

        i used to teach in the 'hood and was educated by my students about it. obviously this depends on the part of town we are talking about
      • indicate nothing more than bored kids.

        yeah, on crack!
      • Gangs are also the result of bored kids.

        There was a tree near a fraternity at my college that always had a bunch of shoes in it. The rumor was that once someone had sex with a girl they'd steal her shoes and throw them up there. There were a lot of mens shoes in that tree, so I doubt the truth of that rumor as well.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          There are no gay frat boys?

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Yoozer ( 1055188 )
          Ah, but you missed something important; the fraternity was named Phi Alpha Gamma.
  • Mini Morphing Power Rovers? To the rescue?
  • Autobots Transform and Roll Ou..BIZZZZTTTKKKK
  • So we'll see a Police Box hanging from a power line?

  • Pioneering work (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kazymyr ( 190114 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @05:51PM (#21771078) Journal
    ...AFRL says the spy plane will need to collapse its wings and hang limply on the cable like a piece of wind-blown detritus

    Hey, I didn't know I was doing top secret research. Most of my model planes end up looking just like that!
  • I hope this thing can't reproduce, there would be no stopping it.
  • If the planes can morph into basketball shoes, then I can wear it and play Like Mike. Oh, never mind, they already did that movie.
  • Why don't they just use solar power on top of the vehicle. Aren't they working on flexible Solar Cells?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by JustCallMeRich ( 1185429 )
      Low power. The solar cells would need to spend a lot of time recharging that battery.

      Where the line power will quick charge it so it can get back to work doing whatever it does over that suspicious looking nude beach.
    • presumably they wouldn't want spy planes that run out of juice and give their technology to the enemy every time the sun dissappears... :P
    • Why don't they just use solar power on top of the vehicle. Aren't they working on flexible Solar Cells?

      The Air Force likes to operate at night and when it is cloudy too. It's been what 80'ish years since they decided that they should not be limited to sunny days. :-)

      Also, can you get solar cells in matte camouflage?

  • The morphing technology is already proven (Score:5, Funny)

    by Malevolent Tester ( 1201209 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @05:55PM (#21771140) Journal
    At the moment, this high tech surveillance equipment is cunningly disguised as a barrel full of pork.

  • weird warnings.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @05:57PM (#21771168)
    Challenges abound, though. Zac Richardson, a power-line engineer with National Grid in the UK, warns that if the MAV contacts an 11-kilovolt local power line, it could short circuit two conductors, causing an automatic disconnection of the very power the plane seeks.

    Why do they assume the UAV would be conductive? Wouldn't your best bet for tapping energy off power lines be to simply use induction? You don't even need to land on the lines themselves; a fluorescent tube light will light up at yards from the power line.

    Do National Grid power-line engineers not know of this?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by bkr1_2k ( 237627 )
      Exactly. Magnetic charging like many "toothbrushes" and the like use inductors, so could these little things. That combined with flexible solar cells and there's no reason why these things would ever need to "come home".
    • The guy has a point. At 11kv, water conducts and the design of insulators is a nontrivial problem. The idea of something like this deliberately flying into power lines will cause any power systems engineer to worry. Here in the UK, much of the country has significant rainfall, and fluctuating wind. I doubt it would be possible to fly reliably close enough to a power line to tap energy by induction, a small stray gust would take you straight into it.
      Fortunately in the UK politicians are not allowed to add p

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JesseL ( 107722 )
        I don't see what the problem is if it just hanging from one line? Birds (the kind with feathers) don't cause you all that much grief in the UK, do they?
    • so are you telling me that if I throw a fluorescent light at a power line it will glow?

    • Re:weird warnings.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @06:50PM (#21771954)
      To do that the UAV would have to hover sufficiently close to the power line. I bet the power used to hover is more than the power you could possibly extract by induction.
  • Summary: developing

    Article: They're talking about it, might look into it, probably won't work.

    Can we try to keep slashdot *somewhat* based in reality here?
  • One more step in creating a terminator. First we create an autonomous UAV that can recharge itself. Next we create an automated factory to build autonomous UAVs. Pretty soon they realize that to get more power they have to remove unnecessary loads from the power lines, ie. us. Now we know why the terminators decided to rebel and wipe out humanity.
    • Then they start running low on energy and decide to harvest humans as batteries...oh wait. Wrong movie.
  • Is is safe to say that the distance between govt technologies and those available to citizens has and continues to narrow?

    For example, is it likely that the processing innards of this device will not be extraordinary, super-computing devices? Is it likely that the batteries will be some kind of lithium-ion battery, and not some exotic, crazy technology.

    I recently saw something about regular people developing an autonomous RC-type airplane which would navigate itself using GPS - isn't that just a UAV?

    It seem

    • It seems to me that back in the day the govt actually built machines which far outstripped anything available to regular folks

      I wish you had given some examples here, Just because I am curious what technologies you think far outstrip what's available to "regular folks." It's not as though you can go to Wal-Mart and pick up an APIC and a li-ion box. But then again until a few weeks ago you could buy uranium on Amazon.

      I think it's a two-fold issue: it's easier for "regular folks" to find what parts and materials are commercially available now thanks to the internet, and it's getting harder for the government to convince you

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TheLazySci-FiAuthor ( 1089561 )
        I should have given examples, you're right.

        Let's use the DARPA challenges as an example of technology which is available to the individual and for which no superior technology existed for the govt. The vehicles from these competitions are created by private citizens and the government did not have anything better.

        As image recognition technology progresses it will probably be just as advanced for the individual as for the government. This will probably be because it will be created, not in some government la
    • We're getting closer to Vinge's 1985 story The Ungoverned [webscriptions.org].
  • for those of you that do not know, when me and my set get done beatin somebody up, we throw their sneakers over the power line as a warning to rival gangs like The Warriors or the Turnbull ACs, or even those guys that dress like baseball player clowns.
  • I remember an early mobile robot (CMU?) that had the ability to find wall sockets and plug itself in when the battery got low.
  • ...that looks like innocuous piece of trash - or would you simply be an unwitting terrorist?
  • If it attaches to a power line, what would complete the circuit required to allow it to charge? It would be no different than a bird landing on one and not getting hurt because they are not grounded.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JesseL ( 107722 )
      Inductive or capacitive coupling.
    • Maybe it'll be using induction to charge from the field around the line? I dunno...
  • Just curious...developed and developing are two different words last I checked.
  • When does the battle for cybertron really move to Earth?

  • It's a polymorph! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Black Cardinal ( 19996 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @07:14PM (#21772306) Homepage
    Hopefully it doesn't turn into a pair of shrinking boxer shorts!

  • The hard part. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @07:18PM (#21772370) Homepage
    AFRL's initial aim is to work out how to make a MAV flying at 74 kilometres per hour latch onto a power line without destroying itself or the line.

    Yeah, that would be the hard part. 'Till you've figured that out, there's nothing to see here.

  • Meh (Score:3, Funny)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @07:28PM (#21772552) Homepage Journal
    That's OK I guess... but their bomb that turns you gay [washingtonpost.com] is just fabulous!

    • Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @11:00PM (#21774884)
      That is really bizzare - paticularly the idea that it should make the soldiers more interested in sex than fighting. Isn't a typical well trained and highly effective combat soldier more interested in sex than fighting anyway? Even as a computer wrangler I'm far more interesting in sex than adding more cluster nodes and another file server no matter that they have wonderful AMD 8 way goodness - but I can still do my job.

      When you have clueless barbarians with influence you get weird lysenkoism like this.

      • I think the real point of this weapon is to motivate your OWN troops.
        Captain: "Guys, we dropped a gay bomb on the people you are going to fight, so don't EVER surrender or you'll be raped".
        Privates: "HOURerr..., why did you do that sir?"
  • The human race could be like Star Trek, or we could get real good at killing and spying. Sigh.

  • Using electrostatic field gradient (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday December 20, 2007 @10:22PM (#21774534) Homepage

    Cute idea. What they're trying to do, it seems, is mooch a little power from the electrostatic field gradient around the wire. This is quite feasible if you have a wire with a few KV to ground. The classic demo is to light up a fluorescent lamp by placing it vertically below a high tension line. [zen.co.uk] This works partly because air is not a perfect insulator. There's an electrical path to ground; it just has a high resistance.

    If the thing lands on an 11KV power line that's 10m above ground, and has a conductive part that dips 10cm below the line, it should see a voltage difference of about 90 volts. You can't draw very much current before the voltage difference disappears, but you can draw a little.

    It's also possible to extract some energy magnetically. See U.S. Patent #3,202,963, "Apparatus for Illuminating Power Lines". But that approach requires heavier parts than an electrostatic approach.

  • Why not just use induction to recharge batteries while flying by? Adding the smarts and morphing tech just to land doesn't seem worth the effort. Moving a conductor thru a magnetic field (like those surrounding power lines) will generate electric current. Just fly close to the lines and use that to recharge the batts.
  • I don't think so - no elctronic component known to mankind could survive the harsh environment that immediately develops inside a pair of sports shoes used by a teenager.
  • Looks like another small step for felonious government... how is it proposed to pay for the electricity taken?

    People used to be prosecuted for "theft of electricity" back in the bad old days before legislators passed clueless, wrong-headed laws about "breaking into computers". (Of course, that was nonsense, as the computers of the day used just as much electricity when they were idle as when they were doing useful calculations).

    So why do government agencies set themselves up as above the law in this way?

  • Disguise really required? (Score:3, Informative)

    by PhotoGuy ( 189467 ) on Friday December 21, 2007 @09:45AM (#21778062) Homepage
    How much time does this thing require to spend on charging? The exposed powerlines it could latch onto are typicaly 11 kilovolts and up. It wouldn't require a lot of time to charge on those, so doesn it really need to diguise itself? Even if it looked like a pair of sneakers, the fact it flies in and out, might raise more suspicion than the look while charging. Also, the transformers required to take 11kv down to 220v for the house, aren't exactly dainty; how could this device step down the power with lightweight gear? (The power between the transformer and the home are in shielded cables, unlike the 11kv lines.)

    FYI: In a typical power pole situation, you have three wires on top (in sort of a triangle config), and one part way down the pole. The top three are three different phases of the AC power, and the one part way down the pole is ground (you can see the occasional tap where the line is grounded to a stake in the ground). The step-down transformers for the home circuits tap into the ground, and one of the three phases, to give you 220v for several homes. (Factories and such will use all three phases for serious equipment.) Often on branch lines, only one of the three phases (and the ground) will be tapped off from the main line, to service some houses (with skinnier looking pole arrangements with only two wires). The fatter, insulated wires on the poles are cable and phone lines.

    • Oh yeah, and the three phase lines and the ground line are uninsulated, which is what allows this device to sneak power. They don't touch, so they don't short out. Birds (or workers) can touch on any of them, because there's no complete circuit. But if they touched two phases at the same time, or one of the phases and ground, then it's a 11 kilovolt zap. When you see downed power lines sparking on the ground, it's one of the top three phase lines touching the ground, and partially shorting out to it. I

  • Paranoia (Score:2)

    by MECC ( 8478 )


    Technology like this will make it harder and harder to accurately diagnose paranoia.

  • Spy Sapping My Power Line!

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