coondoggie writes "Unmanned aircraft maker AeroVironment got an additional $5.4 million to further develop a diminutive aircraft that can fly into tight spaces undetected, perch and send live surveillance information to its handlers. Last Fall, AeroVironment, got $4.6 million initial funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop the Stealthy, Persistent, Perch and Stare Air Vehicle System (SP2S), which is being built on the company's one-pound, 29-inch wingspan battery-powered Wasp unmanned system."
Nowadays you'd need a separate transformer to be able to turn into a cassette player to play it back, good luck finding one elsewhere!
Hold on now. When one has to transform to interface with the other, it's just adaptation. When both have to transform to interface in some unusual way, it's called a kink.
Might as well have optimus prime turn into a horse and cart.
No, he'd just turn into a horse. When going back to robot mode, the cart would disappear into the background until he needed to go back into beast-- er... vehicle mode.
The holographic human he uses to whip himself into running is just disturbing.
Yeah, Lazerbeak was the first thing that popped into my head before I even finished reading the summary!
This definitely sounds like Lazerbeak, with the reporting to its handlers and all. BUT, in terms of cool ships that perch, there can be only one: Hawk's fighter, from Buck Rogers. That series had easily some of the coolest space tech ever, rivalling White Stars in B5 and BSG's Mk I Vipers (which were designed by the same guy). I loved that series, and BSG and all too, but Hawk's fighter (and that whole
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stealthy spy plane of the sci-fi days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
That actually has the potential to be a rather awkward issue, in the mid to long term, with small drones of this and similar flavors.
Sooner or later, we'll want these things to do more than watch and report. Trouble is, ordinary kinetic weapons don't scale down all that well to applications where size and weight are at a real premium(gun small enough to fit in your pocket, sure, gun small enough to fit in a one pound aircraft with reasonable endurance, not so much). The only mechanisms that do scale down are toxins and pathogens, which are what pretty much all dangerous animals of that scale and smaller use.
This is, of course, a problem; because chemical and biological weapons are almost certainly not a road we want to go down(even if you don't see using them as a problem, not disturbing the general norm of not using them is likely a good idea if only for your own sake); but they'll be the only thing that fits onboard, so it'll be that or nothing. I'm not overly confident that we'll choose wisely.
Sooner or later, we'll want these things to do more than watch and report. Trouble is, ordinary kinetic weapons don't scale down all that well to applications where size and weight are at a real premium(gun small enough to fit in your pocket, sure, gun small enough to fit in a one pound aircraft with reasonable endurance, not so much). The only mechanisms that do scale down are toxins and pathogens, which are what pretty much all dangerous animals of that scale and smaller use.
To expand on this, recoiless weapons like the jeep mounted ones scale down even further. A gyrojet round would work very well on a lightweight stealthbot and give it the lethal force of an infantryman with a rifle.
To expand on this, recoiless weapons like the jeep mounted ones scale down even further. A gyrojet round would work very well on a lightweight stealthbot and give it the lethal force of an infantryman with a rifle.
But after it fires a round, it wouldn't be a "stealth" bot anymore - IIRC, Gyrojet [wikipedia.org] rounds are even louder than conventional firearms.
No they aren't anywhere near as loud as even a service pistol. In addtion the unavoidable crack of the projectile breaking the speed of sound occurs downrange.
Assuming it wouldn't get fried out by the voltage in the line before the transformer? I doubt it could balance on something as thin as a power line though, anyways.
It's not voltage that kills things, it's current. How you do you suppose non-cybernetic birds survive the experience?
Uh, by not carrying the current at all? Touch one powerline while not grounded or connected to any potential place for the charge on it to flow and nothing will happen, touch one while grounded and you're dead. Birds don't experience any current because there's no place for the current to flow.
You're right that it's the current that kills, but in this case the birds experience neither current nor voltage, so it's an irrelevant answer.
Or more correctly, it's the difference in voltage that kills things. It doesn't matter if you touch a piece of wire at 3kv (relative to the ground), as long as the rest of you isn't touching the ground at the time. That's why birds can sit happily on a high voltage power line without problems (cancer causing radiation aside:). If there are two birds sitting on different wires, and the wires are at different voltages (eg different phases in a 3 phase circuit)
Why can't they just train real birds to perch and randomly attach cameras or whatever to things. Swallows come to mind, I'd have to check. I don't remember if African or European would be best.
The robot war machines will be the next generation of weapons of mass destruction.
Soon we will see swarms of poisonous digital mosquitoes, mechanical snakes with nuclear warheads, which can enter the land unnoticed, robot-fish, which enters a lake via a small river and poisons the whole lake, and so on and so forth.
I would suggest to ban by an international law all military robots. While there are not so many of them yet. It would be more difficult and expensive when there are armies of millions military robots.
The definition is simple: no military equipment without a responsible human physically attached to it.
In the 50s it would have been much easier to ban nuclear weapons while there were only few of them around, not hundreds of thousand as it is now.
There are thousands already out there, so this horse has left the barn. See, for example, the Raven [wikipedia.org] or Packbot [wikipedia.org]. Note the numbers already shipped (>8000 and >2000). No, they are not autonomous, but they definitely don't have a human physically attached. And they are getting more autonomous all the time.
While it might be a good idea, I don't think that the main proponent / user of the technology (U.S.) would agree to get rid of them. Too damn useful. And you are right that there will come the da
This is the sort of thing that Wyat Cenack (sp?), senior military analyst on The Daily Show, described as RFC projects. "Really F***ing Cool."
Yes, this is all cool and impressive and all, but hang on a second. Why does the US still put so much faith in technology to fix all the world's problems?
I remember reading an article in The Economist years ago about an American-developed mine clearing system. It was a huge, expensively developed, bulldozer. Er, yes, a bulldozer. It had a few bells and whistles and looked like something dropped out of an Imperial Star Destroyer, but trust me, it was just a bulldozer. Well they found that it was less effective than the tried and tested British method of a trained guy with a metal detector and a big stick poking into the ground. I'll let you guess which was cheaper and more effective.
If the British had adopted in Northern Ireland the same tactics that the USA is adopting now in different parts of the world, the troubles in Northern Ireland would still be going strong, we'd have gone as far as full on civil war, and the Brits would be looking to the UN for support because they'd have pissed off so many Irish Republicans that bomb alerts in London would be a daily occurrence.
Air strikes in residential areas? Sending in troops to act as policemen when they can't even speak the local language? What the hell are they thinking? Do they seriously think that the battle for the hearts and minds of muslims is going to be won by UAVs, robotic birds, satellites, tanks, and legions of soldiers occupying other peoples' countries as if their sovereignty counts for nothing? Do they think the reaction will be any different than their own reaction would be if Iranian troops were occupying San Diego, bursting into peoples' homes in search of militants, and calling in air strikes to wedding receptions?
They need to learn a few lessons from the British. An insurgency and a poisonous militant mindset is not defeated by a standing army. It's defeated behind the scenes by the intelligence services, by infiltration, away from the prying eyes of the media and it's done for the purpose of getting the job done, not in public for the purpose of winning votes. The only thing done in public is consistent repudiation of violence as a means of achieving political aims, education about the futility of violence and how it achieves nothing but heartbreak for all involved [youtube.com] (viewer discretion advised), and providing a peaceful political alternative to the physical force method. It's less glamorous and the boys don't get to play with their toys, but it's a lot more effective.
I was just going to ignore this but then I noticed people modding you up. Sure missiles are expensive but not THAT expensive. I remember reading that a Tomahawk cost about $1M, and it is a very sophisticated missile with inertial and GPS guidance, long distance jet engine, variable geometry airframe and rocket booster. I seriously doubt some missiles cost "over 20 times 10 million". Not even nukes (although they *might* be in the tens of millions).
If you're talking development costs, sure that could be
Twenty times 10 million is 200 million. A new F22 [wikipedia.org] is 137 million. I don't think there are any $200 million missiles, unless they are nuclear.
Actually, I've seen some RC airplanes do some pretty amazing stunts, being able to flip back to face upwards and hover on their propeller for long periods. There's some videos on YouTube of that sort of thing. There's no reason fairly cheap kit couldn't be made to land using a similar technique.
$10million is quite a bit to make it land properly on it's tail, to add surveillance to it and make it a bit more stealthy.
It's not going to be anything super long range, or anything, but at $10mill I'm betting they'
I can see it now.. (Score:5, Funny)
Deploy: Lazorbeak. Mission: Scout Terrorists.
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Aye, both are correct [wikia.com].
Transformers did it first (Score:5, Funny)
And their robot bird could turn into a cassette tape too. For easy playback, no less.
How awesome was that?
Re:Transformers did it first (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but where is the Army going to get a Cassette Player these days?
Parent
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That might be one way to keep your expensive playback device from being stolen. I mean, who would want one these days?
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Nowadays you'd need a separate transformer to be able to turn into a cassette player to play it back, good luck finding one elsewhere!
Something does amuse me about the fact an ultra-high tech. robot of the future would turn into a cassette of all things though.
Might as well have optimus prime turn into a horse and cart.
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Hold on now. When one has to transform to interface with the other, it's just adaptation. When both have to transform to interface in some unusual way, it's called a kink.
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Soundwave. [wikipedia.org] Yeah, they had that covered.
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Might as well have optimus prime turn into a horse and cart.
No, he'd just turn into a horse. When going back to robot mode, the cart would disappear into the background until he needed to go back into beast-- er... vehicle mode.
The holographic human he uses to whip himself into running is just disturbing.
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And their robot bird could turn into a cassette tape too. For easy playback, no less.
That project would go much beyond the planned $10M.
An entire tape? at $650.000 per song in IP rights?
Hawk's Fighter did it best (Score:3, Interesting)
This definitely sounds like Lazerbeak, with the reporting to its handlers and all. BUT, in terms of cool ships that perch, there can be only one: Hawk's fighter, from Buck Rogers. That series had easily some of the coolest space tech ever, rivalling White Stars in B5 and BSG's Mk I Vipers (which were designed by the same guy). I loved that series, and BSG and all too, but Hawk's fighter (and that whole
Quoth the SP2S (Score:5, Funny)
Quoth the SP2S, "nevermore" and nothing more.
Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
at what point does the US military stop looking like a human defense force and start looking looking like alien invaders from a robot planet?
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
at what point does the US military stop looking like a... defense force and start looking looking like... invaders... ?
Surely they still teach history in schools.
Parent
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
at what point does the US military stop looking like a human defense force and start looking looking like alien invaderst?
Around the 1840s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny [wikipedia.org]
Parent
How lifelike (Score:5, Funny)
Will it drop bird poop on your surveillance target? I mean how suspicious would a bird be if it didn't do that?
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Yes, it'll leak battery acid, just like my @#*!& Dell laptop.
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I hope it shits napalm, just for the coolness factor.
Re:How lifelike (Score:5, Funny)
White phosphorus powder mixed into some inert aqueous gel would make delayed action incediary bird turds. I can't think of anything awesomer.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How lifelike (Score:5, Insightful)
Sooner or later, we'll want these things to do more than watch and report. Trouble is, ordinary kinetic weapons don't scale down all that well to applications where size and weight are at a real premium(gun small enough to fit in your pocket, sure, gun small enough to fit in a one pound aircraft with reasonable endurance, not so much). The only mechanisms that do scale down are toxins and pathogens, which are what pretty much all dangerous animals of that scale and smaller use.
This is, of course, a problem; because chemical and biological weapons are almost certainly not a road we want to go down(even if you don't see using them as a problem, not disturbing the general norm of not using them is likely a good idea if only for your own sake); but they'll be the only thing that fits onboard, so it'll be that or nothing. I'm not overly confident that we'll choose wisely.
Parent
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These things fly, right?
Whi
Re:How lifelike (Score:5, Interesting)
To expand on this, recoiless weapons like the jeep mounted ones scale down even further. A gyrojet round would work very well on a lightweight stealthbot and give it the lethal force of an infantryman with a rifle.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
To expand on this, recoiless weapons like the jeep mounted ones scale down even further. A gyrojet round would work very well on a lightweight stealthbot and give it the lethal force of an infantryman with a rifle.
But after it fires a round, it wouldn't be a "stealth" bot anymore - IIRC, Gyrojet [wikipedia.org] rounds are even louder than conventional firearms.
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No they aren't anywhere near as loud as even a service pistol. In addtion the unavoidable crack of the projectile breaking the speed of sound occurs downrange.
2100 (Score:2, Insightful)
[verb] like a [animal] (Score:5, Funny)
Upon reading the title, my first reaction was that there was a meeting that went something like
In the future I expect robots that can
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Not man-rated? (Score:3, Funny)
A 450 gram, 29-inch wing span, battery powered vehicle ISN'T MANNED???? WTF?
Sweet babby Jebus!
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How is babby Jesus formed?
How virgin get pragnent?
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In order to maintain airspeed velocity, a manned SP2S would need to beat its wings 43 times every second, am I right?
Maybe. Is it carrying a coconut?
Stainless (Score:2, Interesting)
Didn't the Stainless Steel Rat already use one?
Power lines? (Score:2, Funny)
Could perch on a power line and recharge its batteries for round the clock operations. Scary.
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Assuming it wouldn't get fried out by the voltage in the line before the transformer? I doubt it could balance on something as thin as a power line though, anyways.
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It's not voltage that kills things, it's current. How you do you suppose non-cybernetic birds survive the experience?
You could probably leech some power from high-voltage AC lines with an induction loop, a rectifier, and a big-assed resistor.
Re:Power lines? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not voltage that kills things, it's current. How you do you suppose non-cybernetic birds survive the experience?
Uh, by not carrying the current at all? Touch one powerline while not grounded or connected to any potential place for the charge on it to flow and nothing will happen, touch one while grounded and you're dead. Birds don't experience any current because there's no place for the current to flow.
You're right that it's the current that kills, but in this case the birds experience neither current nor voltage, so it's an irrelevant answer.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Or more correctly, it's the difference in voltage that kills things. It doesn't matter if you touch a piece of wire at 3kv (relative to the ground), as long as the rest of you isn't touching the ground at the time. That's why birds can sit happily on a high voltage power line without problems (cancer causing radiation aside :). If there are two birds sitting on different wires, and the wires are at different voltages (eg different phases in a 3 phase circuit)
Why not a real bird? (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And maybe they could carry this camera [f295.org].
Military robots (Score:2)
Soon we will see swarms of poisonous digital mosquitoes, mechanical snakes with nuclear warheads, which can enter the land unnoticed, robot-fish, which enters a lake via a small river and poisons the whole lake, and so on and so forth.
Let us note now how it all started.
War robots 2 (Score:2)
The definition is simple: no military equipment without a responsible human physically attached to it.
In the 50s it would have been much easier to ban nuclear weapons while there were only few of them around, not hundreds of thousand as it is now.
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While it might be a good idea, I don't think that the main proponent / user of the technology (U.S.) would agree to get rid of them. Too damn useful. And you are right that there will come the da
Suspect we have a Robert Sheckley fan... (Score:2)
Oh please (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the sort of thing that Wyat Cenack (sp?), senior military analyst on The Daily Show, described as RFC projects. "Really F***ing Cool."
Yes, this is all cool and impressive and all, but hang on a second. Why does the US still put so much faith in technology to fix all the world's problems?
I remember reading an article in The Economist years ago about an American-developed mine clearing system. It was a huge, expensively developed, bulldozer. Er, yes, a bulldozer. It had a few bells and whistles and looked like something dropped out of an Imperial Star Destroyer, but trust me, it was just a bulldozer. Well they found that it was less effective than the tried and tested British method of a trained guy with a metal detector and a big stick poking into the ground. I'll let you guess which was cheaper and more effective.
If the British had adopted in Northern Ireland the same tactics that the USA is adopting now in different parts of the world, the troubles in Northern Ireland would still be going strong, we'd have gone as far as full on civil war, and the Brits would be looking to the UN for support because they'd have pissed off so many Irish Republicans that bomb alerts in London would be a daily occurrence.
Air strikes in residential areas? Sending in troops to act as policemen when they can't even speak the local language? What the hell are they thinking? Do they seriously think that the battle for the hearts and minds of muslims is going to be won by UAVs, robotic birds, satellites, tanks, and legions of soldiers occupying other peoples' countries as if their sovereignty counts for nothing? Do they think the reaction will be any different than their own reaction would be if Iranian troops were occupying San Diego, bursting into peoples' homes in search of militants, and calling in air strikes to wedding receptions?
They need to learn a few lessons from the British. An insurgency and a poisonous militant mindset is not defeated by a standing army. It's defeated behind the scenes by the intelligence services, by infiltration, away from the prying eyes of the media and it's done for the purpose of getting the job done, not in public for the purpose of winning votes. The only thing done in public is consistent repudiation of violence as a means of achieving political aims, education about the futility of violence and how it achieves nothing but heartbreak for all involved [youtube.com] (viewer discretion advised), and providing a peaceful political alternative to the physical force method. It's less glamorous and the boys don't get to play with their toys, but it's a lot more effective.
Please don't exaggerate (Score:2, Insightful)
I was just going to ignore this but then I noticed people modding you up. Sure missiles are expensive but not THAT expensive. I remember reading that a Tomahawk cost about $1M, and it is a very sophisticated missile with inertial and GPS guidance, long distance jet engine, variable geometry airframe and rocket booster. I seriously doubt some missiles cost "over 20 times 10 million". Not even nukes (although they *might* be in the tens of millions).
If you're talking development costs, sure that could be
Re:10 million? Cheap (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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Actually, I've seen some RC airplanes do some pretty amazing stunts, being able to flip back to face upwards and hover on their propeller for long periods. There's some videos on YouTube of that sort of thing. There's no reason fairly cheap kit couldn't be made to land using a similar technique.
$10million is quite a bit to make it land properly on it's tail, to add surveillance to it and make it a bit more stealthy.
It's not going to be anything super long range, or anything, but at $10mill I'm betting they'
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