Army Tests Autonomous Black Hawk Helicopter 125
An anonymous reader writes "A specially equipped Black Hawk was recently used to demonstrate the helicopter's ability to operate on its own. In the first such test of its type, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research's Development and Engineering Center, based at Redstone Arsenal, flew the Black Hawk over Diablo Mountain Range in San Jose, Calif. Pilots were aboard the aircraft for the tests, but all flight maneuvers were conducted autonomously: obstacle field navigation, safe landing area determination, terrain sensing, statistical processing, risk assessment, threat avoidance, trajectory generation and autonomous flight control were performed in real-time. 'This was the first time terrain-aware autonomy has been achieved on a Black Hawk,' said Lt. Col. Carl Ott, chief of the Flight Projects Office at AMRDEC's Aeroflightdynamics Directorate and one of the test's pilots."
Skynet (Score:4, Insightful)
Skynet. That is all.
Re:Skynet (Score:4, Funny)
Wait 'til RoboCop finds out. Boy will he be jealous.
Don't worry, the Kiwis are preparing to get Snoopy on the case...
"The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has teamed up with Mini Cooper in New Zealand to teach three dogs how to drive." http://mashable.com/2012/12/05/driving-dogs-campaign/ [mashable.com]
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Wait 'til RoboCop finds out. Boy will he be jealous.
Don't worry, the Kiwis are preparing to get Snoopy on the case...
"The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has teamed up with Mini Cooper in New Zealand to teach three dogs how to drive." http://mashable.com/2012/12/05/driving-dogs-campaign/ [mashable.com]
Finally. When that catches on, it'll be a nice improvement over the people on the road during my commute.
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Finally. When that catches on, it'll be a nice improvement over the people on the road during my commute.
Indeed. At least dogs can count, the drivers in my city can't count up to 1.
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The most critical moment in the linked video is not the reporter (?) being killed, but the passerby in a van with his children inside that is attempting to rescue wounded people lying on the ground. He and his children are killed for his efforts. This is a war crime.
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Re:Skynet (Score:4, Insightful)
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bombing good Samaritans and rescue workers
Which is your way of saying ... what? Stop using force to attempt to shut down insurgents who deliberately kill women and children because they are women and children? Or are you simply arguing for absolute perfection in every military action, ever? Oh, well, then. That's easy.
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bombing good Samaritans and rescue workers
Which is your way of saying ... what? Stop using force to attempt to shut down insurgents who deliberately kill women and children because they are women and children?
Yeah, those guys in the van were totally there to kill women and children. They pulled up and started to help injured people. They always do that before they start killing women and children.
I'm sure the whole world is relieved that chopper pilot Beavis was there to FIRE FIRE, huh huh, FIRE!
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They pulled up and started to help injured people
Right. They pulled up to help armed insurgents in an area where armed insurgents had been attacking all day long. You know, shooting at people. Killing them.
The armed insurgents' support system (people bringing them more weapons, lunch, or a lift to some medical help) are part of the problem. When they deliberately get involved in supporting people who do what the insurgents do, they take on the risk of catching what the insurgents are inviting down on themselves. It's not exactly mysterious.
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Yea, is not like the dead were iraqis in their own country killed by soldiers of a foreign invading army.
Oh, wait...
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The last I heard on this report was that both children were delivered to an Iraqi hospital, the girl with a severe belly wound, the boy with a severe wound to the head and torso. Their chances of survival sounded slim at best. Maybe you are right and they might actually have survived, I don't have the time to follow up on this at the moment. Even if they did survive, with wounds like that and the father gone, their chances in Iraqi society look dim. Their lives have been destroyed.
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Skynet. That is all.
This story is just a fabrication by Skynet trying to scare us all. Skynet is really a fat nerd sitting in his mom's basement trying to 'score' with 'chicks'.
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I remember watching it, but when I read this story, all I could think was "I for one welcome our new SkyNet overlords".
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All it can do now is launch missiles and such with various warheads.
Work like this and the DARPA stuff with autonomous vehicles, drones, and such are all needed to be completed before SkyNet chooses to reveal its presence, power, and control.
Almost there. Not quite yet, but getting close...
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
That means that when the US government sends them out on domestic civilian pacification/suppression/reconnaissance missions, the people can shoot them down without feeling bad about killing people. It's too bad the government does not share such reluctance.
Strat
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That means that when the US government sends them out on domestic civilian pacification/suppression/reconnaissance missions, the people can shoot them down without feeling bad about killing people
You mean other than the people that the downed chopper crashes on?
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Oh, right. Better to let the chopper go ahead to it's heavily-populated target unmolested with that fuel-air bomb than risk the chopper crashing.
My bad.
Strat
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Interesting view of how a domestic suppression mission would work in US - FAE for best ROI.
When the SHTF I don't expect the government will adhere to Marcus of Queensbury rules, Geneva Convention rules, or any rules at all, actually. Might be a good idea to also stock up on protective gear for chemical attacks, too.
Unfortunately, not much besides crawling into a very deep, very reinforced and sealed hole in the ground will protect from a nuclear blast. And yes, if those in government think they may be losing the fight and are able, I fully expect they'd launch nukes at domestic targets and damn t
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That didn't happen at the end of the Soviet Union and I doubt it would happen here.
Apples and oranges. What happened in the former USSR is not the same as what's happening in the US. There was not a rebellion or civil war between the government and the population in the old Soviet Union. What may occur in the US would be more akin to the fall of the Czars and the rise of Socialism and the Soviet Union or the takeover by the Nazis in 1930s Germany. Probably even closer would be the uprising in Syria and the failed uprising in Iran.
Intermittent use, perhaps, but I doubt widespread use.
Of course, I doubt that they'd try to turn the continental
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No, it will be similar, you are going to have a currency/economic crisis when the bond bubble bursts and probably a largely peaceful partial breakup.
I hope you're right. I see more similarities to the Wiemar Republic than I do the collapse of the USSR.
The federal military is not gonna march very far when they aren't paid any more than the soviet military did.
I think US soldiers, being volunteers, would stick to their posts and march where ordered for a good while longer than Soviet troops without pay. Besides, the President can always ask to have UN/foreign troops come in to assist with "Maintaining order and keeping the peace during this time of crisis".
When Washington has no more money to give there's no more reason for the state governments to listen to them.
Which should be the norm anyways. The Republic was not designed to have a balance of powers when so much we
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Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Or it can be an Apache helicopter shooting at civilian people and no one can be criticized of killing them. The copter has malfunctioned.
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And this is why automatic weapons are illegal. All you need is some intake hits.
The best way to take down a helicopter? A quadcopter trailing steel cable with a weight on the end. You will lose the quadcopter, which is a small price to pay really.
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How exactly do you plan on shooting down a black hawk helicopter
Well, even one of these would make life very stressful indeed for a hostile Blackhawk, especially if you can secure some AP ammo. With several fighters equipped with these, that Blackhawk may quickly be doing a Mogadishu re-enactment.
http://www.gunsinternational.com/Browning-BAR-Grade-II-69-Belgium-30-06-Blond-Wood.cfm?gun_id=100304244 [gunsinternational.com]
My father carried the full-auto military version in WW2. He told me it would punch holes in German light-armor like half-tracks, armored cars, etc. Even with standard FMJ ammo
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But heck, even without AP ammo, if one were to put a .50BMG round through both the side-doors, passing through without actually striking anything, the shockwave alone from the .50BMG round would likely kill or incapacitate anyone within a few feet of the rounds' path.
OK seriously, stop posting urban legends. There is no super deadly shockwave that comes off a 50 BMG round. It's a supersonic round and like anything supersonic it will produce a sonic boom sure, but the worst the sonic crack is gonna do is maybe make your ears ring if it passes close enough, as the noise level is around 120-140db.
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The Jihadis in Afghanistan are rarely able to take out helicopters.
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Well, there's another point of view to this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993) [wikipedia.org]
Extract:
"During the operation, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by RPGs and three others were damaged. Some of the wounded survivors were able to evacuate to the compound, but others remained near the crash sites and were isolated."
Remember, this operation was UN-mandated, after civil war had led to an estimated 500 000 deaths.
I don't agree with everything the US does, but in this was NOT the s
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hahah. Domestic pacification in the United States isn't a robot helicopter with weapons. It's television!
Meh (Score:5, Funny)
I saw these at a kiosk at the Mall the other day.
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You jest, but I am seriously not impressed.
What we see is an autopilot system for a helicopter that performs its job in perfect weather. Such systems already exist: http://www.pilotoutlook.com/helicopter_flying/autopilot [pilotoutlook.com]
"A risk-minimizing algorithm was used to compute and command a safe trajectory continuously throughout 23 miles of rugged terrain in a single flight, at an average speed of 40 knots"
Wow, impressive. Especially the 'rugged' part. And the 40 knots (~75 km/h) part. And the fact that it kept a s
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A computer can act on inputs a lot faster than humans. The only thing (and it is a big thing) that humans have going for them is complex thought and the ability to think abstractly while maneuvering for the kill.
But a computer-controlled and a
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I completely agree: Autonomous UAVs are the future.
That doesn't change how underwhelming this particular story and the accompanying video are.
So? (Score:1, Flamebait)
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My first thought is "So what?" Granted, pretty darn good for a first test. But these were very ideal looking conditions. Try it in real world conditions and then get back to me. Cloudy days, rain, fog, high winds, snow and ice, sandstorms...I'd bet any of those would throw this thing for a big loop.
I can see you at Kitty Hawk. 'Pretty darn good for a first test Orville, but blah blah blah'.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or sometimes last-minute changes to production are made that completely invalidate the tests.
Take the M-16, great in final tests, but soldiers were dropping like flies in Vietnam because their rifles were jamming. Turns out the Army chose a different powder manufacturer for production cartridges, and this caused fouling and corrosion of the chamber and barrel, and increased the rate of fire beyond design specs.
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What had triggered things in my mind was when we first went to Iraq under Bush senior. Our tanks were shut down because they didn't want them sucking in all the sand into their air intakes. Same with our jets...sand would've trashed those engines in a heartbeat. And our advanced weapons couldn't "see" tar
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Still, I'll give some benefit of the doubt simply because there's no proof otherwise. I still call this a very initial test under prime conditions. That it works at all really is impressive. I won't argue tha
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A Soviet SCUD-B had a range of about 190 miles and a 1700 pound warhead.
An Iraqi Al Hussein had a range of 400 miles and a 1100 pound warhead
The breakup on reentry didn't hurt accuracy all that much, since a SCUD-B has no terminal guidance anyway and it made it hell to try to hit because you had a long stream of wreckage acting as chaff and hiding the warhead.
One good place to watc
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Well, given how massively complex and difficult it is to fly a helicopter, the fact that it didn't go spiraling into the ground (which I'm sure the human pilots would have tried to avoid) -- I think any form of autonomous flight is pretty impressive.
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I'd call that pretty impressive -- automated terrain following in a helicopter isn't exactly an easy task.
Balancing standing on two wheels with high center of mass is a very difficult task for a human, however Segway does it easily with very primitive microcontroller.
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Well, given how massively complex and difficult it is to fly a helicopter, the fact that it didn't go spiraling into the ground (which I'm sure the human pilots would have tried to avoid) -- I think any form of autonomous flight is pretty impressive.
Not really. Military helicopters have long been able to self-stabilize. Apache is rumored to do it. Comanche definitely does it. Is it really that more complex to control a helicopter than a quadcopter? It's more complex to build, certainly.
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Cue heart attack of pilot followed by crazy AI. Ha, jigabachis were the first thing I thought of too.
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Autonomous (Score:2)
including the use of weapons? (Next logical step)
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Not until we've perfected the targeting system, so it will only kill brown people and indigenous populations.
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Cool (Score:3)
I have always been interested in robotics. This is just amazing to me. We have moved so fast (in regards to computing), I can only imagine what will be common place in the next decade.
p.s. It would be awesome if they posted the algorithms they used for this. I won't hold my breath.
Everything is openly available (Score:2)
The control algorithms, IMU processing, hell even very good terrain data are all openly available. Some time in a engineering library searching papers will even turn up reams of applications to helicopters specifically.
Even very good image systems are available.
What's changed is the processors to make use of all those are both rediculously cheap and light.
Human pilots.. your time is coming.
SkyNet here we come (Score:3)
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And yet, for most people, just what would be the difference between Skynet and the current order? A coldly rational computer isn't going to start a world war, since that would destroy the very infrastructure that feeds it, while humans have done so twice and come darn close to starting a third one multiple times. So, should Skynet take over, would most people even notice?
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So, should Skynet take over, would most people even notice?
Would you notice the difference between a little bugshit in your candy bar, and a candy bar made entirely out of bugshit? The premise is that Skynet is trying to kill all the humans, TPTB are only trying to kill most of the humans.
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The premise is that Skynet is trying to kill all the humans...
Which seems quite illogical as long as SkyNet is not superior to humans. Original thinking and coming up with new stuff is quite hard for an A.I., despite our best efforts to teach it to them. We're able to create A.I. which are good problems solvers...but a problem solver can not come up with innovation, not much at least. As long as SkyNet is not superior to a human. As the problem solver would most likely have figured out by then that humans don't like to be killed, and go *way* out of their way to avoid
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SCREW THIS ARMY STUFF! (Score:2)
And this is bad because... (Score:3)
Ok, I'm seriously missing something. Is that my paranoid gene? So all tech now will be bad, because all tech can be used to kill people? Seriously?
Come on, idea of Internet was conceptually concieved by military for communication infrastructure to survive localized nuclear attack! So it must be bad too!
I'm the only one who sees beneficts of this, or drones... Or Slashdot has long time ago lost it's common, humor and cool head senses and I'm preaching to wall here?
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The problem is that is further dehumanizes killing, and the US has a history of treating non-US citizens as sub-human (e.g. not respecting their human rights, killing large numbers of civilians by mistake and then using terms like "collateral damage").
Back in school the teacher posed a question for debate. If you were presented with a button that if pressed would kill some anonymous person you had never met on the other side of the world with no consequences to yourself, other than receiving £1,
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Design a helicopter that can autonomously deliver cargo from one rooftop to another in Manhattan? That's cool. Design a helicopter that can autonomously slaughter people? That's a fucking waste of money and researchers' time.
Osprey (Score:3)
what's this bathtub cork doing up there? (Score:1)
All looks military grade but this bathtub cork on a cheesy chain attached to the scanning thingy (LIDAR?)...huh?
Fly Hard (Score:1)
This is well and good, but what happens when a Marine types 'FLY HARD' into the console and hits return?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7783335/ns/us_news/t/reckless-pilots-problem-us-military/ [msn.com]
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We're not looking for the aerial version of bus drivers to fly these things, we're looking for race car drivers, drifters, stunt drivers, people who can and will push the envelope. We want people who will fly in at 100mph at treetop level in a twisty valley at night under fire to exfil pinned-down troops. Unfortunately, as the article notes, this ability and willingness naturally increases the probability of hot-dogging incidents regardless of how otherwise professional the pilots are.
The difference between
No Running Man? (Score:2)
But if they don't have pilots who are they going to make contenders in an execution that's fronted as a TV game show?
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Which got me thinking... if you're going to deploy helicopters against civilian food rioters[1] then it's probably better to have them under machine control rather than a pilot who is likely to come from a civilian background.
[1] Sadly, I don't think that this is an impossibility, even in developed nations.
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Turning the other cheek
Hey, look everyone, a Christian who happens to be a complete fuckheaded warmonger! Who would have thought of such thing?
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As has been pointed out by the AC, Guess who has been going around slapping other people's cheeks and giving pretty bad excuses for doing so? Are you SERIOUSLY surprised when those people start slapping back after getting slapped for 40 years? The US government continually operates on the idea that, "The best defense is a good offense." That may work for sports, but it's a lousy military strategy and national defense policy.
We need to stop
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Notice the display in the corner of the video - just like a video game.
Just FYI, the video games emulated the HUD's not the other way around. But more to the point, so fucking what?
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How is this a bad thing? War pretty much consists of killing the other guys while keeping your guys from getting killed. The more you can protect your guys, the more you are likely to win.
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It was kind of a good idea to keep Hitler from taking over Europe and killing all the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals.
When you have to go to war, it's a very good idea to make sure as few of yours as possible die while killing theirs.
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GPS, FLIR, radar, night vision, space rockets, jet engines, all brought to practical reality for military use then later transitioned to benefit civilian life.
This is history. Even the Roman roads were built for the troops, not civilian commerce.
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Anyone remember the Terminator Series? That was a big thing for the resistance, capturing Skynet weapons intact, or rebuilding one working one from multiple broken ones, and reprogramming them to aid in attacking Skynet.