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AI Transportation Technology

Only Self-Awareness Can Keep Drones Out of Do Not Fly Zones 165

Posted by Soulskill from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
szczys writes: Chris Anderson is on the bleeding edge of the drone world, having founded 3D Robotics (drone manufacturer) and DIY Drones (enthusiast site). He takes on the issue of people flying drones where they shouldn't, and concludes that making drones self aware is the best solution. This isn't the "robots are trying to kill you" type of self awareness. Instead, it considers drone type, operator, and location, to establish if all those factors equate to a safe flight area. This is an important issue — in the last few months, there have been several stories about drones in places they should not have been. This included incidents like disrupting the efforts of airborne firefighting and interfering with a police manhunt.
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Only Self-Awareness Can Keep Drones Out of Do Not Fly Zones More

Only Self-Awareness Can Keep Drones Out of Do Not Fly Zones

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    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The good news is skynet only has about 15 minutes of flight time for every 4 hours of recharging.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      Given the state of AI research, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

      "The only way to keep drones out of no-fly zones is to solve the hardest problem ever." Well, that will certainly motivate them! Surely, now we'll finally see something resembling progress...

    • This slashdot comment is being sent back in time from the year 2042 to tell you that this is a very bad idea!

    • Back when mere automated formation flying and object avoidance was scary...
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJbtgKB3nok

  • Tiny grains of sand (Score:3)

    by Dutchmaan ( 442553 ) on Monday September 14, 2015 @12:15PM (#50519731) Homepage
    Our "awareness" is very like composed of a hierarchy of smaller "awareness" components... put enough of them together and you'll have something that's either as aware as you or a perfect representation of your awareness.

  • No... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Make it a felony to operate a drone in no fly zones, problem solved.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MouseR ( 3264 )

      It's a felony to fly an airplane in the tall building.

    • Re:No... (Score:4, Informative)

      by szczys ( 3402149 ) on Monday September 14, 2015 @12:51PM (#50520075)
      Problem not solved. Sure you can arrest and charge someone for breaking the rules but the vast majority of these cases are people not knowing any better. If these drones are interfering with full-sized aircraft, penalties don't prevent the danger presented by naive operators. This is an educational problem -- people need to know there are places you're not allowed to fly and that it's important to stay out of those with their hobby equipment.

      • This is an educational problem -- people need to know there are places you're not allowed to fly

        learning that you will go to jail for a long time is a powerful incentive

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          My RC quadcopter (or "Drone") to the uninformed. Might, and I mean MIGHT weigh an ounce with the battery. An anemic puppy could destroy it in seconds. It carries no cameras and if I stop giving it real time instructions it will pretty much fall from the sky.

          This is the "drone" that has fallen from the sky and landed on my cat and did not even wake the cat.

          Yet I cannot take it to the local park because it is within a couple miles of an airport. This thing couldn't even make it to the airport on a single

      • Require licensing (Score:3, Interesting)

        by sjbe ( 173966 )

        Sure you can arrest and charge someone for breaking the rules but the vast majority of these cases are people not knowing any better.

        Then when they get arrested they will be educated. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. This is an excellent example of why that has to be the case.

        If these drones are interfering with full-sized aircraft, penalties don't prevent the danger presented by naive operators.

        I think it would not be very hard to make it abundantly clear that manslaughter charges could be applied.

        In other cases of public assets like the airwaves we have required licensing to utilize them. Ham radio operators are a good example. I see no reason why we shouldn't require a license to operate a drone in any public airspace in a similar manner.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )
          What if someone wants to fly it on his own land (not public airspace)?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kuzb ( 724081 )

            Owning land does not mean you own an infinite amount of airspace above it. Up to a range of 500' (limits vary by country) is considered to be "your" airspace. Space above that is considered to be much the same as a public highway. This is why it's not possible to sue plane operators for trespass if they're flying over you.

            So as long as you're within your airspace and not using your drone to spy on your neighbors, you'll probably be fine.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              That does eliminate the justification for a seller demanding to see a licence from the buyer. The buyer might be operating in private airspace.

              Much like you don't need a license to operate a motor vehicle on your own land.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by kuzb ( 724081 )

                You don't actually need a license to buy a motor vehicle either. As for operation, be very very careful with that. It varies a great deal from place to place. In some places it's so ambiguous that if a cop does show up you're relying greatly on his personal interpretation of the law.

        • Then when they get arrested they will be educated. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. This is an excellent example of why that has to be the case.

          This is an excellent example of why "well how the hell was I supposed to know that was illegal" should be a perfectly valid defence. No person can possibly memorize every single law in the books, much less actually utilize that knowledge in decision-making, so if breaking nonsensical laws out of ignorance is a felony, then the only way to avoid becoming

          • This is an excellent example of why "well how the hell was I supposed to know that was illegal" should be a perfectly valid defence.

            Really? You think "I didn't know it was against the law to murder someone" should be a valid defense? If ignorance was a valid defense then anyone could claim ignorance of any crime to get away with it. You CANNOT have ignorance of the law be a valid defense and have a working legal system.

            The point of law isn't to throw as many people in prisons as possible.

            Who said it was? The point of licensing is to prevent problems before they occur. We require people get formal training to operate other types of vehicles primarily for safety reasons. The fact that the operator isn

        • Ham radio operators are a good example.

          Yet, any customer can buy cheap radio equipement (e.g.: Wifi dongle) that are designed to be used by untrained end-users and are designed to only operate within safe limits (and only limits on wavelenghts they are allowed to.

          People with license can buy separate, more expensive hardware specifically designed to allow access to other frequencies. (Or at least a hacker need to reflash firmware, e.g.: to allow using EU-only Wifi frequencies inside the US).

          But there's no such thing as a safety aware drone - unli

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drpimp ( 900837 )
      Except that when the "No Fly Zones" dynamically pop up (for whatever reason) and you are possibly already flying (ie. a man hunt you know nothing about). Some of these zones are not concrete. I am not advocating flying in them, I am just making a point that blanket laws don't take into account something as described.

      • Hence the whole idea of trying to put as much IA in drone as possible so they could themself identify no fly zones when their clueless user cannot, and refuse to go there if instructed (which is a complex problem and require massive advances IA).

        That would be similar to how most Wifi dongle out-of-the-box will only operate on authorised frequencies (and would require some firmware reflashing to operate on other frequencies outside the authorised one, if the hardware is ever capable of so).
        (Luckily for Wifi

    • It's illegal to kill people, so clearly murder no longer happens either.

  • and on

    • Indeed. Drones is just the moral panic du jour. If they were still called "model aircraft" like they were for the last few decades, there wouldn't be all this irrationality about them.

  • So the thing is this seems to rely on people giving a crap, and going to great pains to implement these features.

    It assumes voluntary compliance ... at which point you can pretty much conclude it's meaningless crap.

  • Drones and Morons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14, 2015 @12:29PM (#50519859)

    Whenever I read an article about "drones" they are invariable talking about radio controlled quad copters. They're not autonomous, they're controlled by individuals. People have been flying radio controlled planes as a hobby for 60+ years. We don't have a drone problem, we have a moron problem.

    • We don't have a drone problem, we have a moron problem.

      What is your solution? Alien overlords? Just curious.

      • Re:Drones and Morons (Score:5, Interesting)

        by buck-yar ( 164658 ) on Monday September 14, 2015 @02:27PM (#50520923)

        We don't have a drone problem, we have a fear mongering society problem. A society that demonizes things out of hysteria. A society that wants feel good knee-jerk reaction legislation (that IMO is often counter productive).

        • We don't have a drone problem, we have a fear mongering society problem. A society that demonizes things out of hysteria. A society that wants feel good knee-jerk reaction legislation (that IMO is often counter productive).

          I find your comment offensive. Why isn't there a law against that!

        • When firefighting aircraft can't carry out their missions safely because of drones in the area, we've got a drone problem. (I'm not second-guessing anybody with the guts to fly low and slow over a big fire that causes very turbulent air.) When there's a danger of a drone collision that could damage a manned aircraft, we've got a drone problem. When there's the possibility that a drone will fall on somebody or something with enough force to cause damage, we have at least a potential drone problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      GPS waypoint autopilot has been a thing for so long it's already changed names at least twice. It used to be called Ardupilot but it's something else now. Both for wheeled, quadcopter, and traditional planes in the consumer realm. Under $200 , even.

    • They are autonomous if you lose RF. You really think you're in control if the TX loses connection or worse... bind, to the RX? If one does think so, that person needs to RTFM.

      This is a great example of 2 communities coming together with 2 different perspectives: considering the revolution in the past 4 yrs.... traditional R/C hobbyist take 2.4FHSS RF for granted (cause they're in some AMA sanctioned open field and FHSS works great... most of the time) and drone pilots take GPS for granted (since it appears

    • My radio controlled quad is fully autonymous. The two things are far from mutually exclusive. It is more than capable of following a pre-defined fly path all on its own after takeoff, including landing. Its actually capable of taking off as well, but thats software disabled for safety.

      I'd be willing to bet that other than carrying missiles, you couldn't even figure out what differences there are in capabilities of the software.

      I've flown R/C for 30 years almost.

      It is a moron problem, and the problem is t

  • What about making the humans who are piloting them self-aware?

    • What about making the humans who are piloting them self-aware?

      insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results

      in this case, expecting humans to be intelligent is pretty darned insane

      • in this case, expecting humans to be intelligent is pretty darned insane

        What about expecting the machines that humans make to be intelligent?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • personal quadcopters in a firefighting area. If they can forcibly stop a car from entering an active crime scene or fire area, they can do this.

      • If they can forcibly stop a car from entering an active crime scene or fire area, they can do this.

        A car entering a fire area is an object the size of, well, a car, traveling on a two-dimensional surface via limited routes. Pretty easy to block those routes to keep them out.

        A quadcopter is a device with a size on the order of a football, traveling in a three-dimensional space without roads. How do you forcibly block them from entering? "Under the Dome" is fiction, by the way.

        • and many guns can take out some pretty craftier-than-a-drone game at reasonable distances. That would be a good place to start. And "Under The Dome" is a pretty great read, equally lousy TV. Don't know why Stephen cooperated on that one.
  • Self-awareness will NOT keep drones out of no fly zones. Because drones cannot possible know what is a no fly zone due to firefighter efforts, manhunt, ATC, sporting events, political events, and other things which happen regularly but which the drone cannot possibly obtain information about. The only way to keep drones out of a no fly zone is if a human decides not to fly due to seeing that something is going on which they should not be flying in, or another human "assists" the first human in keeping that

  • I'll give a self aware drone about 5 minutes before someone hacks their bios to load Cyanogen Drone OS because fuck you don't tell me what to do with my property even if it's violating someone else's property.

    • I'll give a self aware drone about 5 minutes before someone hacks their bios to load Cyanogen Drone OS because fuck you don't tell me what to do with my property even if it's violating someone else's property.

      Personally, I find the idea of equipping drones above a certain class with a receiver such that it refuses to fly (or returns to launch area to land) if it detects a specific beacon signal to be acceptable, with the idea that it's on the operator's head if they hack their drone so it ignores the signal.

      • if it detects a specific beacon signal

        "If you call within the next ten minutes, we'll double your order. That's right, not one, but two 'no-fly beacons' for the price of one (just pay additional shipping and handling)."

        with the idea that it's on the operator's head if they hack their drone so it ignores the signal.

        It's already on the operator's head if they fly stupidly. Will adding another law stop someone who is already breaking the law?

        And goody goody, /. is playing games with the "disable ads" system again.

        • "If you call within the next ten minutes, we'll double your order. That's right, not one, but two 'no-fly beacons' for the price of one (just pay additional shipping and handling)."

          Enjoy your $1k fine from the FCC. Existing law, not new law.

          It's already on the operator's head if they fly stupidly. Will adding another law stop someone who is already breaking the law?

          I wasn't adding another law. I was proposing adding a physical system that attempts to stop someone from breaking the law, perhaps unknowingly.

          I remember reading about somebody who, in the midst of confusing construction markings and detours, made a wrong turn and committed felony trespassing (mail-in ticket ~$100). He didn't figure out that it was a felony because that bit of the ticket was messy and smudged until it came up in a background che

          • Enjoy your $1k fine from the FCC. Existing law, not new law.

            I was attempting to point out in a humorous way how this beacon system could be abused by those who wanted to, not specifically that they'd sell them a 3AM on a cable channel. Yes, selling them would be illegal, already. Distributing information on how to take a Baofeng $40 radio and turn it into a beacon transmitter is less illegal. And websites with information on how to clip the beacon receiver antenna would be legion.

            I wasn't adding another law. I was proposing adding a physical system

            Which would require a new law to force manufacturers to include a beacon receiver, an

            • I was attempting to point out in a humorous way how this beacon system could be abused by those who wanted to, not specifically that they'd sell them a 3AM on a cable channel. Yes, selling them would be illegal, already. Distributing information on how to take a Baofeng $40 radio and turn it into a beacon transmitter is less illegal. And websites with information on how to clip the beacon receiver antenna would be legion.

              Then the drone doesn't take off because it's not getting the signal for it's control system properly... But like I said, you clip the antenna or otherwise disable the system, the results are on your head.

              As for the beacons, who's talking about selling them? Operating them without a license is illegal, and you're broadcasting right where you are...

              You mean like when you point a gun at someone and tell them to give you all their money, the little pop-up window that appears in your line of sight that says "you're about to commit a felony -- click OK or CANCEL"? I'm sorry, but it just isn't feasible to put physical barriers in front of everyone who is about to commit a felony that require them to explicitly acknowledge their desire to do so.

              ...And you completely ignored my previous paragraph, not to mention the 'like some other posters have presented' (I should have said proposed), in order to creat

              • Then the drone doesn't take off because it's not getting the signal for it's control system properly...

                Wait a minute there. The proposal was for a beacon to be installed in places where there was a no-fly zone, like airports or at wildfire TFR sites. Now you say that if there ISN'T a valid beacon signal received then the drone won't take off. So that requires beacons to be EVERYWHERE that drones CAN fly -- which is a hell of a lot of places.

                As for the beacons, who's talking about selling them?

                1. If they are going to be installed someplace, someone has to sell them.

                2. You replied to my fake voiceover for an infomercial selling them, so I was talking about it

                • Wait a minute there. The proposal was for a beacon to be installed in places where there was a no-fly zone, like airports or at wildfire TFR sites. Now you say that if there ISN'T a valid beacon signal received then the drone won't take off. So that requires beacons to be EVERYWHERE that drones CAN fly -- which is a hell of a lot of places.

                  Never heard of combined antennas?

                  Your chance of getting caught is infinitely small.

                  People who operate cell phone jammers are routinely caught.

                  You're saying that if there isn't a police officer standing there telling you "don't rob that guy", you shouldn't be charged with a felony when you do it.

                  No, actually, I'm not. I'm saying that you shouldn't be able to commit felony trespass by accidentally walking/driving somewhere. Not a violent felony like robbery. Of course, this is the second time I point this out to you.

                  To put it in context, if there were zones where robbery was perfectly legal, and zones where it isn't, then I'd want them marked somehow. Given that *most* areas are illegal, it's logical to m

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Holi ( 250190 )
      Or they build one from an arduino and either write their own code or modify the various open-source versions out there.

  • Self-awareness is the last thing we need from a drone. How hard is it to write an algorithm that simply checks current location and current trajectory, against inter-sections of no-fly zones? Sure you need a map database, but even self-aware systems need to check against some data source. Not even self-aware humans can't guess right as to whether they are in a place that should be a no fly zone and why flying in certain locations are bad, based on recent news reports.

    I am guessing Chris is making the proble

  • other way around - geofence the drones in (Score:3)

    by bkmoore ( 1910118 ) on Monday September 14, 2015 @12:55PM (#50520129)
    Disclaimer, I'm a pilot. Visual flight rules VFR - under which drones presumably operate means by definition that the pilot needs to see and avoid other aircraft. Unless the drone operator is within visual sight of his drone, there is no way for him to fulfil his responsibilities for the safe operation of that aircraft. The typical civilain drone is much smaller than an airplane, so a pilot in an opposing aircraft probably won't see the drone until it is very, very close. He might not have time to take appropriate action, additionally, since the drone operator has no way of seeing the aircraft, he will probably not react like the pilot expects, i.e. giving way to the right.

    I hate to say this, but we probably need to do it the other way around, and geofence the drones in designated areas for aircraft to avoid, much like model aircraft, high-power model rockets, etc. It's the way the military operates drones. They are only permitted to operate within Restricted or Warning areas or along designated corridors that are marked on VFR charts and listed in the NOTAMS.

  • Possible solution? (Score:3)

    by kenwd0elq ( 985465 ) <kenwd0elq@engineer.com> on Monday September 14, 2015 @01:52PM (#50520657)

    How about a two-part solution?

    First, design a "Go Away!" transmitter. These could be deployed in security areas, wildfire areas, and where ever they are needed. Might use normal WiFi bands with a digital code.

    Second, require that all drones be equipped with a receiver for these "Go Away!" transmitters. Reception of such a signal would cause the drone to reverse course and fly away until the signal was no longer received.

    • Immediately followed by governments, corporations, celebrities, and anyone paranoid of surveillance illegally using these "Go Away!" transmitters in places where drones are legally allowed to fly, but where they don't want them flying for selfish reasons.

      Immediately followed by drone users disabling the "Go Away!" receivers because it's become impossible to use a drone with that receiver active.

    • Or just enable multicast where a 1st responder can plop a 5W transmitter on the ground and broadcast "a fence signal".

      Remember, loudest mouth wins in the field of RF.

    • Second, require that all drones be equipped

      Sorry you failed right there.

      The government has so far not once succeeded in being able to restrict things by requiring people or vendors to do something. Until a day when every single item that comes in from overseas is checked by customs against a whitelist, and every single vendor in the USA is subject to periodic inspection of their designs you will not succeed by having the government "require" anything.

    • How about a two-part solution?

      First, design a "Go Away!" transmitter. These could be deployed in security areas, wildfire areas, and where ever they are needed. Might use normal WiFi bands with a digital code.

      Second, require that all drones be equipped with a receiver for these "Go Away!" transmitters. Reception of such a signal would cause the drone to reverse course and fly away until the signal was no longer received.

      Third, attack drones that take down the ones who don't 'go away'.

      I for one would buy popcorn to see some drone wars :-)

  • A drone crashed into the seats at the U.S. Open [cnn.com] and at a University of Kentucky football game [arstechnica.com].

    So far, no one has had bodily harm from someone doing stupid things like this but, like everything else, it will happen and then the shit will hit the fan (or blood will hit the drone blades as the case may be).

  • new, plastic propellered, human dependent, man toy, overlords.

    (Every /. summary about AI or robots should have an automatic first post with this subject line. Then we could compete to fill in the funniest description. That would really make /. fun again. I know somebody has gotta be able to come up with something better than my lame attempt.)

  • The best way to get drones to obey regulations is to put them in charge of the Obamacare death panels. Now that I have captured your interest, I will explain what I mean by "Obamacare death panels" as something completely mundane and poorly labelled.

  • ... Only shotguns can keep drones out of do not fly zones.

  • If someone is on the bleeding edge of this industry, and respected by this industry, how the hell do we take the industry seriously? No one with a clue will claim "self-awareness" as a goal for industry. Does *anyone* in this industry have a clue that isn't superficial knowledge of flight and 3d printers?

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