Flying Robot Ambulance Finally Takes Its First Flight

What weighs 2,400 pounds, flies 100 miles per hour, and doesn't haven't a pilot? An anonymous reader writes: This week Popular Science remembers a 2007 article which discovered "an amazing machine of the future, almost like a flying car, that seemed plausible but just out of reach" -- and reports that it's now finally performed "a full, autonomous flight on a preplanned route." Designed to provide unmanned emergency evacuations, it's been described as "a hovercar-like aircraft" flown with a built-in AI-controlled flight system.

Tuesday's route was two minutes long, and "According to Urban Aeronautics, the vehicle's Flight Control System made the decision to land too early." But what's significant is there's no human pilot. "Decisions by the flight controls are checked by the craft's flight management system, like a pilot overseen by a captain...all informed by an array of sensors, including 'two laser altimeters, a radar altimeter, inertial sensors, and an electro-optic payload camera.'"
The test brings the giant unmanned vehicle one step closer to its ultimate goal of becoming "a robot that can fly inside cities, weaving between buildings and hovering above any dangers on the ground below."

Article doesn't sound knowledgeable

[hackwrench]

Decisions made by the flight controls? What?

Fuck This Pilotless Shit...

[sycodon]

...I want one I can fly when and where I want.

Modern warfare

[Dunbal]

hovering above any dangers on the ground below.

I hope they built it tough enough to withstand RPG and ATGM hits... especially if they plan on doing a lot of "hovering".

Re:

[ColdWetDog]

Could this be adapted to retrieve persons of interest and return to a predetermined location? Any way we can include kill/no kill AI?

Thanks,

Your Government

"Hello Mr. Terrorist! Would you please step into this unmanned, barely controlled little flying box?"

"Thank you for your cooperation."

"Allah Akbur!"

I suppose this could work....

Re:

[Dunbal]

Unintended consequences - air burst are usually more deadly than ground bursts.

Automation

[Calydor]

But remember, automation CREATES new jobs as per the article a couple of spots down the front page.

Re: Automation

[thundercattt]

Yes. It will also create job listings "must have 10 years exp" for their specific automation that's been around for 2 years.

Re:

[Calydor]

IF $experience != $days_since_activation + 1 THEN reject()

Re:

[tomhath]

How many people were involved in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of flying robots a couple of decades ago?

Re: Automation

[hackwrench]

You didn't understand his post apparently. He's saying that the job posting will request the impossible 10 years experience when the field itself has only been around for 2.

Re: Automation

[hackwrench]

It looked like you were responding to thundercatt's post. Stupid Slashdot page formatting.

made the decision to land too early

[fustakrakich]

The operation was a success, but the patient died..

Make up your own Martian lander joke...

State of the art medical care

[AnotherAnonymousUser]

"We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient."

nope.

[Gravis Zero]

I do love automation, I really do but EMTs are an essential part of ambulances. Something flying like this would need to be able to carry at least 1000 pounds before it could really be useful. Also, I'm not really comfortable with leaving emergencies in the hands of autonomous machines because of the unpredictable nature of emergent situations.

Re:

[ColdWetDog]

This has nothing to do with being a 'flying ambulance'. That's just a silly thing that was stuck on the bottom of the funding proposal because it's really unlikely that it would cure cancer.

Right now it is nothing more than a research grant tool. Maybe in a couple of years, when the knock the wobble out of the landing, it can deliver pizzas.

Re:nope.

[michael_cain]

It's a military device. The EMTs (combat medics in the US Army) are already deployed with the combat troops, so the planned use is probably evacuation of the wounded after the medics have done what they can.

Re:

[CanadianMacFan]

When someone gets severely injured in combat they are stabilized as best as they can and a call for a helicopter is made. The helicopter has at least one medically trained person on board. The patients need medical care on the way back to base. What happens if the patient is receiving CPR when the drone arrives? Do you stop CPR and load them up? With a helicopter you load them and continue with treatment. What if the person experiences a cardiac arrest on the way back to base? They are dead if they are

Firefly Ariel Ambulance

[snikulin]

Somehow the news reminded me about this one:
http://www.arielambulance.org/... [arielambulance.org]

Hmm. Seems to be flying by ground effect

[hey!]

Which if I recall works to a slightly greater altitude in dual rotor systems. I remember reading about a company that's building a "flying car" which like this thing gets lift from a pair of large ducted fans arranged fore and aft; it's rate for 4m maximum operating altitude.

If no medic then it's not an ambulance

[ModernGeek]

Without a medic on board, it isn't an ambulance, it is a meat wagon. Using something like this would be considered patient abandonment, this will never take off for use in the medical field. The idea of hauling people to the hospital as fast as possible was replaced with prehospital care a long time ago.

Psychological Effects

[RLGSC]

There are admittedly many technical problems with a robotic patient evacuation device. Some comments mentioned the importance of patient monitoring, and indeed that is a problem. However, being evacuated as a patient on a gurney is a far different experience than riding in a car or helicopter. Illness or injury provokes profound anxiety in many people. This is not merely emotional. It has physical effects. People can faint, have asthma attacks, develop heart rhythm abnormalities. Transporting even a simple