Aggressive Maneuvers for Autonomous Quadrotor Flight
I was going to embed the videos but they are too wide for the layout here. These are small, autonomous, quadrotor robots that can fly around in a most amazing fashion. The title for this post is accurate. You can watch them do their stuff here.
They are pretty incredible and what makes it bump over to the scary side a bit is that they can team up and grab stuff.
Posted by JR
On July 14th, 2010 under Tech Lust.
Comments: 1
Comments
Comment from MaxDamage
Time: August 29, 2010, 10:46 pm
I’ve been contemplating this, the technology of a quad-rotor isn’t particularly grand, but the pairing of computer control of one aircraft to multiple and allowing them to work in concert is.
Think about the Hiller Rotocycle. The idea was an a 280lbs capsule a downed pilot had an air rescue helo he could assemble without tools and fly back to friendly lines. Now think to Predator drones. Stealthy enough to be invisible to most troops on the ground, they put the hurt on conventional forces and suffer no loss of life for their pilots.
We’ve just bridged these capabilities. A downed airman awaits rescue, we can potentially fly four or five radar-invisible drones to his location. They can work in concert to attach his body and fly it back to friendly lines. No longer is a workhorse helicopter with its massive radar signature needed, nor is the CAP needed to cover those helos.
If you don’t mind spending an hour at the mercy of SkyNet and strapped to a glorified radio-operated aircraft, the alternative being capture, this is a pretty darned good thing.
What is the bandwidth needed from the controlling host and how soon can we get it into the field?
– Max
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