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Commanding Military Drones – Now iPhone Has an App for That

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by Aaron Saenz on August 18th, 2009

If you’ve got drones in different area codes, iPhone has an app for that. MIT’s Human and Automation Lab (HAL) has been able to control an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using everyone’s favorite smart phone. By utilizing the iPhone’s touch screen, tilting sensors, and high speed data transfer HAL is able to manually fly the drone or guide it to follow a prescribed path. In turn, the drone sends back video and snap shots as requested. MIT’s success shows how the controls for UAVs can get smaller, simpler, and easier to use. Watch the three demonstration videos after the break.

Could the iPhone replace the bulky controls of the Raven Drone?

Could the iPhone replace the bulky controls of the Raven Drone?

UAVs and other military drones are an important part of the modernization of the US Army. The Raven drone is a light-weight surveillance platform that can be launched by hand. Unfortunately, it’s operating controls are a heavy briefcase like enclosure that has to be lugged around. That sort of discontinuity irks HAL team leader Prof. Missy Cummings. Cummings was once a F/A-18 Hornet fighter pilot for the Navy and saw the UAVs as a great way to prove that drone control could be light-weight, simple, and elegant. Her students were the ones that pointed out they could use iPhones. (They would all have to receive iPhones as part of their research, of course).

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Robot Hummingbird Ready for Spy Missions – Video

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by Andrew Kessel on July 8th, 2009
Hummingbird, or Secret Robotic Spy?

Hummingbird, or Secret Robotic Spy?

We’ve seen countless spy movies where the fearless protagonist is being tracked by video cameras shaped like owls or robotic insects with surveillance gear.  Most of us simply paid those fun fantasies no mind, but those at DARPA seem to have gotten quite upset that they didn’t think of it first.  Well, in a bid to out-smart Hollywood, they have contracted the California company AeroVironment (such a wholly terrible name that they only refer to themselves as AV) to create a mechanized hummingbird.  It looks like plans for our nation’s defense is being torn page-by-page right from the book of Michael Bay.

The project right now is very hush-hush, with the AV website dropping only the DARPA bomb and a computer generated picture of what it would look like in finished form.  Dubbed the Nano Air Vehicle (NAV), the project is intended to mimic nature and one only needs to delve into the imagination to figure out exactly what dastardly deeds may be accomplished through this avian impostor.  Well, chances are it wouldn’t be very useful in places that do not have hummingbirds as an indigenous species, but that’s beside the point.

Normally, this type of project would not deserve a feature on Singularity Hub, after all, how many DARPA projects come to fruition and, of those, how many does the general public know to exist?  What separates this hummingbird from the rest of the flock is a pretty awesome video of preliminary flight tests.  Check it out below:

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Wired For War: The Rise of Robotic Armies

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by Keith Kleiner on January 23rd, 2009

wired for warP.W. Singer just launched his latest book titled Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. This looks to be a must read book for those that are interested in all aspects of robotics, whether it be cutting edge innovations in the pipeline, political ramifications, ethical battles, and more.  The official website for the book offers an array of resources, including a well stocked archive of youtube robotics vidoes.

Just yesterday, P.W. Singer was interviewed on NPR and it is well worth a listen

Listen Now [38 min 47 sec]

Here is a summary of the book from the official website:

What happens when science fiction becomes battlefield reality?
An amazing revolution is taking place on the battlefield, starting to change not just how wars are fought, but also the politics, economics, laws, and ethics that surround war itself. This upheaval is already afoot — remote-controlled drones take out terrorists in Afghanistan, while the number of unmanned systems on the ground in Iraq has gone from zero to 12,000 over the last five years.  But it is only the start. Military officers quietly acknowledge that new prototypes will soon make human fighter pilots obsolete, while the Pentagon researches tiny robots the size of flies to carry out reconnaissance work now handled by elite Special Forces troops.

Wired for War takes the reader on a journey to meet all the various players in this strange new world of war: odd-ball roboticists working in latter-day “skunk works” in the midst of suburbia; military pilots flying combat mission from their office cubicles outside Las Vegas; the Iraqi insurgents who are their targets; journalists trying to figure out just how to cover robots at war; and human rights activists wrestling with what is right and wrong in a world where our wars are increasingly being handed over to machines.

Props to our reader, Bruce Colthart, who suggested this story

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