Some herald it as the cure for terrorism, others deride it as mindless video game warfare, but few doubt that the American era of drone warfare has arrived. From short range surveillance craft like the Raven to missile packing hunter-killers like the infamous Predator, the US military is awash with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). According to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service, nearly one in three US warplanes are drones…and those machines are changing the way the world wages war. US soldiers in Afghanistan rely more and more upon intelligence gathered from drones, and President Obama recently lauded the precision and success of deadly drone-strikes against top terrorist targets in Pakistan. Meanwhile all advanced militaries in the world, from Israel to Russia, seem to be improving their own drone capabilities. Yet with this surge in robotic craft come rising concerns over the ethics, and liabilities, of UAVs. The rise of drones seems unstoppable, but will this shift in tactics improve or deepen the ravages of war?

Wired’s Danger Room broke the Congressional Report Service story earlier this month, calling out some of the most enlightening figures from the 50 pages study (mirrored here). About 31% of US aircraft are unmanned. That represents an amazing change over the past few years as such UAVs only represented 5% of the US total in 2005. Of course, the vast majority of these drone craft are relatively small, able to be launched by hand. The most prolific is the Army’s Raven, with 2200 on order and 1300 delivered. The most widely discussed, and feared, drones are the Predators and Reapers, which can carry heavy ordnance (including Hellfire missiles) and are often operated remotely by human pilots stationed in the US. However, CRS reports that there are only about 160 Predator and Reapers in service.

Why is the population of drones rising exponentially in the US military? Again, the CRS numbers are very revealing. While representing more than 30% of the total aircraft flown, drones account for just 8% of the warplane budget. Nearly forty Predator and Reaper drones have crashed in Afghanistan and Iraq (with the loss of small UAVs like the Raven being considerably higher), yet the accident rate for Predators has dropped significantly in the past few years falling from 20 cases per 100,000 hours in 2005 to just 7.5/100k in 2009. That accident rate puts the Predator (and Reaper) on par with the F-16! And pilot lives are never lost in a drone crash. On a case by case basis, individual UAVs may or may not be more cost effective than manned planes for a particular mission, but as a whole they seem to be a better investment. In fact, the US is on track to spend $26 billion on drone R&D between 2001 and 2013. A small fraction of the total US military budget, but possibly the investment that may yield the highest dividends.

No new technology can be borne into battle, however, without carrying with it some new dangers as well. Critics of the reliance on drones point to two large security risks, both in the handling of data. First, most aerial drones are not used directly as weapons, but as mobile platforms for intelligence gathering. Even the Predator comes packed with cameras to observe its surroundings in high definition and at high speeds. With the surge in the use of UAVs has come a tidal wave of video and sensor information, much of it streamed to remote locations far from the point of operation. There have already been a few well-reported cases of insurgents tapping into that data stream for use against US troops. Such risks are likely to increase as technology-use among opposition forces improves.

Second, whether a drone is operating under its own programming or being remotely piloted by a human, they are open to receive control commands. The possibility of drones being hacked is very real, and some claim that the recent capture of an RQ-170 spy drone in Iran was accomplished through such hijacking techniques. Whether or not that’s the case, UAVs are clearly susceptible to inflight theft in ways that manned vehicles simply are not.

The following video describes the RQ-170 and its recent capture by Iran:

Above and beyond technological concerns is the growing opposition to UAVs on ethical grounds. The issues raised by opponents are varied but can be categorized into three general critiques: that drones give the US (and other governments) unchecked ability to assassinate their targets, that drones developed for use in foreign conflicts may eventually be used against a nation’s own citizens, and that drones desensitize soldiers to killing (and that, by extension, a large number of civilians have been killed in drone strikes). Among those raising concerns on the growing use of drones is the ACLU, which has filed suit to gain access to the US’ so-called “targeted killing program” that seeks to eliminate high-value targets using Predators. Protestors in both the US and Russia have reported strange surveillance craft hovering during their demonstrations, reportedly the use of drones as domestic spies. Public opinion on drones in the UK, and much of the EU, is generally considered poor. While it is difficult to find a single source that articulates the wide range of outrage against drone warfare, the following news segment from Russia Today certainly tries:

Trivializing the concerns over the use of UAVs in war would be a mistake. Yet the armed forces of nations all around the world seem undeterred by opposition voices. As mentioned in the CRS study, the per year investment in drone R&D is increasing, projected to rise to $3.9 billion from the US Department of Defense. Among the upcoming vehicles expected to see launch is the Avenger, the successor to the Predator and Reaper, capable of flying higher, longer, and 50% faster and carry upwards of 50% more/heavier ordinance. Private companies are developing scouting UAVs armed with anti-personnel weapons for use by border agents and police. The US Navy is developing both unmanned jet fighters and automated turrets capable of destroying drones. Trade organizations for UAVs are attempting to recast their public image in the EU, Israel has its own UAV projects, and systems from China and Russia can be assumed to be developing on pace as well.

Simply stated, no matter what moral issues are raised, UAVs are not going away. The tactical and economic advantages are too large for any military to sacrifice. Accordingly, governments are becoming more vocal in the support of this technology. President Obama recently admitted to use of Predator drone strikes in Pakistan, which were long rumored to be killing Al Qaeda operatives, during a recent Google Hangout. Obama, however, denied that such strikes had high rates of collateral damage and generally supported the use of drones as precise (see clip below, full video available here).

US allies are likewise vocal about their support. Yemen has requested, and received, increased US drone patrols as the nation prepares to shift power from its president to its vice-president. It’s hoped that well-placed UAVs could curb the growing threat of terrorist groups hoping to influence the country during political volatile times. Even as Pakistan, and other nations have condemned US strikes as violations of the sovereignty of their air space they have requested access (sales) of the vehicles to their own militaries.

The fact that no armed force wants to sacrifice the use of drones should suggest the recent success and ongoing potential of this technology. Undoubtedly the growing reliance on UAVs has altered warfare and will continue to do so. With that change we should also expect battles over domestic use of these aircraft for it’s almost certain that law enforcement agencies will find the vehicles just as advantageous as their military counterparts. We may also fear that remotely targeting enemies will lend a certain “numbness” to soldiers around the globe. Yet that fear was raised with long range high altitude bombers in the Second World War, with nuclear proliferation in the Cold War, and perhaps with every military technological innovation since. Smart warfare seeks to remove soldiers from danger even as it makes those soldiers more effective. UAVs are no exception. If we must argue against unmanned warfare, let us argue against warfare itself, for it is the intention of deadly force, not the technology that delivers it, which ultimately bears responsibility for the death and destruction that follows. If we must use robots to fight, let us use them well, use them decisively, and then stop and transform them into something more productive. Ultimately it is the peaceful applications of such drones: search and rescue, novel construction, exploration, etc, that will hopefully form their lasting legacy.

[image credits: Public Domain image (Brigadier Lance Mans, Deputy Director, NATO Special Operations Coordination Centre), Congressional Research Service]
[video credit: PressTVGlobalNews, Russia Today]
[source: Congressional Research Service, Danger Room, WhiteHouse.gov]

Beware humans! The flying robots have learned to build!

What works in teams, can build any tower you design, and makes a horrifically angry buzzing sound? No, not super intelligent construction wasps. Quadrotors. UPenn’s GRASP Lab has been experimenting with these autonomous aerial drones to make them perform amazing feats. We’ve seen them dart through windows, spy on people, and even haul lumber. Now, GRASP has gotten them to work together and build simple structures. In the video below you can watch the quadrotors use magnetically interlocking struts to autonomously build towers individually or in concert. It makes me think of bees constructing a hive. They sound like it, too. While this work is still very preliminary it alludes to ways in which aerial drones could revolutionize disaster relief, construction, and exploration.

The drones in the following video are operating without direct human control. These aren’t RC vehicles. Instead, humans provide the design for the tower the quadrotors should build. Using well defined algorithms, the drones locate construction materials, grasp them in the correct orientation, and bring them to the construction site. A wireless network, and a combination of centralized and decentralized processing, allows teams of drones to communicate and build the tower as efficiently as possible. Make sure to watch at the end to see the sped-up video of several different structures being constructed. I really wish I had one of these quadrotor crews when I was in my fort-building phase.

This GRASP quadrotor project is the work of Daniel Mellinger, a PhD candidate working with Vijay Kumar. The drones themselves are purchased from Ascending Technologies, and are actually fairly standard devices. What’s really exciting is Mellinger’s ability to manage these complex dynamic systems. If a robot on the ground stalls or experiences a bug in its programming, no big deal, it just shuts down and waits. But a flying drone has to be controlled all the time, otherwise it will plummet to its doom. Special care has to be taken to ensure that the weight and orientation of construction pieces don’t cause errors in the drone’s flight. Drones also have to recognize when each piece is properly grasped and placed.

To that end, Mellinger does use a bit of a cheat. His quadrotors are tracked by an external camera system that allows them to be positioned in the frame of reference of the construction set. Red LEDS and small reflective white spheres allow the Vicon cameras to locate the drones (and construction struts) in 3D space. Besides sensors on board the drones that are used for IMU, the camera system is the main source of guidance for the drones. That’s not really a practical solution if you wanted to use these drones outside the lab. As we’ve seen before, however, GRASP is working on quadrotors that could navigate in real world environments without external camera systems.

Good thing, too. According to comments made by Mellinger and Kumar on the Robots Podcast, the ultimate goal for many of these projects is to get quadrotors to function as helpful assistants in many dangerous situations. In disaster relief they could function as mobile eyes and ears, especially in areas that are inaccessible to workers on foot. Judging by this most recent video, quadrotors may also be used to help construct temporary structures for victims – even if aid workers cannot access them directly. In larger swarms they might be able to move heavy loads or be used in even more complex construction projects.

There’s still a long way to go before we get there, however. A drone with a full complement of onboard sensors has a battery life around 8 minutes. That’s a pittance compared to what would be needed in real world applications. Also, Mellinger seems to be focused on small groups of drones working together. Dreams of huge swarms of quadrotors building your home in an afternoon are completely impractical at the moment- the coordination is still beyond us.

There’s no denying, however, that quadrotors are a fascinating field of robotics. These autonomous drones, fully developed, have all sorts of advantages (mainly mobility) over their terrestrial cousins. Mellinger has already won an award for his work with his hive of minions, and it should be very interesting to see what he comes up with next. Maybe the quadrotors could take up Jenga?*

*I’ll leave you with Stephen Colbert’s take on Mellinger’s work. Skip to around 3:05 in the following video:

[screen capture and video credit: Daniel Mellinger]
[source: Robots Podcast, Daniel Mellinger Site]

MQ-9 Reaper: deal death from the comfort of your chair.

War is not a video game…but it’s starting to look more and more like one. The prevalence of unmanned aerial vehicles in the US military has changed the landscape of war forever, and no UAV demonstrates that more clearly than the MQ-9 Reaper. Born from the Predator drones that have spied on and targeted terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, the MQ-9 Reaper represents the next step in remote plane technology. And that step is rigged to explode. The Reaper carries more ordinance than any other unmanned vehicle in the air, 3000+ lbs of explosives, or 14 Hellfire missiles. Standard Predators carry 2 or less. Each of these missiles are capable of taking out anything from snipers to tanks. The MQ-9 is the modern hunter-killer, made all the more remarkable because its pilots fly the UAVs in utter safety from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. When people ask me about the future of war I point to the Reaper. Unmanned, heavily armed, covered in surveillance equipment – it’s able to spy or strike anywhere in the world. Watch the MQ-9 demonstrate its prowess in the videos below. Drones have already changed the shape of war; the next generation of UAVs like the Reaper may make it unrecognizable.

The Predator series of drones, including the MQ-9 Reaper, have been an integral part of the recent wars in the Middle East. Earlier this spring, these UAVs hit a historic milestone: 1,000,000 hours in the air. One million. That’s 80,000+ missions, 80% of which were flown in combat situations. Sometimes Predators and Reapers are just eyes in the sky, scouting terrain, and finding targets. More and more, however, these drones are delivering air to ground missiles to hostile targets. Since 2005, the US Air Force has been phasing out F-16 fighter jets (just a dozen or so at a time) and replacing them with Predator series drones. These new hunter-killers are one of the clearest examples of US military superiority to Taliban and other military forces in the region. The drones have become so recognizable that they’re starting to be included in recruiting and promotional videos used by the military, as seen with the prominence of the Reaper in this clip:

Surely one of the greatest changes the Reaper and its Predator siblings represent is the removal of soldiers from the battlefield. While Reapers can fly autonomously, most missions see them operated by a pilot with a support airman in charge of sensors and weapons. Yet these two soldiers are thousands of miles from combat, seated in special control systems in an airbase in the Nevada desert. Those control systems are what really get to me. They look so much like a flight simulator or arcade video games that the first time I saw it, it really messed with my mind. What does it mean for the future of war when the systems we use to kill others looks uncannily similar to the systems we use for fun? Even trained pilots must feel a certain sense of awe knowing they are searching or striking people on the other side of the globe.

The following video gives an indepth look into the MQ-9 Reaper program, Creech Air Force Base, and the men and women charged with using these systems everyday.

Here’s a brief, but more detailed, look at the Reaper control systems.

I’ve highlighted the destructive capabilities of the Reaper drone, but it’s important to remember that one of its primary roles is as a surveillance hub. Standard Reaper’s can be fitted with ten video cameras, but that’s going to be upped to 30 in the near future. The US Military is drowning in video footage collected by Predators and Reapers everyday. When carrying little ordinance, the Reaper can fly 42 hours between refueling, and through the miracle of remote control, pilots can be swapped out during that run. Fresh eyes are always at the controls. Actually, the pilots are just a fraction of the crew responsible for watching that surveillance footage. Thousands of trained specialists scan through drone videos looking for critical information. Soon a good portion of that scanning/filtering will be handled automatically by computers.

In fact, the Reaper and its systems are the leading example of how the US military is outsourcing war to robots. Tele-operated robots, to be sure, but robots all the same. Ground forces are using small aerial drones for surveillance during routine missions, and the larger Predators and Reapers are striking critical targets so that human soldiers don’t need to risk their lives. Right now, there are only about 30 Reapers on active duty, compared to about 200 Predators. They seem like such a small fraction of our military, but only a decade ago, they weren’t even armed, and two decades ago they didn’t even exist. Ten years from now these drones will be more numerous, faster (jet propelled almost certainly), and capable of a wider range of missions. Twenty years from now they could be the backbone of all US military operations.

The title of this post highlights how cool the Reaper looks, and you have to admit, the damn thing is a complete badass. Remote flying drones with missiles? Tell me that doesn’t sound like something you’d find in the arsenal of some science fiction super genius. The power of drones is remarkable, and it’s making a difference in wars that have dragged on longer than any others in modern US history. This technology could be a world changer…it already is in terms of armed conflict.

But taking a long view, I’m worried about what the Reaper represents. Not military superiority – the US has enjoyed that advantage against every single opponent since the Cold War. No, the Reapers represent a certain automation of war and separation of action from consequence. Lots of Innocent people die in wars. In fact, most of the people who die from acts of war aren’t soldiers. That’s a harsh truth we have trouble facing now, how more difficult will it be to grasp as our reliance on UAVs continues to grow?

Robots are the future of the military. They will allow human soldiers to make life and death decisions without risking their own lives. As we step into that new future, it will be a struggle to keep our comfort with war from increasing along with our safety. As deadly, stunning, and maybe even beautiful as the Reaper appears, it’s only awesome when you’re the one behind the controls.

[image credits: US Air Force, General Atomics]
[video credits: cooljc27, Post Standard Video, American Air Forces Network via DvidsHub]
[source: General Atomics]

Shooting drones out of the sky with robotic lasers...I love technology. (Artist's rendering)

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Supe—ZZZT! Well, whatever it was, it’s fried now. The US Navy recently tested a Raytheon infrared laser system by shooting down four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) off San Nicholas Island near California. To knock out each UAV, six solid state lasers were controlled by Raytheon’s Phalanx, a radar guided gun system that is already used in the field. This 32 kilowatt Laser Phalanx system worked like a charm: four out of four UAV were destroyed over the Pacific. To celebrate, Raytheon shared footage of a UAV being burned out of the sky at the Farnborough Air Show. Check out the video below. Drone killing robot lasers for the win!

They may not look like they’re ready for Star Wars, but laser weapons are getting closer to being publicly used in the field. In 2007, Raytheon used a Laser-Phalanx prototype to knock mortar shells out of the air. Boeing had notable success with burning a hole in a truck with an airplane-based laser weapon last year. Now the Navy is knocking down UAVs like flies. Raytheon also announced that they’ll be working on a counter measure laser system called Scorpion, an anti-personnel laser (which will “uncomfortably heat” trespassers), and an airport security laser that could take down shoulder launched missiles. While difficult to maintain and considerably more fragile than many projectile systems, laser weapons have superior accuracy and a never ending magazine – as long as you have electricity, you have “bullets”. Once they can be perfected, laser systems will augment military defense and offense, hitting high speed targets with lethal amounts of heat and light.

In the following video you can see a plume form as soon as the laser strikes the UAV. The laser light itself is invisible (infrared).

While the Laser-Phalanx system may seem futuristic, it’s basically just two different technologies hacked together: solid state lasers and a robotic gun. The Phalanx system uses a gaitling gun guided by radar to destroy objects moving too quickly for humans to hit. Almost every single US Navy ship operates with a Phalanx on board. Land based versions have been used to counter rockets artillery and mortar (C-RAM) in Iraq’s Green Zone. Adding a laser simply takes the robot gun and improves its range and accuracy. Having lethal lasers in the hands of automated systems is a bit unsettling, but considering we already let them use machine guns I’m not too worried.

The Navy’s duck hunting test with lasers and UAVs was pretty impressive, but it’s likely to take several years before a system like the Laser Phalanx could make its way into mass production. By that time, it’s importance could increase drastically. The US military relies heavily on drones for reconnaissance and tactical strikes, but terrorist groups use their own drones to spy on US ships and bases. In five years or so, you can expect that such groups will have many more armed drones, and will also perform quick mortar strikes when the drone locates US soldiers. Having a laser system that can knock down both drones and mortars is going to come in helpful. And hopefully, one day, all this war bullsh*t will be over with and we can focus on using technology to save people’s lives. I already have a job lined up for all the retired military lasers: mosquito hunting.

[image and video credits: Raytheon]
[source: Raytheon, Raytheon VP Mike Booen via Aviation Week]

A burst of speed lets the quadrotor fly through any window in space with ease.

Occasionally we see robots that are so awesome that we wonder why they haven’t conquered the world yet. So it is with the newest unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from UPenn’s GRASP Lab, which autonomously performs “precise agressive maneuvers” in a great video (see below). ‘Agressive’ is the key word here as the quadrotor drone sounds like a swarm of angry hornets as it bursts through a series of windows at different angles and orientations. It also performs flips, weaves through other UAVs, and perches on walls with Velcro. This thing is amazing!

Quadrotors provide a good deal of stability and maneuverability and make ideal spy drones. MIT is developing an iPhone control system for quadrotors for military use and Parrot released a retail version (also controllable via iPhone) with augmented reality applications. GRASP’s version of the device, however, can go where no drone has gone before – ducking through openings at high speeds with just three inches of clearance. That’s an incredible degree of autonomous maneuvering and it shows how well these UAVs may be able to adapt to urban environments and unconventional terrain.

The UPenn quadrotor is the work of grad student Daniel Mellinger, his advisor Vijay Kumar, and research scientist Nathan Michael. They used 20 vicon cameras to digitally map the quadrotor in its space. You can clearly see the white sphere markers on the UAV and the ‘windows’ in the video. Combined with data from the quadrotor’s IMU, the visual tracking allowed the UAV to perform its precise and aggressive maneuvers. While that tracking system provided amazing results, it’s obviously not something you want to have to set up in the field. It will take considerably more research to allow the UAV to perform the same maneuvers with its own instrumentation in a non-mapped space. In other words, as aggressive as the GRASP quadrotor may be, you don’t have to worry about it flying through your window anytime soon. That’s definitely a load off my mind. Now if I could only find a way to avoid an unstoppable robot dog…

[image credit: Daniel Mellinger/GRASP UPenn]
[video credit: Daniel Mellinger/GRASP UPenn]
[source: GRASP UPenn]

Stanford's perching UAV makes a daring stall before clinging to a wall.

The “Perching Project“, as the work is known, is just the latest from Stanford’s Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab, the same group that brought you StickyBot, and RISE. These guys know how to get robots to cling to a wall. The biggest application for the perching plane seems to be urban spying. We’ve seen various futuristic spy drones before, even those that incorporate some biomimetic technology, but the perching plane vertical surface landing and take off give it some truly innovative functionality. Here’s how Stanford describes the scenario:

A flock of small, unmanned air vehicles flies quietly into a city, maneuvering among the buildings. They communicate as they search for places to land, not on streets or flat rooftops but on the sides of buildings and under the eaves, where they can cling, bat or insect-like, in safety and obscurity. Upon identifying landing sites, each flier turns toward a wall, executes an intentional stall and, as it begins to fall, attaches itself using feet equipped with miniature spines that engage small asperities on the surface. Using its propeller in combination with its limbs, the flier can creep along the wall and reorient for a better view. With opposed pairs of spines, the flier clings tenaciously to resist gusts of wind and ride out inclement weather. The fliers stay attached for hours or days, consuming little power and emitting no sound as they monitor the area. When finished, they launch themselves with a jump and become airborne again, ready for their next mission...[From Perching White Paper]

That sounds awesome. And it looks even better:

This video was made, in part, to showcase the history of the Perching Project for the latest ICRA. As such, we get a great glimpse into the development of the plane and its limitations. A lot depends on the proper calibration of the legs, the control of the auto-pilot, and the conditions near the wall. According to the project site, the plane can hover in a vertical stall fairly well, but the team is still working on improving the way it comes out of its wall take-off. Also, for all the talk of observation capabilities, such systems don’t seem to have been included on the plane yet. Hopefully, Stanford will be able to address each of these issues going forward. Judging by the white paper, various published articles, and the project website Stanford’s invested in getting this idea to come to full fruition.

The Perching Project has got hovering down...take-offs are reportedly still rough.

If their vision from the white paper is to be achieved, however, they’ll have to reach a mass manufacturing level, and that’s likely to take years. I wonder, however, if the lab wouldn’t be open to sharing some of their prototype specs in an open format in the meantime. I’m sure the guys over at DIY Drones would love to experiment with making one of these, and most of the materials (besides the carbon fiber legs) seem to be in the range of dedicated hobbyists.

It’s much too early in this project to know what final shape the perching plane will take, or even if the system will be successful. Still, Stanford’s innovative legs are simple and robust enough to make them likely candidates for adoptions in other systems. No, we’ll probably never see a manned vehicle trying to perch on a wall, but I wouldn’t be surprised if developers of other spy UAVs start to consider how they might include vertical surface landings and take-offs. In the future, micro-UAVs may become a valuable part of military reconnaissance, police surveillance, or even child monitoring (You can go out and play, but make sure to take your drone with you). And with Stanford’s Perching Project, those vehicles will be able to go pretty much everywhere.

[image credits: Stanford University]
[video credit: Stanford University]
[sources: Stanford University's PerchingProject, White Paper, Paper for ICRA 2010]

Behold the monocopter - a whirling wing of wonder!

The University of Maryland has produced a flying machine with only one wing – a monocopter! Evan Ulrich, its PhD student creator, modeled the micro air vehicle (MAV) on a maple seed samara. Using a propeller, the Samara MAV spins itself in a circle around the end of the wing, creating lift that causes it to fly. Small changes to the pitch of the wing allow Ulrich to control where it goes. Trust me, you’ve never seen anything like this before – check it out in the videos below.

The US military spends hundreds of millions on drones and drone-supported operations. Ulrich’s Samara MAV is funded in part by DARPA’s Nano-air Vehicle initiative which is aimed at expanding the diversity and applications of those drones. While we’ve seen various rotor-based unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the past, but this monocopter is unique. It makes a complete rotation several times per second, allowing an onboard camera to collect a full 360 panoramic view. With the right video software, the Samara MAV could provide extremely detailed and virtual 3D images of its environment. With its small size, thousands could be deployed in an area at relatively low cost.

The following video gives an awesome history of how the Samara MAV, feel free to rock out.

In this second clip Ulrich discusses a few of the advantages of the MAV and its possible applications.

At the end of the second video, we see the view from an on board camera. Clearly that image would need to be processed (perhaps even taken with a different kind of a camera) in order to provide the panoramic observations I discussed above. Considering how quickly video technology advances however, I’m sure that the means to collect data from the MAV could be constructed rather soon, it if doesn’t exist already.

The Samara is such a unique flying vehicle that the way it works can seem confusing. A propeller and weight sit on either end of a beam which is attached to the end of the single wing. That beam isn’t an airfoil. Instead, it just provides the structural support to get the wing rotating. It’s the wing which provides all the lift. Variations in wing pitch (controlled by a motor) and changes in propeller force can each cause the monocopter to move up and down. An autopilot system already allows the Samara MAV to maintain its own vertical position. Horizontal movement is controlled by precisely timed variations in wing orientation and speed at desired points along the MAV’s rotation. There’ s a patent pending, and more information on the Samara’s flight can be found in this paper presented to the American Helicopter Society.

At first glance, the monocopter may seem like little more than a novelty. It’s small, only nine grams with no dimension longer than 15 cm, and it can only sustain about 10 minutes of flight. If it is fully developed, however, the Samara could become the model for easily deployable, perhaps even disposable, spy drones. Drop the MAV from on high and let it auto-rotate down like a maple seed, using its short battery life to steer it as needed, while it spins and collects full 360 degree views of a battlefield. Or make them out of decomposable materials and use them to survey huge fields of wilderness. Hook them up to the Internet of things and they become invaluable, all-seeing monitors. The possibilities are there, though it is likely to take a long time to bring them to fruition. That’s alright, Ulrich’s been working on this thing for almost four years, what’s a few more?

[screen capture and video credits: Ulrich/University of Maryland as Robo Seed on YouTube]
[source: Project 9 Robotic Samara, Journal of the American Helicopter Society, AIAA Journal of Aircraft]

Want to build your own quad-copter? DIY Drones is the place to go.

So apparently building a military style drone is a do-it-yourself project now. DIY Drones is an online community that helps the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) enthusiast construct their own flying gizmos in their home. It’s the brainchild of Chris Anderson, Wired‘s Editor in Chief. Complete with store, forums, blogs, and lots of helpful instructions, DIY Drones is the place to go if you want your own UAV to buzz your neighbor’s cat. They’ve got some impressive hardware, and it’s all open source. That’s right, you can build, modify, refine, and share anything you build from DIY Drones. We’ve got some great videos of these UAVs in action, check them out after the break.

The armed forces of the world are relying increasingly upon UAVs to gather information in the field. The US military has so many drones in the air they’re having a hard time processing all the data. These UAVs are going to get more numerous and easier to control. We’ve already seen one military drone that will be controllable via iPhone. Funny thing is, there’s also a commercial equivalent of that unarmed UAV which is almost as sophisticated as the military one. That’s why these amateur DIY Drone projects really caught my eye. No, they aren’t military grade, but its amazing to see the open source hardware version of a military technology. Many of these drones can travel fairly long distances and altitudes, they have GPS guidance, they can fly unaided, some are equipped with cameras…these things are seriously cool. I’m not the only one who thinks so. While DIY Drones has only been around since 2007, they’re already one of the dozen or so open source hardware collectives with revenues around $1 million a year.

Of course, the majority of projects on DIY Drones aren’t made to impress so much as they are made to include. Chris Anderson has really aimed at providing access to some of the cheapest, easiest to build, and easiest to manage UAVs out there. He wants to bring robotics to the masses…and to the air. That’s really great. Having a range of projects, a variety of entry points, is very appealing. Newcomers can plop down $100 and get a really cool aircraft to fly around with their kids. Serious enthusiasts can tap into the wider open source hardware community and help improve and refine the quality of these UAVs.

One of the more interesting aircraft at DIY Drones is the BlimpDuino. It’s a flying balloon with an Arduino board controlling its propulsion and navigation. You can buy a complete kit for just $90:

For those who like more traditional craft, DIY Drone has plenty of airplanes as well. And these aren’t simply model craft – they have autopilots, GPS tracking, and lots of other computerized/robotic components. I was really impressed by Anderson’s UAV he built using Lego Mindstorms to enable its autopilot. Pretty cool:

For those who like ‘copters:

Anderson gave a great speech at Maker Faire 2009 that gives an overview of DIY Drones. At 27 minutes it’s a little long but worth a watch if you’re thinking of getting into amateur UAV construction. Definitely check out some of his “missions” above Google and Lawrence Berkeley starting at 7:50:

Open source is all about granting access to everyone. Sometimes that access is aimed at accelerating research (as with Willow Garage and ROS), but sometimes that access is aimed at simply allowing more people to participate. That’s what DIY Drones really seems to be about. With a limited budget, extra time on the weekends, and a lot enthusiasm, anyone can join in the robotic revolution by building and commanding their own aircraft. That’s very appealing, and DIY Drones may help build interest in the growing field of UAVs. We’ll need that interest and expertise to fuel continuing innovation in what is growing to be one of the dominate technologies in the modern military. We’ll also need that expertise when the robots take over and we have to fight for our lives against Air Penguins.

[image credit: DIYDrones]
[video credits: Chris Anderson, Fora.TV]
[source: DIYDrones, Chris Anderson Blog at DIYDrones]

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).

The proof of concept tests were done with a commercially available four-rotor spy drone called a micro aerial vehicel (MAV). The drone only cost about $5000 and flew well inside the MIT robotics range. Watching the ease at which the operator controls the MAV it is hard to believe that HAL got the project from conception to demonstration in just six weeks!

It’s kind of crazy what a simple iPhone app can do. Besides manual control, the iPhone operator can cue in locations that he or she wants the drone to travel to called waypoints. There are single touch keys for launch and landing, and streaming video appears right inside the app. All this and the phone can still receive calls, texts, etc.

If the military decides to pick up HAL’s work, it will drastically lighten the load of soldiers in the field and allow them an easier way to manage their drones. Certainly the application could be modified so that a single iPhone could serve as a control for several different drones on collaborative missions.

Outside of the military, commercial drones could find more popularity with the ease of use promised by an iPhone application. In the final video, we see how the MAV can explore a new region with a high level of autonomy using a webcam and laser range finder. That’s good news for everyone from cave explorers, to security guards, to rescue workers. We’re bound to see more people using light weight and simple drones in important roles in the years to come. After all, iPhone now has an App for that.

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:

The video shows the tailless prototype progress through different phases of testing, emerging from a cocoon of research to be a fully functioning, free flying vehicle of terror.  The video begins with tethered flight, showing that the NAV system is capable of turning.  Being one of the few things that hummingbirds actually do, it is a great start for the fledgling system.  And, as Ron Popeil would say, “but wait, there’s more”: the testing continues, showing in slow motion the hummingbird-like wings flapping wildly through the air.  The NAV can even hover, mimicking yet another thing that hummingbirds can do in real life.

Really, this robot is capable of almost anything but sucking nectar from a plant.  It is an astonishing sight to behold, as the strange but endearing engineer standing at the helm makes the “mercury” prototype float through the room.  That, however, begs the question, where is this going to go next?

The NAV could be outfitted with surveillance equipment and used to spy at long range upon some of the harshest guerrillas, drug lords and dictators of South America with them being none the wiser.  Sure, there are probably other ways to go about it, but none have the style or pizazz that a robotic spying hummingbird would.  Even so, there is definitely more to this little hummingbot than just surveillance duty.  Who knows where the technology will go, but the progress with these tiny flying vehicles is simply astounding.  Still not amazed?  Take a look at one of our old favories, the robotic butterfly:

The only question is what’s next for DARPA?  Mattel already tried the broomstick from Harry Potter with disastrous results.  Perhaps GM should consider making their cars transform.  Maybe then they’d sell one or two.

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