Posted on 11/23/2012 2:32:41 PM PST by Seizethecarp
This great talk, given yesterday (2/29/12) at TED, is now live. I was here and the crowd was wowed. Check out the lovely math on simplifying the 12-dimensional math to 4 dimensions at around the 5:00 mark,
(Excerpt) Read more at diydrones.com ...
These quadrocopters can enter and navigate a building and using laser sensors construct the floorplan/blueprint and transmit it back to the groundstation.
They forgot the 13th dimension.
Time!
“How I Accidentally Kickstarted the Domestic Drone Boom”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/ff_drones/all/
Meanwhile, the brain of an autopilotthe embedded computer, or single-chip microprocessor, that steers the plane based on input from all the sensorshas undergone an even more impressive transformation, thanks to the rise of the smartphone. Once Apples iPhone showed that fluid and fast visual interfaces on touchscreens were what people wanted, the same insatiable demand for computational power that kicked in with the graphical user interface of desktop computers came to phones. But unlike the desktop, these mini supercomputers also needed to use as little power as possible. The result was a shift to the hyperefficient reduced instruction set computing architecturesled by British chip designer ARM, which now dominates the single-chip industrydriving the performance gains of our smartphones and tablets. As it turns out, these chips are also perfect for drones: Fast and power-efficient processors mean that they can go beyond simply following a preprogrammed mission and start to think for themselves.
And the smartphone-drone connection goes far beyond the processors. These days, a standard smartphone has a full suite of sophisticated inertial sensors to detect its position, a feature thats integrated into everything from games to maps and augmented reality. The demand for higher-quality cameras in phones has launched a similar revolution in image-capture chips, which are used in drones. The need for smaller, better GPS in phones has brought the same technology to drones, too, such that GPS performance that cost tens of thousands of dollars in the 1990s can be had for as little as $10 in a thumbnail-sized device. The same goes for wireless radio modules, memory, and batteries.
In short, this new generation of cheap, small drones is essentially a fleet of flying smartphones. More and more, autopilot electronics look just like smartphone electronics, simply running different software. The technical and economic advantages of coattailing on the economies of scale of the trillion-dollar mobile-phone industry are astounding. If you want to understand why the personal-drone revolution is happening now, look no farther than your pocket.
Behind the scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfxS6QBheGo
target practice drones
Some language caution real aviator men won't mind
Just amazing. (Just wait until they stop obeying commands and begin talking back defiantly.)
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0012572/quotes -A discussion regarding G’ar’s prosthetic eye ~ certainly as farsighted as the portable computer in Naked Lunch - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/ (a movie about same) ~ first published in 1959!
This is cool technology. I fear, however, what Big Brother might decide to do with it.
for later
If you watch closely, the opening of the video has a picture of Manbearpig(Algore) on stage...TED motto: “ideas worth spreading”.
I disagree.
Bump.....
It definitely has military, law enforcement, and surveillance applications. I can see police and feds using them to peek into windows, and plant bugs to listen to people.
Visualize the reaction of Hamas when a few thousand of these come swarming into Gaza, with video and laser-designating capabilities, ready to point out targets for bigger, armed UAVs.
Thanks for the link about the helicopter plucking the RC plane off the treetop. My daughter’s boyfriend told me about this story when I was in Tucson for Thanksgiving.
THAT'S a true, hold m'beer .. watch this
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