13 ms·
Drones that can haul a 20-pound load for 500 miles and land on a moving target
- daveguy 8y agoTechnology like this is why The Wall is a waste of money when it comes to deterring drug trafficking.
- beagle3 8y agoThe technology world progresses as an arms race. I'm quite sure that when these things are used to traffic drugs, a small version of [0] will be used to stop them. [0] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/neqvag/the-us-navy-bought-its-first-big-laser-cannon https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/neqvag/the-us-nav...
- candiodari 8y agoHeh, that's cute. The issue with that is that locating UAV's that are, say 50 meters above the deck, more than 1km from your detector is essentially impossible. Without a VERY dense detection infrastructure, catching these things is not going to happen. Furthermore even though these lasers are very cheap, by army norms, to fire, they're still 600$ or so for a single shot. So shooting down drones will be expensive. Far more expensive than the drones themselves. Third. Defense against a laser is easy (a mirror, essentially, though you need to know the frequency to get an effective one). I must say that I don't know why you'd try to defend a drone. I'd try to hide it, since that's so easy. And while a rules-based autopilot is easy to disrupt using jamming, a learned autopilot is essentially impossible to fool into crashing. Maybe you can divert it, I guess.
- beagle3 8y ago> Without a VERY dense detection infrastructure, catching these things is not going to happen. Not really, Where it matters, radars have been deployed that can easily find those things. I've seen live demonstrations in the mid 1980s (as in, a system protecting borders), and I bet the state of the art has advanced since then. IIRC it was a SAR system, but I'm not sure. > Furthermore even though these lasers are very cheap, by army norms, to fire, they're still 600$ or so for a single shot. So shooting down drones will be expensive. Far more expensive than the drones themselves. There are newer, weaker versions that are at ~$1/shot, that would still likely take down your average drone. Also, even $600 is not "far more" expensive than a modern drone that can carry things across the border; It is slightly more expensive, but (relatively speaking), super cheap and, since it is energy, fungible (that is, you don't spend it until you spend it, unlike e.g. missiles which have to be ready long beforehand) > Defense against a laser is easy (a mirror, essentially, though you need to know the frequency to get an effective one). I must say that I don't know why you'd try to defend a drone. I'd try to hide it, since that's so easy. That's the popular belief, but it is not actually true. A perfect mirror such as would be required would cost today significantly more than the drone itself, as in x10 to x100, if it is at all feasible (You can't have sharp edges, you likely need glass). It is currently infeasible to mirror-cover missiles or rockets that cost a lot more than the drone, and the problems are (mostly) not about the projectile speed or heat. > And while a rules-based autopilot is easy to disrupt using jamming, a learned autopilot is essentially impossible to fool into crashing. Maybe you can divert it, I guess. Lasers can blind cameras even better than they do human eyes. What sensors is this autopilot going to depend on when it is vision and GPS blinded?
- woodman 8y ago> I've seen live demonstrations in the mid 1980s (as in, a system protecting borders), and I bet the state of the art has advanced since then. Yup, long stare SAR hooked up to a DVR was a thing over 10 years ago - it could cover a lot of ground (like a large Iraqi city) with a resolution that would easily detect this drone.
- candiodari 8y agoAre these the overhead not-quite-satellites you're talking about ? That would require a drone every 5 km or so. Not - one drone. A drone in the air 24/7 every 5km for a border ~2000 km long.
- beagle3 8y agoThe system I saw 30 years ago were more ground based and covered tens to hundreds of KMs. But even if you need a drone every 5km (you don't). That's all of 400 drones, 800 if you want to have pairs doing charge-work duty. For an 2000km border guarding operation, that's really not much. An order of magnitude or two cheaper than the fence they would guard.
- candiodari 8y agoHow did that ground based system solve the horizon problem ? Drones don't fly very high, so you'd need one of these systems, say at 50 meters drone height, ~ every 50km. That's probably worse than those drones watching from above, seeing as you'd need actual infrastructure at every interval. And, that'd be fixed infrastructure, with fixed blind spots.
- beagle3 8y agoI don't know exactly how it worked (beyond IIRC that it was a SAR = Synthetic Aperature Radar), but I know for sure that it worked perfectly well.
- 8y ago
- MikkoFinell 8y ago> Furthermore even though these lasers are very cheap, by army norms, to fire, they're still 600$ or so for a single shot. So shooting down drones will be expensive. Far more expensive than the drones themselves. What is the approximate cost of allowing the drone in?
- zdkl 8y agoDepends if we assume they're smuggling or dropping explosives/something dirty.
- MikkoFinell 8y agoSuppose they are smuggling narcotics.
- candiodari 8y agoOkay, since economics has extensively studied the effect of narcotics on the economy (which is positive, or to put it another way: people will work, even fight, for drugs), we can clearly establish that the cost of missing a shipment is negative. For the economy, it is actually better to miss the shipment than to catch it.
- MikkoFinell 8y agoSo allowing Mexican cartels to smuggle and sell, for example, heroin has a positive economic effect on society? I have to admit that's a fresh perspective.
- candiodari 8y agoBut you neglect to take into account the perspective I mentioned. Heroin certainly makes money go round and therefore helps GDP. We just, as a society, have decided that the social cost is not worth it.
- aphextron 8y ago>Furthermore even though these lasers are very cheap, by army norms, to fire, they're still 600$ or so for a single shot. So shooting down drones will be expensive. Far more expensive than the drones themselves. Where are you getting that $600 number? The laser in the article quoted is 150kW, which firing for a fraction of a second would be no more than a few dollars electricity.
- icelancer 8y agoCatapults alone are good enough technology to prove why the wall is an idiotic idea. The wall is an effigy anyway for Trump, while he may actually believe that it's a good idea, that's not how it functions in reality. It's an anchor, a symbol, a thing to point to that combats illegal immigration and is a symbol of nationalism. Now Trump might actually think it's a good idea - and I actually think he does - so that's absurd. But realistically it operates as a political beacon, and one that's quite effective.
- candiodari 8y agoApparently, indeed: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/15/us/marijuana-catapult-trnd/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/15/us/marijuana-catapult-trn...
- ShorsHammer 8y agoJamming drones is easier than you think, the new battleground will be autonomous flying to avoid trivial radio/gps jamming. MIT has open source code for this already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qah8oIzCwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qah8oIzCwk https://github.com/andybarry/flight https://github.com/andybarry/flight
- a012 8y agoI'm no expert but how autonomous works if there's no positioning methods involved? (To avoid GPS/GLONASS,... Jamming)
- microcolonel 8y agoFused dead reckoning can work, especially if you mix camera and IMU (or more than one IMU!).
- candiodari 8y agoSee the paper, but TLDR: stereo video depth sensing combined with fading previous measurements (so if you detected an obstacle at 1 o'clock, 2 meters out 1 second ago, it is now very likely at 2 o'clock, 1.3 meters out. This way you can limit yourself to just detecting things 2 meters out)
- pjc50 8y agoCruise missiles have an optical terrain-following system, that would be a viable approach for drones.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThey use radar. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERCOM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERCOM
- omegant 8y agoInertial navigation and maps.
- 8y ago
- blfr 8y agoI doubt this is true. There is a readily available technology for beating greylisting for example. Any semi-configured mail server can do it. Yet greylisting alone stops majority of spam. I expect the same effect for drug or people trafficking. While no barrier will stop everyone, and there are already drones and submarines designed for crossing well-protected borders, even fairly simple obstacles will stop or deter the majority of traffickers.
- ferongr 8y agoYou can shoot at drones with impunity, unlike people that you have to feed, house, process and eventually extradict if that's even possible.
- simonh 8y agoShe the whole wall is going to be manned with anti-drone squads? If you’re manning the border, why do you need such a huge wall? Wouldn’t a fence provide better visibility?
- noir_lord 8y agoFence and tethered ballons with sensor packages underneath every few miles. You have issues with weather affecting coverage but it would be a lot cheaper than a massive ineffective wall.
- simonh 8y agoSo now we have hundreds of monitors checking wobbly camera images all the time trying to spot tiny drones in all weather and all times of day. How often do balloons need refilling? Aren’t balloons highly visible and extremely vulnerable? Has anything like this ever even been tried in practice?
- timmaah 8y agoBeen tried and working for decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System
- simonh 8y agoThat's a high altitude aircraft defence system. We're discussing low altitude terrain level drones the size of a shoebox operating up to maybe 100m altitude, just enough to pop up over the wall. Air defence radar like that is going to be completely useless for this.
- spodek 8y ago> Technology like this is why The Wall is a waste of money when it comes to deterring drug trafficking. One of many many reasons. While it's sufficient, it's far from the top of the list.
- state_less 8y agoThe war on drugs has been a big self inflicted wound. Including building a billions dollar wall to supposedly keep drugs (and people) out. If we sold the real thing under the prescription of a doctor or nurse technician, you wouldn’t fuel drug lords, deadly look-a-like drugs, deadly cutting agents and overdoses due to potency variability. That’s a better way to manage drug use than putting up walls and laws and pretending criminality matters to a dependent drug addicts.
- dghughes 8y agoYou know it's funny with the way it is in the US I see it more as you walling yourself in than keeping others out. We gunless, pot smoking, socialized medicine, immigrant accepting countries are on the "outside". I do say that with tongue in cheek.
- cyrux004 8y agoIt makes me happy to see that people are venturing out and building something that takes longer and has a higher failure rate that web apps/software.
- manigandham 8y agoPeople have been doing that for a very long time. This isn't new.
- icelancer 8y agoThe man who gets the most press in the tech community is trying to launch rockets to Mars and build electric supercars and networks that cost ludicrous amounts of money. Whether you think these ideas are any good or not, people are doing large things in our society. It ain't all web apps.
- djsumdog 8y agoHe did start with web apps though (PayPal).
- tim333 8y agoWell, zip2 then x.com then PayPal. Also sold some program when he was 12 pre the web. Here's some video of him after the zip2 sale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHKT3yxYvDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHKT3yxYvDQ
- SimbaOnSteroids 8y agoThat was adorable. Coincidentally he completely totaled that car on Sand Hill Road with Peter Thiel on a trip to a meeting at Sequoia Capital[0]. [0] https://www.inverse.com/article/26369-elon-musk-peter-thiel-story-mclaren-f1-paypal-tesla https://www.inverse.com/article/26369-elon-musk-peter-thiel-...
- agumonkey 8y agoYIL about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_West_Field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_West_Field
- SCAQTony 8y agoFine and dandy when flying over a desert but when the drone meets the city and an "autopilot" failure occurs over a freeway/highway/street or someone's head the consequences will be unforgivable.
- arvind3199 8y agoSimple solution - mandate that drones are implemented with a parachute system, it's already being done on prop planes (cirrus)
- gaius 8y agoA 20lb weight can kill a person from a far lower altitude than a parachute could meaningfully slow its descent. Parachutes aren’t magic.
- snovv_crash 8y agoHelicopters also have this "death zone" where an engine failure would not allow them to autorotate and have a controlled landing. And helicopters are a lot bigger and heavier.
- JetSpiegel 8y agoMosr cities don't have thousands of helicopters zipping by autonomously above our heads.
- mistermann 8y agoI wonder if an issue could be detected in most cases and the drone could immediately seek a safe landing, say on a building rooftop.
- sumoboy 8y agoProgram a better flight path to avoid people. How is it refueled after landing hundreds of miles away?
- arvind3199 8y agoAdmirable, sets a timeline for instant delivery systems
- nordsieck 8y agoOf all the things I think this will really impact, I think food delivery and fresh ingredient delivery will be near the top of the list.
- onion2k 8y agoIt's a little sad that people's first thoughts about tech like this is "It can bring me goods faster than FedEx!" That's such a trivial thing to use it for. Emergency deliveries in rural areas are where this will be most useful. Getting medicine and mechanical parts to remote places during crisises is hard.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoI think the simple economics of it would completely rule out this being used for 'fresh groceries' ... or rather only to people who want to pay 10x for their groceries. My bet: the military/security/coast guard, for far off service posts (like when they put hydro wires way out in the middle of nowhere), offshore Oil, and for very specific things (i.e. medical equipment) for remote communities.
- THE_PUN_STOPS 8y agoRead the article. The founder was an operations guy at Tesla and specifically did the numbers to justify the company based on the need of Tesla parts supply. There is room for this in the supply chain of many firms. There’s a lot of industries where waiting for something can be very expensive.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoI worked in a Fortune 50 consumer electronics company, sitting right next to our procurement team. It's not my field and I'm not an expert but I know enough to be wary of a founder who makes such claims, moreover, there's enough data available to piece together what would work and not without having to accept anyone's claims on it. Most companies and their parts suppliers are in cities, wherein there are any number of efficient modes of transportation - to the point wherein 'a drone' wouldn't even make logical sense, let alone economic. There's going to be a considerable overhead associated with operating them - control centers, NOCs, etc. etc. so it might very well be that the 'lack of a human' is the real differentiating factor, i.e. safety, risk. Nobody is going to be flying 'fresh ingredients' anywhere on those drones, there are regular planes for that as well. So the use case of 'landing on a moving sheep' is probably right up their alley: it's remote, far, and landing on a moving ship is very dangerous. So it might be the killer use case for something like this. Remember the ship would have to be fitted with a permanent lading spot, trained crew etc. etc. so it would have to be used for something needed consistently.
- jmickey 8y agoAerones have developed a drone that can haul a human - https://www.aerones.com/eng/news/?text_id=18 https://www.aerones.com/eng/news/?text_id=18
- Rzor 8y agoThat's not how sexy I imagined fulton recovery drone tech. Man, Batman Begins and MGSV sure spoiled me.
- asynchronous13 8y agoso did i :-) We logged a lot of hours with a person onboard who didn't touch the controls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7SjOOuTct0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7SjOOuTct0
- Hasz 8y agoThat's really neat. It looks like the company is defunct -- what happened?
- asynchronous13 8y agoYeah, some founder conflicts right when things were getting good. I've been able to leverage the experience to keep doing cool things though :-)
- CaptainJustin 8y agoThis reminds me of Passerine Aircraft. I believe they are also attempting to take advantage of runway-less takeoff and fixed-wing flight (more efficient than four fans pressing down). https://passerineaircraft.com/ https://passerineaircraft.com/ Am I correct in understanding that Volans-i has two propulsion systems?
- haberman 8y agoWhat 20 pound load could have saved the Titanic? Why wouldn't such a miraculous tool or part have been brought aboard already as a precaution?
- infraruby 8y agoBinoculars.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoor coffee for the watchers :)
- kalleboo 8y agoMaybe a gigantic one of these? https://youtu.be/0xzN6FM5x_E?t=9 https://youtu.be/0xzN6FM5x_E?t=9
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoAt the time, probably nothing. At best they could have sent out life jackets or something similar, though I don't know how much they weighed at the time. But if that happened today, we could minimally start getting inflatable lifeboats out to the people, supplementing afterwards with blankets for heat, life preservers, food, and so on. If you kept some on the ship in a slightly similar tragedy, the drones could offship as the sinking is happening and then immediately deliver goods to survivors. This last option seems more useful.
- haser_au 8y agohttps://www.amazon.com/Sevylor-Colossus-2-Person-Inflatable-Boat/dp/B0032GT9X8 https://www.amazon.com/Sevylor-Colossus-2-Person-Inflatable-... Weight: 9.5 pounds each. They're not for long term use, but it would have kept people out of the water until proper rescue boats arrived. Obviously these didn't exist back in 1912, but then again, neither did these drones.
- alkonaut 8y agoSo basically every terror org on the planet have crude off the shelf 500mile cruise missiles now.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Tepix 8y agoThey've had this for 15 years already, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Simpson_(blogger)#DIY_Cruise_Missile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Simpson_(blogger)#DIY_Cr...
- alkonaut 8y agoFair, but that's built with off the shelf parts, not an off the shelf device (He didn't actually mass produce it I assume?). In the article is a device you can unpack from the store, and then have it go 500 miles with 20lb bomb within minutes. I find more frightening than the fact that it's possible with the right skills to build something like it.
- perl4ever 8y agoThe proof of concept has been around for a bit longer than that, it's just the guidance systems needed refinement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon
- tim333 8y agoLooks like cool tech. I wonder if they could do the same for a regular aircraft - put electrically driven propellers to lift it off the ground for a few seconds while it accelerates to above stall speed.
- Tepix 8y agoOnce this (cool) tech is commonplace (they already have competitors) these airborne drones will be a logistical and regulatory nightmare.
- avoutthere 8y agoNah, once there are established rules about which classes of aircraft use which altitudes, corridors, etc, it will be just like private aviation operating in the same sky as commercial airlines.
- Tepix 8y agoBut their numbers could be so much greater!
- orf 8y ago20 pounds = 9kg, for the rest of the world.
- merinowool 8y agoIf that is cocaine, then it is almost $1m of cargo.
- ttul 8y ago“Both have graduate degrees from Stanford, which is where they met.” So, basically the silver spoon of Silicon Valley. These guys have a shot!
- merinowool 8y agoIf I was a drug lord, this is something I would invest my money to.
- ryanmarsh 8y agoMy first thought was “oh they built a bomber”. Curious if drones with capabilities like this will start getting export restrictions.