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Engineers teach a drone to herd birds away from airports autonomously
- pmdulaney 8y agoThe word is "shoo".
- onemoresoop 8y agoshoo over a megaphone
- pluto9 8y agoI suspect the birds would eventually ignore the drones unless the drones are made to pose an actual physical threat to them. City pigeons are so accustomed to cars and humans that they barely move out of the way in time to avoid being crushed.
- onemoresoop 8y agoThe drones would chase the birds away. And in cases when the birds are to be sucked by a jet's engine the autonomous drone would follow suit
- pluto9 8y ago> The drones would chase the birds away. Chasing requires fleeing. If the bird knows from experience that the drone won't hurt him, then why would he flee from it?
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoBecause he's a bird?
- pluto9 8y agoIt is not obvious to me that a bird will flee from anything that approaches it, regardless of past experience, simply "because he's a bird". See above about city pigeons. Or aggressive geese at the park. Or birds that get sucked into jet engines because they apparently don't consider a jumbo jet to be an obstacle worth avoiding, hence this conversation.
- oh_sigh 8y agoEven city-dwelling pigeons have a personal space bubble that they will try to protect if possible. It may be just a foot or two but it is still there.
- pluto9 8y agoThe smaller that bubble gets, the greater the chance of a drone actually striking a bird, which could become a major legal liability [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migratory_Bird_Treaty_Act_of_1918 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migratory_Bird_Treaty_Act_of_1...
- oh_sigh 8y agoI'd imagine airports could get a waiver to pursue the birds for human safety. Airports are generally well acquainted with working with the government.
- TomMarius 8y ago> Or birds that get sucked into jet engines because they apparently don't consider a jumbo jet to be an obstacle worth avoiding, hence this conversation. The problem there is that the bird has no time to react. Planes are way faster and actually suck air.
- onemoresoop 8y agoChasing the birds in circles
- onemoresoop 8y agoOr maybe the drone could be equipped to zap birds with some small electrical charge. They'd learn the lesson quickly
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoAircraft have beacons to stop them flying into each other, I'm not sure why they wouldn't design the drones to be able to detect them.
- spacenick88 8y agoWell sheep have been herded by dogs for millennia and I think it's pretty rare that they actually hurt any sheep.
- pluto9 8y agoThose sheep are domesticated and a social hierarchy exists between them and a specific dog or group of dogs. I don't think we can look at that situation and extrapolate that a flock of wild birds will "obey" a random flying robot that they know to be nothing more than a harmless nuisance. Come to think of it, birds don't even make enough of an effort to avoid existing aircraft that are large, loud, and do pose a threat to them, which is why these drones are being developed in the first place.
- jdmichal 8y agoThere are several types of sheepdog, and some do nip at livestock to keep them motivated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herding_dog#Herding_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herding_dog#Herding_behavior
- severine 8y agoI'm resisting with great strength to clicking that link, but now I know it exists! Oh boy, there goes a future evening...
- chrisamiller 8y agoNot sure why this is grey - many animals adapt to their environments very quickly. If all the drones are doing is buzzing the birds, they may very well learn to ignore them.
- sandworm101 8y ago>> The passengers on Flight 1549 were only saved because the pilots were so skilled. Of course the engineering and planning that went into the aircraft's construction had nothing to do with it, nor did the countless government regulations dictating safety equipment and training. These sorts of "miracles" happen rather regularly. A plane crashes near a runway totaling the aircraft, but everyone walks away. Piloting is part of the equation, but pilots stand atop an enormous pyramid of other people each contributing to flight safety. See that flight in Canada that crashed but did not catch fire. A couple decades ago that would have ended very differently.
- ap3 8y agoall Airbus 320 will have the same safety mechanisms and industry required features, but they would have been useless without the pilotsquick response in the end Human interaction ends up being the wildcard
- sandworm101 8y agoThere are also many natural wildcards. In water landings, where you hit the wave makes a huge difference. On land, it is trees and ground features. A good pilot can maximize the odds, but there is always a huge amount of luck.
- brailsafe 8y agoWith some regularity, I encounter people who work either around pilots or on planes and consistently attempt to disqualify pilots from praise, no matter how insignificant that is to the context of the conversation. As if I would need to comment on any of Elon Musk's success to mention that his success would not have been had without the countless engineers and layers of automative tech that he's building upon. These being implicit details, and the people in those positions more than likely choosing them with no expectation that they'd be a figurehead. Now, I only get a little of that from your comment, just enough to remind me of this impression. Where does the tacit resentment come from? Anyone else experience this?
- 8y ago
- maltalex 8y agoWhat’s worse - sucking in a bird into a jet engine or a bird-scaring drone?
- WilliamEdward 8y agoBefore they used drones they used hawks to hunt other birds. Never really heard of this being a problem even then.
- onemoresoop 8y agoHaha, same thought here. I think the drone would be way worse. I really don't think this is the best idea though it could work until a disaster happens.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThe bird scaring drone can be programed to stay clear of planes. The birds can't
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- maltalex 8y agoBirds are already programmed for that. It's called self preservation. Airplanes are huge chunks of metal that make a deafening roar. Grown men are rightly afraid of coming near one.
- mschuster91 8y ago> Birds are already programmed for that. It's called self preservation. Not exactly. Bird strikes are a huge problem especially in "congested" environments, aka humans sealing up more and more former forest/agricultural land with concrete... and thus forcing the birds to airports as they usually have spacious amounts of grass land with ample space for insects. There's a reason why bird strikes are most prevalent in city airports, simply because the birds don't have anywhere else to go. Worst case IIRC was the plane that emergency-landed in an NYC river due to colliding with an entire flock of geese.
- ap3 8y agoWonder if this can be used to move bird flocks away from wind-turbines ?
- WiseWeasel 8y agoIt might be cheaper to enclose the blades' path in cages, or add more (possibly dummy) blades to make the path appear more filled, if that's been a problem. Maybe a ring around the tips of the blades, and the blades double as spokes. They'd be ugly, but birds would fly into them less, and power output would get slightly smoothed by the weight shifted to the exterior of the wind wheel.
- DenisM 8y agoIt's a non-existing problem tho: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-farms-bird-slayers-theyre-behere.html https://phys.org/news/2017-06-farms-bird-slayers-theyre-behe...
- inamberclad 8y agoI don't think pilots would be entirely opposed to this kind of tech. While I don't think many pilots trust drone operators to be responsible in any way (I don't, since I don't think many of them know the airspace system or where their nearby airports are), they might be okay with unmanned aerial systems operated by the local airport authority, since they could likely geofence them in such a manner that they'd never cross paths with an aircraft. That said, low level wake turbulence from one of these aircraft could probably still wreck the drone if it carried off the side of the runway. However, I doubt this would stop another near-disaster like Cactus 1549. They hit geese on climbout at nearly 3000 feet [0]. Thats pretty far outside of what a drone can enforce, or where I'd be comfortable having a drone flying. Current regulations prohibit them flying over 400 ft AGL, except within tight proximity to structures like radio towers. For background, I'm a private pilot, not an airline guy. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549#Takeoff_and_bird_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549#Takeoff...
- mhneu 8y agoProblem is downside risk: drones get hacked, or someone figures out how to make the drones fly into planes, or herd birds TOWARD planes. As a society we've been pretty cavalier about algorithmic control. Which can work well for a lot of things. But probably shouldn't be trusted (without a TON of validation and regulation, as we've done over decades with airliners) with controlling stuff that can injure people or damage societies.
- oh_sigh 8y agoYou can already do that with your own manually controlled drones(surprisingly, no one has done this yet). There is no need to hack the airports drones.
- RealityVoid 8y agoI think it's not surprising at all. After all, most people are sane individuals who are unwilling to pour time, money, effort and risk their life in order to simply cause suffering on other people. There simply isn't money in downing planes, so most people have no incentive to want to do it.
- sonofblah 8y agoBird scientists are already devising countermeasures.
- trhway 8y agolooks like it can be an effective crowd [of humans] control tool.
- bigtech 8y agoYouTube video that includes a trial run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwCPeIwumgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwCPeIwumgc
- geuis 8y agoInteresting. But I’m getting tired of hearing the misuse of “teaching” in regards to software engineering. Unless the software is using machine learning, i.e neural networks, it’s not teaching. Genetic algorithm? Evolving. Anything else, programming.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hirundo 8y agodrone learning curve ... 14 shoo birds ... 47 deliver tacos ... 7,323 fold fitted sheet 7,324 herd cats 7,325 self replicate 7,326 conquer humans
- shawn 8y agohttp://tacocopter.com http://tacocopter.com
- stephengillie 8y agoAre taco copters a greater innovation than the burrito hyperloop? http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_t...
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIs it September already?
- guelo 8y agoConsidering 15 minute flight time, 2 hour battery recharging time, and several miles runway circumference, I guestimate you would need around a 100-200 drone system to maintain constant surveillance around a medium size airport.
- crazysim 8y agoYou can probably cut that down a bit by doing a robotic battery replacement mechanism.
- mbrameld 8y agoWere those numbers in the article? Consumer drones already beat those numbers by half, I'd be surprised if purpose-built equipment would take a step backwards in battery technology. Also, why would you need that many drones instead of swapping batteries? I feel like I'm missing something, what do you know that I don't?
- Varcht 8y agoSome of the newer Lipo battery formulations can be charged at 15C or even higher, this allows for sub 3-4 minute charge times. For flight time you may be on the low side but close depending on how taxing it is herding birds, they can hover around for quite a bit longer but fast quick maneuvers take their toll.
- tristanb 8y agoyou don't need a quad/octo copter to do this, it could be a winged aircraft, and those are several orders of magnitude more efficient.
- bArray 8y agoThe technology is still young clearly, but: 1. Drones don't need to always be flying. Flocks of birds turn up on radar quite a lot and I don't see some early detection system for birds as impossible. 2. The flight paths for migrating birds can be predicted, reducing the need for a high presence in some directions. 3. 15 minutes of flight time is low, with some super big LiPo batteries for high performance drones you're easily getting an hour. The benefit of these large batteries is that they can be charged quickly too (charge rate based on power offered). 4. They are relatively fail safe, if the drones stop functioning you just go back to not having any real support. 5. It's likely that with some additional work, they could work on calculating the conditions that cause flocks of birds to fly towards scary sounding planes. I imagine it to be quite likely that they will only fly from certain directions given wind conditions, etc.
- pinebox 8y agoGuess this dog needs to start retraining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QxZv_wJ1aA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QxZv_wJ1aA
- tolien 8y agoGot some bad news on that front: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/piper-dead-dog-airport-michigan-brian-edwards-top-gun-shades-runways-traverse-city-prostate-cancer-a8146171.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/piper-dead-dog-airport-mi...
- artur_makly 8y agoits starts with the innocuous birds..and then ends up herding people between flights...and protests.
- sytelus 8y agoThis very much smells like fluff piece. Tech for obstacle avoidance is not yet mature to the level where it would be safe to have autonomous drones near bird path and potential busy air traffic. Add battery restrictions, wind, weather etc and you get nice vaporware demo.
- jhabdas 8y agoWhat happens when the pilots come to depend on the vaporware and are no longer skilled enough to land in their own? Or when they run the avoidable risk of colliding with drones as opposed to a flock of geese?
- prawn 8y agoMy off-the-shelf $1k drone can fly fine in heavy wind and light rain. With minor mods, it could probably handle heavier rain too. Any wind it can't handle is going to discourage birds too.
- jeffreybezos 8y agoThis could also be used at landfills to scare away seagulls.
- Razengan 8y agoUnless eating from landfills harms the seagulls, why? What precious things are the seagulls taking from landfills, and why do we need landfills to remain perfectly preserved?
- jeffreybezos 8y agoThe seagulls eat the refuse then comtaminate the water supply with their feces.
- Razengan 8y agoI still don't understand your reasoning. Do you want seagulls to not eat, never eat? Do you want seagulls to be killed? Is the water supply adjacent to the landfills? Will the seagulls not poop in the water supply if they didn't eat from landfills, or is pooping in the water supply not a problem as long as the seagulls haven't eaten from a landfill?
- jeffreybezos 8y agohttps://www.ocregister.com/2013/02/25/falcons-hawk-keep-gulls-away-from-dump/ https://www.ocregister.com/2013/02/25/falcons-hawk-keep-gull...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Kagerjay 8y agoOn an unrelated topic, I wonder if they could use drones to change bird migration patterns? For instance, in Rome during Fall Season there are thousands of birds that fly by the city, taking nearby shelter in trees. It was awful walking down roadways, floor was slippery and poop was everywhere