11 ms·

A swarm of micro-quadcopters

167 points by m_for_monkey 15y ago

theon144 15y ago
Very cool, but notice what kind of room they fly in - they're using cameras to control the quadcopters, they're not autonomous, which means that if you put them outside, they wouldn't work. Still, pretty damn impressive.
- gbrindisi 15y ago
  Using a gyroscope, gps, accelerometer and some other sensors is not a difficult step to perform.
  - gallamine 15y ago
    Actually ... that would be a very difficult step to perform. The room they fly in has a very expensive, sophisticated, high-speed motion capture system that gives a global picture of the placement of each vehicle. The data is then feed to a bank of computers for real-time processing. There's a reason they only show videos in that one room. The data from individual sensors would be very noisy.
  - baddox 15y ago
    I completely disagree. None of those sensors would likely give anywhere near the accuracy, frame rate, or context of the current system. Also, there is the issue of where the computation is done. It seems obvious to me that the intended goal is a decentralized system, where every vehicle is autonomous and creates an internal model of its own surroundings. As best I can tell, in the current system all the computation and dispatching so instructions is done by a single centralized external computer (the one the external cameras are attached to).
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - yoos 15y ago
      Personally, I've operated accelerometers and gyros at 200 Hz after some low-pass filtering, which is really all you need for this application. I'm sure there are sensors that operate at even higher frequencies if need be. The GPS module doesn't have to be updated too fast (maybe 10 Hz?) because it only serves to correct for horizontal drift. I run the 100 Hz flight control loop for my tricopter on an ATmega1280 clocked at 16 MHz. A _lot_ more could be done with something like the Beagleboard, including generating a 3D map of the surroundings if I mounted a Kinect on it. I want to agree about the decentralized operation because there would be so many wireless signals that could interfere, but those guys seem to be controlling 20 quadrotors without problems. I know XBees can be configured to communicate on different channels, but decentralized operation will most likely require something beefier like wifi (and that, I don't know how to configure to work over so many different channels).
      - Qworg 15y ago
        The wireless becomes the issue then, as the network effect quickly takes over. Sensing at high speed with bad sensors and low power/computation is really tough.
      - theon144 15y ago
        Even in best case scenario, I'm not sure GPS would be accurate enough, as it's only accurate down to few centimeters, you'd probably need more if you'd like to perform that kind of acrobatics as shown in the video. And what about the height? You could of course use GPS, but apparently (http://users.erols.com/dlwilson/gpsvert.htm http://users.erols.com/dlwilson/gpsvert.htm), average consumer devices have error of few meters. Maybe we could use laser range finders pointed at the ground, but what if the quadcopter tilts? Or what if another quadcopter flies underneath it? Of course it's not unsolvable, but it'd probably require more computing power in the quadcopter. What do you think?
        baddox 15y ago
        I think LIDAR is the most likely solution. With enough resolution, you could get a reasonable 3D map of the vehicle's surroundings with a very accurate relative model of where the vehicle is located.
  - jakevoytko 15y ago
    It's pretty hard. This assumes the existing radio links can handle the extra bandwidth. I don't see a WiFi card, so they may use radios with low-baud serial connections. Maybe the radios are good enough that doubling the radio communications is fine. Now, all the new hardware means extra draw (and potentially extra batteries) on each quadrotor. They might fly with this extra weight, but it won't be nearly as long. Also, indoor flying means no GPS. In this case, using accelerometers means something is dead-reckoning the position of each quadrotor. There's no more space/power for processing juice, so the external system must do this. Now the external system must take this localized data from each quadrotor and place it in some global coordinate system (how does it do that?). It will use dead-reckoning to determine the position of each quadrotor. This means the system is accumulating errors over time, for each quadrotor. At least sailors could eventually correct their position with stars - there is no real global correction with these sensors. They could hypothetically do radio range estimation on the radio signals of the quadrotors, but who knows what kind of accuracy they will get. Now I remember why I left robotics :-)
    - rauar 15y ago
      In one of their papers they state that they use Zigbee modules for a 56kbit link.
    - jpk 15y ago
      > Also, indoor flying means no GPS. Correct. However, indoor positioning tech will likely come of age in the next 12-18 months driven by indoor mapping and navigation. Once that becomes commoditized, it'll make positioning a little aircraft like this in the x,y plane of a floorplan doable without dead-reckoning. From there, you could probably do some crude lidar to measure the distances above/below the craft to the ceiling/floor.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  There might still be some practical uses that do not require complete autonomy. I can imagine e.g. fleets of such quadrocopters flying inside buildings, tied to security cameras. Law enforcement would probably love this.
  - bwarp 15y ago
    ONLY law enforcement will love this. Everyone else will want to run to the hills.
orofino 15y ago
Every time a see a new quadcopter video, I wonder to myself how long before local law enforcement starts using them. I gratly fear a widely used, easily weaponized, remote controlled airforce that local enforcement officers can easily obtain.
- sp332 15y ago
  The Air Force already lets local cops borrow their Predator drones. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-a... These tiny drones are hard to arm, but they might be used for surveillance. Here's a more thorough report on the use of drones in the US: http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/report-protecting-privacy-aerial-surveillance-recommendations-government-use http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/report-protecting...
- povilas 15y ago
  In Lithuania: http://goo.gl/72S2R http://goo.gl/72S2R
- _djo_ 15y ago
  Surveillance drones were already used by the police in South Africa during the national elections back in 1994, in that case on loan from the Air Force. After further successful deployments in the years since, the SA Police Service is considering issuing an RFP for a small UAV fleet. Conceptually, surveillance-only UAVs are not dissimilar from police helicopters, which have been used for decades without massive privacy issues. In fact, when evaluating the option between acquiring a larger UAV platform or additional manned helicopters with high-end electro-optical camera gear for the Football World Cup, the local police went went for the helicopters as they performed better in that specific role and there was no cost saving. I don't see much chance of police departments weaponising UAVs any time soon either. Not only does it push up the cost significantly, but there are accuracy and liability issues that will take some time to sort out. At most I could see helicopter-based UAVs being used to drop tear-gas near crowds and even that's iffy.
  - regularfry 15y ago
xd 15y ago
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDmel http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDmel The "Aggressive Manoeuvres" videos remind me of something out of terminator.
- plessthanpt05 15y ago
  first thought exactly...just throw in a dash of skynet and, well, yup...
peregrine 15y ago
I wonder when they will implement the flocking behavior we see with birds and in boid algorithms. ex http://processing.org/learning/topics/flocking.html http://processing.org/learning/topics/flocking.html Obviously their will need to be a collision penalty but one would think this kind of behavior would be easy to do.
steve8918 15y ago
I very much would love to set up a bunch of these quadrocopters to circle my house and use them as security cameras. I'm not sure how long it would take for that, but if you could set up something like 20 of these, have them continuously rotate around the house perimeter, recording everything, and then come back to recharge with another one taking off, I think that would be pretty awesome.
- m_for_monkey 15y ago
  I think it's pretty paranoid. Why would you do that?
  - steve8918 15y ago
    For fun! I think it would be pretty cool project to program those drones, etc. I'm pretty sure the security benefits would be low, and like someone else said, kids throwing stuff at it would suck. But then you can program in counter measure, maybe a water cannon, etc...
    - dquigley 15y ago
      I've had similar thoughts. Another purpose your testing mobile security which you could potentially resell to businesses and eventually to the military. build a dependable prototype that you could resell to business that have storage units, and someone with a warehouse that needs security, or a museum even.
- rewind 15y ago
  I hope you don't have any kids with slingshots in your neighborhood. You just invented the best game ever.
  - m_for_monkey 15y ago
    Unless the drones can defend themselves...
th0ma5 15y ago
Anyone have some tips on the small components? Most of what I seem to find on the drone forums is about larger devices, maybe upwards of a foot and a half or two feet across.
- bri3d 15y ago
  http://wiki.openpilot.org/display/Doc/BumbleBee http://wiki.openpilot.org/display/Doc/BumbleBee this parts BOM (from HobbyKing, mostly, so it's cheap) gives you a basic idea of what you'd need. I built a similar quad using PCB milled on a homemade drill press for the center plate (rather than buying it laser cut).
ahelwer 15y ago
I enjoy how references to The Diamond Age are becoming more and more common in tech beloved by the hacker community. Increases my excitement for the future! I want my matter compiler already.
- snowwrestler 15y ago
  It's interesting to reread The Diamond Age in the context of the recent fights over IP. When manufacturing is almost free, what gives one object value over another? Its design and software--the IP. In TDA, stealing IP was how smaller organizations competed with and disrupted larger more established ones. No organization in the world is larger and more established than the U.S.--hence the increasingly strong efforts of the U.S. government to defend IP.
dhughes 15y ago
I found that incredible, amazing, stunning but also hilarious for some reason. I don't know why but it funny seeing them all working together like that.
cs702 15y ago
The same video was posted a while ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3542542 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3542542
- eik3_de 15y ago
  and before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3541996 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3541996

167 points by m_for_monkey 15y ago

Very cool, but notice what kind of room they fly in - they're using cameras to control the quadcopters, they're not autonomous, which means that if you put them outside, they wouldn't work. Still, pretty damn impressive.

gbrindisi 15y ago
Using a gyroscope, gps, accelerometer and some other sensors is not a difficult step to perform.
- gallamine 15y ago
  Actually ... that would be a very difficult step to perform. The room they fly in has a very expensive, sophisticated, high-speed motion capture system that gives a global picture of the placement of each vehicle. The data is then feed to a bank of computers for real-time processing. There's a reason they only show videos in that one room. The data from individual sensors would be very noisy.
- baddox 15y ago
  I completely disagree. None of those sensors would likely give anywhere near the accuracy, frame rate, or context of the current system. Also, there is the issue of where the computation is done. It seems obvious to me that the intended goal is a decentralized system, where every vehicle is autonomous and creates an internal model of its own surroundings. As best I can tell, in the current system all the computation and dispatching so instructions is done by a single centralized external computer (the one the external cameras are attached to).
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - yoos 15y ago
    Personally, I've operated accelerometers and gyros at 200 Hz after some low-pass filtering, which is really all you need for this application. I'm sure there are sensors that operate at even higher frequencies if need be. The GPS module doesn't have to be updated too fast (maybe 10 Hz?) because it only serves to correct for horizontal drift. I run the 100 Hz flight control loop for my tricopter on an ATmega1280 clocked at 16 MHz. A _lot_ more could be done with something like the Beagleboard, including generating a 3D map of the surroundings if I mounted a Kinect on it. I want to agree about the decentralized operation because there would be so many wireless signals that could interfere, but those guys seem to be controlling 20 quadrotors without problems. I know XBees can be configured to communicate on different channels, but decentralized operation will most likely require something beefier like wifi (and that, I don't know how to configure to work over so many different channels).
    - Qworg 15y ago
      The wireless becomes the issue then, as the network effect quickly takes over. Sensing at high speed with bad sensors and low power/computation is really tough.
    - theon144 15y ago
      Even in best case scenario, I'm not sure GPS would be accurate enough, as it's only accurate down to few centimeters, you'd probably need more if you'd like to perform that kind of acrobatics as shown in the video. And what about the height? You could of course use GPS, but apparently (http://users.erols.com/dlwilson/gpsvert.htm http://users.erols.com/dlwilson/gpsvert.htm), average consumer devices have error of few meters. Maybe we could use laser range finders pointed at the ground, but what if the quadcopter tilts? Or what if another quadcopter flies underneath it? Of course it's not unsolvable, but it'd probably require more computing power in the quadcopter. What do you think?
      - baddox 15y ago
        I think LIDAR is the most likely solution. With enough resolution, you could get a reasonable 3D map of the vehicle's surroundings with a very accurate relative model of where the vehicle is located.
- jakevoytko 15y ago
  It's pretty hard. This assumes the existing radio links can handle the extra bandwidth. I don't see a WiFi card, so they may use radios with low-baud serial connections. Maybe the radios are good enough that doubling the radio communications is fine. Now, all the new hardware means extra draw (and potentially extra batteries) on each quadrotor. They might fly with this extra weight, but it won't be nearly as long. Also, indoor flying means no GPS. In this case, using accelerometers means something is dead-reckoning the position of each quadrotor. There's no more space/power for processing juice, so the external system must do this. Now the external system must take this localized data from each quadrotor and place it in some global coordinate system (how does it do that?). It will use dead-reckoning to determine the position of each quadrotor. This means the system is accumulating errors over time, for each quadrotor. At least sailors could eventually correct their position with stars - there is no real global correction with these sensors. They could hypothetically do radio range estimation on the radio signals of the quadrotors, but who knows what kind of accuracy they will get. Now I remember why I left robotics :-)
  - rauar 15y ago
    In one of their papers they state that they use Zigbee modules for a 56kbit link.
  - jpk 15y ago
    > Also, indoor flying means no GPS. Correct. However, indoor positioning tech will likely come of age in the next 12-18 months driven by indoor mapping and navigation. Once that becomes commoditized, it'll make positioning a little aircraft like this in the x,y plane of a floorplan doable without dead-reckoning. From there, you could probably do some crude lidar to measure the distances above/below the craft to the ceiling/floor.
TeMPOraL 15y ago
There might still be some practical uses that do not require complete autonomy. I can imagine e.g. fleets of such quadrocopters flying inside buildings, tied to security cameras. Law enforcement would probably love this.
- bwarp 15y ago
  ONLY law enforcement will love this. Everyone else will want to run to the hills.

orofino 15y ago

Every time a see a new quadcopter video, I wonder to myself how long before local law enforcement starts using them. I gratly fear a widely used, easily weaponized, remote controlled airforce that local enforcement officers can easily obtain.

sp332 15y ago
The Air Force already lets local cops borrow their Predator drones. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-a... These tiny drones are hard to arm, but they might be used for surveillance. Here's a more thorough report on the use of drones in the US: http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/report-protecting-privacy-aerial-surveillance-recommendations-government-use http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/report-protecting...
povilas 15y ago
In Lithuania: http://goo.gl/72S2R http://goo.gl/72S2R
_djo_ 15y ago
Surveillance drones were already used by the police in South Africa during the national elections back in 1994, in that case on loan from the Air Force. After further successful deployments in the years since, the SA Police Service is considering issuing an RFP for a small UAV fleet. Conceptually, surveillance-only UAVs are not dissimilar from police helicopters, which have been used for decades without massive privacy issues. In fact, when evaluating the option between acquiring a larger UAV platform or additional manned helicopters with high-end electro-optical camera gear for the Football World Cup, the local police went went for the helicopters as they performed better in that specific role and there was no cost saving. I don't see much chance of police departments weaponising UAVs any time soon either. Not only does it push up the cost significantly, but there are accuracy and liability issues that will take some time to sort out. At most I could see helicopter-based UAVs being used to drop tear-gas near crowds and even that's iffy.
- regularfry 15y ago

xd 15y ago

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDmel http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDmel The "Aggressive Manoeuvres" videos remind me of something out of terminator.

plessthanpt05 15y ago
first thought exactly...just throw in a dash of skynet and, well, yup...

peregrine 15y ago

I wonder when they will implement the flocking behavior we see with birds and in boid algorithms. ex http://processing.org/learning/topics/flocking.html http://processing.org/learning/topics/flocking.html Obviously their will need to be a collision penalty but one would think this kind of behavior would be easy to do.

steve8918 15y ago

I very much would love to set up a bunch of these quadrocopters to circle my house and use them as security cameras. I'm not sure how long it would take for that, but if you could set up something like 20 of these, have them continuously rotate around the house perimeter, recording everything, and then come back to recharge with another one taking off, I think that would be pretty awesome.

m_for_monkey 15y ago
I think it's pretty paranoid. Why would you do that?
- steve8918 15y ago
  For fun! I think it would be pretty cool project to program those drones, etc. I'm pretty sure the security benefits would be low, and like someone else said, kids throwing stuff at it would suck. But then you can program in counter measure, maybe a water cannon, etc...
  - dquigley 15y ago
    I've had similar thoughts. Another purpose your testing mobile security which you could potentially resell to businesses and eventually to the military. build a dependable prototype that you could resell to business that have storage units, and someone with a warehouse that needs security, or a museum even.
rewind 15y ago
I hope you don't have any kids with slingshots in your neighborhood. You just invented the best game ever.
- m_for_monkey 15y ago
  Unless the drones can defend themselves...

th0ma5 15y ago

Anyone have some tips on the small components? Most of what I seem to find on the drone forums is about larger devices, maybe upwards of a foot and a half or two feet across.

bri3d 15y ago
http://wiki.openpilot.org/display/Doc/BumbleBee http://wiki.openpilot.org/display/Doc/BumbleBee this parts BOM (from HobbyKing, mostly, so it's cheap) gives you a basic idea of what you'd need. I built a similar quad using PCB milled on a homemade drill press for the center plate (rather than buying it laser cut).

ahelwer 15y ago

I enjoy how references to The Diamond Age are becoming more and more common in tech beloved by the hacker community. Increases my excitement for the future! I want my matter compiler already.

snowwrestler 15y ago
It's interesting to reread The Diamond Age in the context of the recent fights over IP. When manufacturing is almost free, what gives one object value over another? Its design and software--the IP. In TDA, stealing IP was how smaller organizations competed with and disrupted larger more established ones. No organization in the world is larger and more established than the U.S.--hence the increasingly strong efforts of the U.S. government to defend IP.

dhughes 15y ago

I found that incredible, amazing, stunning but also hilarious for some reason. I don't know why but it funny seeing them all working together like that.

cs702 15y ago

The same video was posted a while ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3542542 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3542542

eik3_de 15y ago
and before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3541996 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3541996