8 ms·

Just keep in mind, this is a science project. It's going to be a long, long time (or never) before this is safe from enemy exploitation. I can think of all kind

by runjake 14y ago

Just keep in mind, this is a science project. It's going to be a long, long time (or never) before this is safe from enemy exploitation. I can think of all kinds of wacky ways to crash one of these things. Autonomy is fine for high-flying, loitering aircraft, not so fine for low-altitude flight relying on easily-exploitable terrain avoidance & positioning technologies.

showerst 14y ago
The Army uses tons of transport helicopters in non-combat situations though, right? The military (having a significantly lower standard for 'safe enough' operation than, say, airlines) will be an interesting inroad for autonomous transport vehicles in society.
- runjake 14y ago
  Sure, and there may be applications there, but they aren't testing with a transport helicopter (such as a Chinook which flies quite differently than a Blackhawk or other traditional helo design), they're testing Blackhawks in a terrain avoidance environments. Two wholly different things.
  - iamdave 14y ago
    What's important here is how you're using and what encapsulates "transport", that imo is critical to the point you're wanting to make, and whether or not I disagree with it.
- cheeseandbacon 14y ago
  The military is usually the inroad for wide use civilian technologies.
  - morsch 14y ago
    Either you're saying most civilian technologies were military in origin. Or you're saying most military technologies end up with civilian applications. I doubt the latter is true, and I'm not sure about the former either. The military R+D budget is big, but these days (maybe always?) it pales compared to public nonmilitary and commercial R+D activity.
    - coopdog 14y ago
      I don't know, I think the second one could be true. I imagine it's quite likely that someone involved with this is also a hobby drone builder that also contributes to open source. If they've created some new algorithms or made some existing ones more robust it would be great to get those to the community.
Pkger 14y ago
I think initially this could be more effectively used for transporting the helicopters from one place to another, such as another base. You are right though, aircraft like the Global Hawk operate at altitudes that are safe from enemies, so operationally they are easier to reason with for autonomous use.
pixie_ 14y ago
Your right, and I think where this will end up is with 'super aware' pilots. Where the plane does just about everything automatically, but there's a human inside that basically 'thinks' and the vehicle does. Our brains are already better at strategy than the most advanced computers, it makes sense that the vehicle takes care of the easy stuff (like not hitting walls and landing) and the human focuses on the enemy.
- hnriot 14y ago
  "Our brains are already better at strategy than the most advanced computers" --- for how much longer? and when taken at scale, is the human race really all that great at strategy? We are so much at the mercy of emotions to ever be truly great strategists. What if, for example, given food production and water usage etc the math dictated that the population must reduce, do you really think this strategy would be adopted? Of course not. i don't really see the point of self-flying helicopters, it's not like there's a shortage of bright young men and women who want to fly these things. The real challenge isn't flying helicopters, but finding ways to resolve situations without blowing shit up. As fun as that might be...
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    > --- for how much longer? and when taken at scale, is the human race really all that great at strategy? We still mop the floor with Go programs and AI in RTS games.
    - lostlogin 14y ago
      When the hoard plays nasty in Left for Dead, I can't say I can beat AI.
      - stcredzero 14y ago
        In most games, the deck is stacked in favor of AI in a variety of ways. (BTW, it's "horde," unless it's a deliberate use of a homophone by the game designers.) If the AI's units can overwhelm humans with superior reaction times or superior numbers, then it's not the AI's strategy that's winning. There are real world situations and games that are still complex enough, it's difficult to compute tactics and strategy properly. Here's the difference between humans and AI in a nutshell: Competent humans can usually tell when someone is using an exploit against them. AIs almost never have a clue that's happening.
gvb 14y ago
Already fielded: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX#Unmanned_remote_control_version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX#Unmanned_remote_con... I presume the difference is that the K-Max is not doing terrain avoidance using laser ranging (undoubtedly it has a preprogrammed 3D flight profile). "In December 2010 NAVAIR awarded a $46 million contract to Kaman for two aircraft, and in 2011 they completed a five-day Quick Reaction Assessment. In December 2011 an unmanned K-Max was reported to be at work in Afghanistan. [...] On July 31, 2012, Lockheed announced a second service extension for the K-MAX in Afghanistan for the Marines. This extends operation time to the end of March 2013, with the option to extend through to the end of September 2013. As of July 31, 2012, Lockheed reports the K-MAX has completed 485 sorties, 525 flight hours, and delivered over 1.6 million pounds of cargo since its deployment in November 2011"

by runjake 14y ago

showerst 14y ago

The Army uses tons of transport helicopters in non-combat situations though, right? The military (having a significantly lower standard for 'safe enough' operation than, say, airlines) will be an interesting inroad for autonomous transport vehicles in society.

runjake 14y ago
Sure, and there may be applications there, but they aren't testing with a transport helicopter (such as a Chinook which flies quite differently than a Blackhawk or other traditional helo design), they're testing Blackhawks in a terrain avoidance environments. Two wholly different things.
- iamdave 14y ago
  What's important here is how you're using and what encapsulates "transport", that imo is critical to the point you're wanting to make, and whether or not I disagree with it.
cheeseandbacon 14y ago
The military is usually the inroad for wide use civilian technologies.
- morsch 14y ago
  Either you're saying most civilian technologies were military in origin. Or you're saying most military technologies end up with civilian applications. I doubt the latter is true, and I'm not sure about the former either. The military R+D budget is big, but these days (maybe always?) it pales compared to public nonmilitary and commercial R+D activity.
  - coopdog 14y ago
    I don't know, I think the second one could be true. I imagine it's quite likely that someone involved with this is also a hobby drone builder that also contributes to open source. If they've created some new algorithms or made some existing ones more robust it would be great to get those to the community.

Pkger 14y ago

I think initially this could be more effectively used for transporting the helicopters from one place to another, such as another base. You are right though, aircraft like the Global Hawk operate at altitudes that are safe from enemies, so operationally they are easier to reason with for autonomous use.

pixie_ 14y ago

Your right, and I think where this will end up is with 'super aware' pilots. Where the plane does just about everything automatically, but there's a human inside that basically 'thinks' and the vehicle does. Our brains are already better at strategy than the most advanced computers, it makes sense that the vehicle takes care of the easy stuff (like not hitting walls and landing) and the human focuses on the enemy.

hnriot 14y ago
"Our brains are already better at strategy than the most advanced computers" --- for how much longer? and when taken at scale, is the human race really all that great at strategy? We are so much at the mercy of emotions to ever be truly great strategists. What if, for example, given food production and water usage etc the math dictated that the population must reduce, do you really think this strategy would be adopted? Of course not. i don't really see the point of self-flying helicopters, it's not like there's a shortage of bright young men and women who want to fly these things. The real challenge isn't flying helicopters, but finding ways to resolve situations without blowing shit up. As fun as that might be...
- stcredzero 14y ago
  > --- for how much longer? and when taken at scale, is the human race really all that great at strategy? We still mop the floor with Go programs and AI in RTS games.
  - lostlogin 14y ago
    When the hoard plays nasty in Left for Dead, I can't say I can beat AI.
    - stcredzero 14y ago
      In most games, the deck is stacked in favor of AI in a variety of ways. (BTW, it's "horde," unless it's a deliberate use of a homophone by the game designers.) If the AI's units can overwhelm humans with superior reaction times or superior numbers, then it's not the AI's strategy that's winning. There are real world situations and games that are still complex enough, it's difficult to compute tactics and strategy properly. Here's the difference between humans and AI in a nutshell: Competent humans can usually tell when someone is using an exploit against them. AIs almost never have a clue that's happening.

gvb 14y ago

Already fielded: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX#Unmanned_remote_control_version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX#Unmanned_remote_con... I presume the difference is that the K-Max is not doing terrain avoidance using laser ranging (undoubtedly it has a preprogrammed 3D flight profile). "In December 2010 NAVAIR awarded a $46 million contract to Kaman for two aircraft, and in 2011 they completed a five-day Quick Reaction Assessment. In December 2011 an unmanned K-Max was reported to be at work in Afghanistan. [...] On July 31, 2012, Lockheed announced a second service extension for the K-MAX in Afghanistan for the Marines. This extends operation time to the end of March 2013, with the option to extend through to the end of September 2013. As of July 31, 2012, Lockheed reports the K-MAX has completed 485 sorties, 525 flight hours, and delivered over 1.6 million pounds of cargo since its deployment in November 2011"