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Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc The thought of a weaponized version of that is terrifying. A weapon

Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc The thought of a weaponized version of that is terrifying. A weaponized and non-human controlled version is straight up Cyberdyne level stuff...

btown 13y ago
Is it possible to scale one of those up to Predator-size? Would the limiting factor be that the power requirements wouldn't scale linearly? Are there properties of the atmosphere that model-scale aircraft can take advantage of that larger-scale ones cannot?
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Yes. It would be called a helicopter. Full sized ones can have fuel engines, which can carry more energy per weight and can go further. On the other hand, they are heavier and not as durable because of that weight. They cannot change directions like this mid flight.
  - yread 13y ago
    This one has a gasoline engine
    - hengheng 13y ago
      It's battery powered, see the battery around 4:25
  - aaren 13y ago
    Can you explain why? Is it to do with the bulk properties of the materials not varying with scale? Or scaling with some power of length < 3? If you tried to spec a full sized helicopter engine to make speed changes like those in the video would it tear itself apart?
    - barrkel 13y ago
      Yes. Mass increases with the cube of scale, while structural material cross-section area increases only with the square of scale. So insects can have miniscule legs, while elephants have tree trunks, proportionally.
      - mturmon 13y ago
        Right, sometimes called "square-cube law" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law). Worth knowing about so you can explain to yourself the differences noted above.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Think about it. Ants can carry six times their weight, while larger creatures could never accomplish that. I don't know the physics behind it, but it's not hard to see that small things can have greater strength per mass than large things.
      - deleted 13y ago
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baddox 13y ago
It would be much easier and more effective to just put guns on it.
- look_lookatme 13y ago
  I should say, a weapons equipped version. I can imagine these things being both agile enough to perform in urban environments and fast enough to perform in rural, open environments. Imagine a dozen of these swarming an objective in Afghanistan, expiring their batteries over the course of a 30 minute attack, disappearing, and just when the combatants thought it was safe, another dozen show up because there is a drone acting as a recharging hive for dozens of these things and it's is doing slow circles around the objective. That's sci-fi sounding and yet seemingly plausible.
  - jwr 13y ago
    "An objective", "combatants" -- you mean people, right? If so, say it. We should not hide the uncomfortable truth.
    - look_lookatme 13y ago
      Oh sure, I don't mean to validate the dehumanizing language of the military, it's just how I wrote it. At least I didn't refer to these things as being instruments of kinetic operations. Not that the machines care much about that, though.
      - WalterSear 13y ago
        Neither does the government, these days. 'To avoid counting civilian deaths, Obama re-defined "militant" to mean "all military-age males in a strike zone"' http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
        eru 13y ago
        No female militants?
carterschonwald 13y ago
an 18 year old in the NYC area actually was decapitated by one of those hobbytist copters about 2 months ago. Yes, [one of the reports says] Decapitated. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/teen-killed-remote-controlled-helicopter-slices-throat-article-1.1447068 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/teen-killed-remot... http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-controlled-toy-helicopter/ http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr... They're already incredibly dangerous. That trick helicopter just needs one uncontrolled bounce and hit a person and someone will have very very unpleasant day. Quadricopters seem much easier to make safe afaict.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  To clarify, he wasn't decapitated, he was hit in the head which caused fatal injuries. Overall such helicopters are not insanely dangerous, when operated incorrectly they can be hazardous, but that's also true of ordinary lawn mowers.
  - carterschonwald 13y ago
    Someone died. let us not quibble. edit: One of the above articles explicitly says decapitation. If someone has a coroners report i'm all ears
    - lowboy 13y ago
      > an 18 year old in the NYC area actually was decapitated ... Yes, Decapitated. Let us not sensationalize when we don't know the facts either, shall we?
      - DanBC 13y ago
        It's a quote from a news report.
        lowboy 13y ago
        This is the only quote from those two news articles that contains "decapitation", and indeed the only instance of the word: > “I was playing at the park and we came into the clearing and we just saw a body on the floor,” said Maria Delgado, 13. “He was just decapitated — the whole top of his head was gone,”
jotm 13y ago
The pilot will be obsolete pretty soon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ
CraigJPerry 13y ago
I dunno, the payload capacity of these things is shocking until you get to Trex 600 size or above, even at that point it's only "ok", definitely not "good". At that point (& cost) there are cheaper, more effective (what a cold term) and just down right more terrifying ways, to induce terror. The small UAVs are destined mainly for aerial photography; they are awesome at that, no question.
- RogerL 13y ago
  Ya, if my mission was to weaponize one of these (full disclosure: I've done sw for military UAVs and theater of war information sharing) I'd have it hover/dart above the theater to generate intel and coordinates for conventional weapons.

btown 13y ago

Is it possible to scale one of those up to Predator-size? Would the limiting factor be that the power requirements wouldn't scale linearly? Are there properties of the atmosphere that model-scale aircraft can take advantage of that larger-scale ones cannot?

jamesaguilar 13y ago
Yes. It would be called a helicopter. Full sized ones can have fuel engines, which can carry more energy per weight and can go further. On the other hand, they are heavier and not as durable because of that weight. They cannot change directions like this mid flight.
- yread 13y ago
  This one has a gasoline engine
  - hengheng 13y ago
    It's battery powered, see the battery around 4:25
- aaren 13y ago
  Can you explain why? Is it to do with the bulk properties of the materials not varying with scale? Or scaling with some power of length < 3? If you tried to spec a full sized helicopter engine to make speed changes like those in the video would it tear itself apart?
  - barrkel 13y ago
    Yes. Mass increases with the cube of scale, while structural material cross-section area increases only with the square of scale. So insects can have miniscule legs, while elephants have tree trunks, proportionally.
    - mturmon 13y ago
      Right, sometimes called "square-cube law" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law). Worth knowing about so you can explain to yourself the differences noted above.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Think about it. Ants can carry six times their weight, while larger creatures could never accomplish that. I don't know the physics behind it, but it's not hard to see that small things can have greater strength per mass than large things.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago
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baddox 13y ago

It would be much easier and more effective to just put guns on it.

look_lookatme 13y ago
I should say, a weapons equipped version. I can imagine these things being both agile enough to perform in urban environments and fast enough to perform in rural, open environments. Imagine a dozen of these swarming an objective in Afghanistan, expiring their batteries over the course of a 30 minute attack, disappearing, and just when the combatants thought it was safe, another dozen show up because there is a drone acting as a recharging hive for dozens of these things and it's is doing slow circles around the objective. That's sci-fi sounding and yet seemingly plausible.
- jwr 13y ago
  "An objective", "combatants" -- you mean people, right? If so, say it. We should not hide the uncomfortable truth.
  - look_lookatme 13y ago
    Oh sure, I don't mean to validate the dehumanizing language of the military, it's just how I wrote it. At least I didn't refer to these things as being instruments of kinetic operations. Not that the machines care much about that, though.
    - WalterSear 13y ago
      Neither does the government, these days. 'To avoid counting civilian deaths, Obama re-defined "militant" to mean "all military-age males in a strike zone"' http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
      - eru 13y ago
        No female militants?

carterschonwald 13y ago

an 18 year old in the NYC area actually was decapitated by one of those hobbytist copters about 2 months ago. Yes, [one of the reports says] Decapitated. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/teen-killed-remote-controlled-helicopter-slices-throat-article-1.1447068 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/teen-killed-remot... http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-controlled-toy-helicopter/ http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-contr... They're already incredibly dangerous. That trick helicopter just needs one uncontrolled bounce and hit a person and someone will have very very unpleasant day. Quadricopters seem much easier to make safe afaict.

InclinedPlane 13y ago
To clarify, he wasn't decapitated, he was hit in the head which caused fatal injuries. Overall such helicopters are not insanely dangerous, when operated incorrectly they can be hazardous, but that's also true of ordinary lawn mowers.
- carterschonwald 13y ago
  Someone died. let us not quibble. edit: One of the above articles explicitly says decapitation. If someone has a coroners report i'm all ears
  - lowboy 13y ago
    > an 18 year old in the NYC area actually was decapitated ... Yes, Decapitated. Let us not sensationalize when we don't know the facts either, shall we?
    - DanBC 13y ago
      It's a quote from a news report.
      - lowboy 13y ago
        This is the only quote from those two news articles that contains "decapitation", and indeed the only instance of the word: > “I was playing at the park and we came into the clearing and we just saw a body on the floor,” said Maria Delgado, 13. “He was just decapitated — the whole top of his head was gone,”

jotm 13y ago

The pilot will be obsolete pretty soon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ

CraigJPerry 13y ago

I dunno, the payload capacity of these things is shocking until you get to Trex 600 size or above, even at that point it's only "ok", definitely not "good". At that point (& cost) there are cheaper, more effective (what a cold term) and just down right more terrifying ways, to induce terror. The small UAVs are destined mainly for aerial photography; they are awesome at that, no question.

RogerL 13y ago
Ya, if my mission was to weaponize one of these (full disclosure: I've done sw for military UAVs and theater of war information sharing) I'd have it hover/dart above the theater to generate intel and coordinates for conventional weapons.