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johannessimon81

Google combines skycrane, VTOL and lifting wing to make drone deliveries - 6 views

www.wired.com/...ffort-to-build-delivery-drones

technology drone_delivery VTOL skycrane FUN soundtrack

shared by johannessimon81 on 30 Aug 14 - No Cached
annaheffernan liked it
  • johannessimon81 on 30 Aug 14
     
    Nice video featuring the technology. Plus it comes with a good soundtrack! Google's project wing uses a lifting wing concept (more fuel efficient than normal airplane layouts and MUCH more efficient than quadrocopters) but it equips the plane with engines strong enough to hover in a nose up position, allowing vertical landing and takeoff. For the delivery of packages the drone does not even need to land - it can lower them on a wire - much like the skycrane concept used to deliver the Curiosity rover on Mars. Not sure if the skycrane is really necessary but it is certainly cool. Anyways, the video is great for its soundtrack alone! ;-P
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Paul N on 31 Aug 14
     
    could we just use genetic algorithms to evolve these shapes and layouts? :P
  • Ma Ru on 31 Aug 14
     
    > Not sure if the skycrane is really necessary but it is certainly cool. I think apart from coolness using a skycrane helps keep the rotating knives away from the recipient...
  • Thijs Versloot on 01 Sep 14
     
    Honest question, are we ever going to see this in practice? I mean besides some niche application somewhere, isn't it fundamentally flawed or do I need to keep my window opened on the 3rd floor without a balcony when I ordered something from DX? Its pretty cool yes, but practical?
  • Guido de Croon on 02 Sep 14
     
    Package delivery is indeed more complicated than it may seem at first sight, although solutions are possible for instance by restricting delivery to distribution centers. What we really need of course is some really efficient and robust AI to navigate without any problems in urban areas : ) The hybrid is interesting since it combines the advantage of a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (and hover), and a wing for more efficient forward flight. Challenges lie in the control of the vehicle under any angle and all that this entails also for higher levels of control. Our lab has first used this concept a few years ago for the DARPA UAVforge challenge, and we had two hybrids in our entry last year for the IMAV 2013 (for some shaky images: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7XgRK7pMoU ).
  • Thijs Versloot on 04 Sep 14
     
    Fair enough, but even if you consider advanced/robust/efficient AI, why would you use a drone? Do we envision hundreds of drones above our heads in the street instead of UPS vans, or postmen, considering delivers letters might be more easily achievable. I am not so sure if personal delivery will take this route. On the other hand, if the system would work smoothly, I can image that I'm send a mail with the question whether I'm home (or they might know already from my personal GPS tracker) and then notify me that they are launching my DVD and it will come crashing into my door in 5min.
  • Paul N on 08 Sep 14
     
    I'm more curios how they're planning to keep people from stealing the drones. I could do with a drone army myself and having cheap amazon or google drones flying about sounds like a decent source.
Beniamino Abis

Dronestagr.am launches to showcase the world's best aerial drone pix - 4 views

venturebeat.com/...e-worlds-best-aerial-drone-pix

technology fun drones

shared by Beniamino Abis on 25 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Beniamino Abis on 25 Jul 13
     
    Demand for drones is exploding! Dupin wants to aggregate aerial imagery from around the globle at Dronestagr.am. In the near future we could experience something close to google maps, made with aerial pictures.
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Thijs Versloot on 25 Jul 13
     
    Fun, but what would be the added benefit over high resolution satellite images?
  • Waldemar Franczak on 25 Jul 13
     
    Remember that drones have top-view camera and front-view camera which gives more possibilities in terms of what you can do with collected data. With such a huge database and a little bit of 3D geometry we could get e.g. a 3D map of the world... I guess google can derive something like that already from their streetview images however obviously street view covers some relatively small part of the globe and also can not access places that UAV can.
  • Beniamino Abis on 06 Aug 13
     
    Here there's an example of a 3D picture of Tokyo (in high resolution). It is not made by drones, but I think it is something we can use them for. http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/
Guido de Croon

New theory allows drones to see distances with one eye - 2 views

www.tudelft.nl/...nes-afstanden-zien-met-een-oog

AI science BIO

shared by Guido de Croon on 07 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Guido de Croon on 07 Jan 16
     
    Inspired by the work that was done at the ACT, I continued working on optical flow landing at TU Delft. Today Bio & Bio published my article on a new theory that allows drones to see distances with a single camera. It shows that drones approaching an object with an insect-inspired vision strategy become unstable at a specific distance from the object. Turning this weakness into a strength, drones can actually use the timely detection of that instability to estimate distance. The new theory will enable further miniaturization of autonomous drones and provides a new hypothesis on flying insect behavior. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm7SMJp8EA4&feature=youtu.be Article: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-3190/11/1/016004
Thijs Versloot

Autonomous drones flock like birds (video) #Nature - 2 views

www.nature.com/...rones-flock-like-birds-1.14776

AI drone

shared by Thijs Versloot on 27 Feb 14 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Thijs Versloot on 27 Feb 14
     
    A Hungarian team has created the first drones that can fly as a coordinated flock. The researchers watched as the ten autonomous robots took to the air in a field outside Budapest, zipping through the open sky, flying in formation or even following a leader, all without any central control.
  • Dario Izzo on 28 Feb 14
     
    old news, but wow .... Nature is becoming more and more like a magazine and less and less a scientific journal. This stuff is highly irrelevant but to the group that did it.
  • LeopoldS on 01 Mar 14
     
    this is not a nature paper but just an article on their website - the papers they provide as references are all old
Thijs Versloot

US Navy launches drone from submarine - 0 views

www.engadget.com/...sub-drone

shared by Thijs Versloot on 06 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Thijs Versloot on 06 Dec 13
     
    Did they see the video below? The drone can then dive into the water, turn into a submarine and launch amphibious vehicles or, who knows, other drones?
LeopoldS

Town of Deer Trail considering hunting licenses for unmanned aerial vehicles, bounties ... - 1 views

www.thedenverchannel.com/...l-vehicles-bounties-for-drones

drone

shared by LeopoldS on 20 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 20 Jul 13
     
    anticipating a trend ...?
LeopoldS

Flying hacker contraption hunts other drones, turns them into zombies | Ars Technica - 1 views

arstechnica.com/...drones-turns-them-into-zombies

drone INF

shared by LeopoldS on 05 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 05 Dec 13
     
    nice exploit
Alexander Wittig

SpaceX founder files with government to provide Internet service from space - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...5-a0dc-2b6f404ff5cf_story.html

technology space

shared by Alexander Wittig on 11 Jun 15 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Alexander Wittig on 11 Jun 15
     
    Elon Musk is moving forward with space based internet service...
  • ...3 more comments...
  • Alexander Wittig on 11 Jun 15
  • LeopoldS on 11 Jun 15
     
    reading the qz article, it is not clear to me that google dropped out as one of the main investors in SpaceX? did I miss something?
  • jcunha on 12 Jun 15
     
    I attended a presentation by H. Hemmati, formerly at NASA's JPL, now at Facebook working to "connect the unconnected" during a panel session of the Workshop "Shining light on future space optical communications". I gather that they are targeting a combined strategy of HAP (with solar powered planes at 20-25 km), balloons and satellites. The rationale behind is that each solution is best suited for different population density zones, i.e. satellites while expensive (total cost of 100MUSD after Hemmati) are the only way to provide internet in remote zones, while balloons seem to be one inexpensive solution for densely populated areas. Funfact: he mentioned that the main drawback will be some crashes of HAP elements...
  • jcunha on 31 Jul 15
     
    Facebook announced they are ready to test of of their High Altitude Platform element, a drone of the size of a Boeing 737. See the new here http://phys.org/news/2015-07-facebook-ready-giant-drone-internet.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ctgr-item&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter. It seemed interesting for me that they are developing also a reliable optical communication between this element and scattered ground stations.
  • Thijs Versloot on 31 Jul 15
     
    Nice link, that thing is huge and I would love to see a drone that size fly. Also, Facebook's Aerospace Team? :)
LeopoldS

Parrot Bebop Drone. Lightweight yet robust quadricopter - 14 megapixel sensor with Full... - 4 views

www.parrot.com/...bebop-drone

astrodrone parrot drone gadget

shared by LeopoldS on 13 May 14 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 13 May 14
     
    unfortunately we have to wait until december - for new levels of astrodrone!
Christophe Praz

A Drone That Finds Survivors Through Their Phones - 0 views

actu.epfl.ch/...survivors-through-their-phones

drone wifi AI

shared by Christophe Praz on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Christophe Praz on 14 Jul 14
     
    This is the interesting master project of a good friend from my university, not really related to space though. Replacing the drone's wifi antenna by an Avalanche Victim Detector, it could be a very promising tool to deploy the first avalanche searches.
Ma Ru

Ambition - 0 views

www.esa.int/ESA

FUN ESA Rosetta technology art

shared by Ma Ru on 15 Mar 13 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Guido de Croon on 15 Mar 13
     
    Today we released the Astro Drone app. People that have the Parrot AR drone can freely download the game. While they fly their drone in the real world, they are trying to dock to the ISS in the virtual world. But the app is more than a game. Players can choose to participate in a scientific crowd sourcing experiment that aims to improve autonomous capabilities of space probes, such as landing, obstacle avoidance, and docking. If participating, the app extracts visually salient features from the images made by the drone's camera. The features are then combined with the estimates of the drone's state and uploaded. The data is then used in a research aiming to improve robot navigation.
  • Ma Ru on 08 Nov 14
     
    Visit the main ESA website and you'll be greeted with a 6-minute Rosetta promo movie by a kickass Polish artist... P.S. You can also find the video here. P.P.S It seems I've just discovered a way to hijack old diigo entries ;-)
jcunha

Free 3-D aircraft design software - 2 views

techxplore.com/...-free-d-aircraft-software.html

technology drone aircraft

shared by jcunha on 10 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • jcunha on 10 Oct 16
     
    A free software tool that could revolutionize the drone industry to design and build your own drone/aircraft/fighter with a 3-D online software that generates aerodynamic information (maybe optimization also) about your own design.
jcunha

Robot quadcopters could help scientists perform zero g experiments without the cost of ... - 1 views

www.technologyreview.com/...er-zero-g-flights-on-the-cheap

Drones micro gravity

shared by jcunha on 12 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • jcunha on 12 Dec 16
     
    Drones for microgravity.
santecarloni

How To Build A Speech Jamming Gun - Technology Review - 1 views

www.technologyreview.com/...27620

technology speech gun

shared by santecarloni on 01 Mar 12 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • santecarloni on 01 Mar 12
     
    he drone of speakers who won't stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas and public libraries.  Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission. 
  • Ma Ru on 01 Mar 12
     
    ...must...not...make...the...obvious...ACT...meeting...joke...
  • LeopoldS on 02 Mar 12
     
    Unfortunately it won't work when it is most needed .... Read this: "Their tests also identify some curious phenomena. They say the gun is more effective when the delay varies in time and more effective against speech that involves reading aloud than against spontaneous monologue. Sadly, they report that it has no effect on meaningless sound sequences such as "aaaaarghhh".
Beniamino Abis

FAA approves first drones for commercial operations in US airspace - 0 views

www.engadget.com/...commercial-surveillance-drones

shared by Beniamino Abis on 31 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Beniamino Abis on 31 Jul 13
     
    Let's see what happens next, and compare it to our discussion.
Beniamino Abis

Health from above: a drone to deliver defibrillators to heart attack victims - 0 views

www.theverge.com/...ator-carrying-drone-in-germany

technology

shared by Beniamino Abis on 26 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Beniamino Abis on 26 Aug 13
     
    German non-profit group Definetz wants to make defibrillators readily available across its country so that any time someone has a heart attack, the life saving devices are within arms reach.
johannessimon81

Transformer drone! (Haha) - 6 views

www.wired.com/...transformer-drone

technology fun

shared by johannessimon81 on 11 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • johannessimon81 on 11 Nov 13
     
    At least we don't come up with this kind of crap!
  • Dario Izzo on 12 Nov 13
     
    OMG ... its coming ... the future we all have dreaded where in perfectly flat caribbean beaches underwater mines are growing like flowers
LeopoldS

Hycopter Drone Flies for 4 Hours via Hydrogen Power - Robotics Trends - 2 views

www.roboticstrends.com/...for_4_hours_via_hydrogen_power

fuel cell hydrogen gadget drone

shared by LeopoldS on 22 May 15 - No Cached
Paul N liked it
  • LeopoldS on 22 May 15
     
    finally a consumer application for fuel cells?
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