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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.
Juxi Leitner

SPACE.com -- Next Mars Rover's Landing Site Narrowed to 4 Choices - 0 views

www.space.com/...sity-landing-sites-100615.html

mars exploration rovers landing site science space

shared by Juxi Leitner on 16 Jun 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • is expected to determine whether Mars is or was ever habitable to microbial lif
  • whittled down to four. They are regions of Mars known as Mawrth Vallis, Gale crater, Holden crater and Eberswalde crater.
Dario Izzo

Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera // Jonas Pfeil - 3 views

jonaspfeil.de/ballcamera

AI LANDING CAMERA

shared by Dario Izzo on 14 Oct 11 - No Cached
Ma Ru liked it
  • Dario Izzo on 14 Oct 11
     
    Good to solve the Landing problem!!!! No skew due to perspective and gimballed by definition
  • Ma Ru on 14 Oct 11
     
    Very very nice idea! Unfortunately samples show they still have quite some work to do on the image processing side... which is interesting because there are very good open-source solutions for stitching.
Marion Nachon

NASA Next Mars Rover Mission: new landing technology - 3 views

JPL is also developing a crucial new landing technology called terrain-relative navigation. As the descent stage approaches the Martian surface, it will use computer vision to compare the landscape...

technology space

started by Marion Nachon on 15 Jan 18 no follow-up yet
LeopoldS

Cosmic Log - Could legal 'loophole' lead to land claims on other worlds? - 0 views

cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/...to-land-claims-on-other-worlds

policy Legal copuos

shared by LeopoldS on 11 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 11 Apr 12
     
    Interesting Thoughts ...
LeopoldS

NASA - Multimedia - Video Gallery - 3 views

www.nasa.gov/...index.html

Mars NASA optical flow

shared by LeopoldS on 18 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 18 Aug 12
     
    Check the landing video from the onboard camera - Guido: how well would our optical flow algorithm cope with such images? Looks quite complicated to me....
  • Ma Ru on 20 Aug 12
     
    Note that videos there are said to be "thumbnail" quality, so I think videos with higher resolution (and possibly frame rate) have been acquired, just that they were not downloaded yet.
Marcus Maertens

Mars Curiosity Descent - Ultra HD 30fps Smooth-Motion - YouTube - 3 views

www.youtube.com/watch

technology space FUN

shared by Marcus Maertens on 14 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Marcus Maertens on 14 Sep 12
     
    Interpolation of the images of the curiosity landing. Very nice work!
  • LeopoldS on 25 Sep 12
     
    this is fantastic!!!
Dario Izzo

ACT / ESA - News - Biologists find bees land like spacecraft - 2 views

www.esa.int/...68_nov_2013_ttc.html

bees spacecraft land esa

shared by Dario Izzo on 18 Nov 13 - No Cached
Paul N liked it
  • Dario Izzo on 18 Nov 13
     
    The opposite of biomimetic :)
Thijs Versloot

Magnetic bubble may give space probes a soft landing - 4 views

www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329763.100-magnetic-bubble-may-give-space-probes-a-soft-landing.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|physics-math#.U7aeTnWSzmE

magnetoshell aerocapture plasma entry

shared by Thijs Versloot on 04 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Thijs Versloot on 04 Jul 14
     
    I am also looking into this idea since some time and it seems NASA is already ahead, awarding two contract to investigate magnetoshell aerocapture. This could be interesting for probes that want to enter eg Marsian atmospheres at relatively high velocity. Or for multiple re-entry s/c at Earth. The idea of the experiment, The satellite will carry a copper coil, powered by a lithium-ion battery, that generates a magnetic field around the probe. As it descends, the spacecraft will eject a small amount of plasma. This gets trapped in the magnetic field, creating a protective bubble that stops air molecules colliding with the craft and producing heat.
  • LeopoldS on 05 Jul 14
     
    A few years back Mimmo has worked on this, rather from the theory side if I remember well ...
  • Paul N on 11 Jul 14
     
    The power requirements for such a thing must be HUGE!
Nina Nadine Ridder

Moon Express, Rocket Lab set for 2017 mission plan - 1 views

phys.org/...0-moon-rocket-lab-mission.html

moon private_missions space_economy

shared by Nina Nadine Ridder on 06 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Nina Nadine Ridder on 06 Oct 15
     
    In 2017 a private moon landing could make news. If the mission is successful, said GeekWire, Moon Express could become the first privately backed venture to achieve a soft lunar landing. Bob Richards is CEO of Moon Express and he announced the launch plan earlier this month at the Space Technology & Investment Summit in San Francisco.
  • LeopoldS on 07 Oct 15
     
    Bob Richards ist ja kein unbeschriebenes Blatt ...
LeopoldS

NASA - Mars Science Laboratory, the Next Mars Rover - 4 views

www.nasa.gov/...index.html

shared by LeopoldS on 22 Jul 11 - No Cached
Marion Nachon liked it
  • LeopoldS on 23 Jul 11
     
    forgot to put in my comment: they have chosen a nice landing site .... and quite late it seems to me ...
LeopoldS

Non-mare silicic volcanism on the lunar farside at Compton-Belkovich : Nature Geoscienc... - 1 views

www.nature.com/...ngeo1212.html

NRG technology science space

shared by LeopoldS on 26 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 26 Jul 11
     
    a place to land ...
Tobias Seidl

A curvy, stretchy future for electronics - PNAS - 0 views

www.pnas.org/...10875.extract

paper vibration electronics damping

shared by Tobias Seidl on 08 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Electronics of the future will be soft and rubbery.
  • Tobias Seidl on 08 Jul 09
     
    If electronics are soft and rubbery, would they maybe also tolerate launch- or landing-related vibrations better? Could we pack things more robust? Probably things get too fluffy for space engineers?
ESA ACT

Micronanostructures of the scales on a mosquito's legs and their role in weight support - 0 views

scitation.aip.org/...GetabsServlet

BIO Microtechnology technology Robotics

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    We show here that the mosquito cannot only give rise to a higher water-supporting force than the water strider if the ratio of the water-supporting force to the body weight of the insect itself is compared, but also can safely take off or land on the wate
ESA ACT

Northrop Grumman lands contract to develop threat-sensing binoculars - Engadget - 0 views

www.engadget.com/...-develop-threat-sensing-binocu

biomimicry BIO BMI security

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    Darpa again ... anything new? does not look so to me ...
LeopoldS

Cellular and Network Contributions to Vestibular Signal Processing: Impact of Ion Condu... - 3 views

www.jneurosci.org/...8359.abstract

PHY AI bio technology

shared by LeopoldS on 25 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 25 Jun 11
     
    looks like very nice research - can we implement a technique inspired by this on a landing spacecraft?
annaheffernan

Physicsworld top 10 breakthroughs of the year - at the top Rosetta - 3 views

physicsworld.com/...-2014-breakthrough-of-the-year

technology science PHY space FUN

shared by annaheffernan on 15 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • annaheffernan on 15 Dec 14
     
    Physicsworld releases their top 10 breakthroughs of the year 2014, ESA's Rosetta mission tops the list with the achievement of landing on a comet.
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