Hummingbird Drone - AeroVironment

Wow, look honey, a Humming Bird? Doh! Quick, hide all the WMD's!
Check this little bugger out, I'm trying to figure out how it moves and gets it's energy. I wonder how other Humming Birds would react to it also. That would be funny if one was being used to gather info and a real Humming Bird tried to mount it!

The drone, built by AeroVironment with funding from DARPA, is able to fly forwards, backwards, and sideways, as well as rotate clockwise and counterclockwise. Not only does the 'bot resemble its avian inspiration in size (it's only slightly larger than a hummingbird, with a 6.5-inch wingspan and a weight of 19 grams), it also looks impressively like a hummingbird in flight. That's not vanity--it's key to the drone's use as a spy device, as it can perch near its subject without alerting it (supposing that area has a population of hummingbirds--the usual reaction to seeing a hummingbird here in midtown Manhattan is something like "OMG you guys look at the hummingbird!!!!!!," which is not necessarily an ideal situation for a spy-drone).

www.popsci.com...

Peace,
spec

That's awesome mate! As much as its potentially a devilish tool of oppressors, watching it float around brought a little smile to my face. I want one to play with the cats with. For the much alone S+F!

As strange as it could seems, it reminds me of the many ( thousands ?) of birds dying for apparently no proovable reason. Maybe there's absolutely no link between those 2 events, but after seeing this video a little sign suddenly popep-up into my mind related to this. That's about what I had to say.

reply to post by Hypernova86


Man that would be one expensive cat toy!
Maybe they will have a cheaper version in the future for us civilians and our pets!
How does it work though?

Thanks for the reply,
spec

reply to post by thruthseek3r


I hear ya, you know the potential for this thing. Next it will be mosquitos then the flying swarm of nanobots!
But these tech advances are inevitable and will become part of our lives regardless, which will probably include spying on us. Of course some may take up target practice if that happens.

spec

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
reply to post by Hypernova86

 

Man that would be one expensive cat toy!

Maybe they will have a cheaper version in the future for us civilians and our pets!
How does it work though?

Thanks for the reply,
spec

I could imagine that a lot of the gadgets that you can get for novelty value begin their lives as some form of military experiment. My best guess at it workings is probably as far from the truth as possible. It does seem to simulate the actions of a humming bird or a wasp as it is bio mechanical. But as to how it is kept stable I couldn't offer a guess.

Let's just hope its not effective in the field for which they were designed and we'll see a cheap mass produced version as they make an effort to recoup the money invested in it.

Originally posted by thruthseek3r
As strange as it could seems, it reminds me of the many ( thousands ?) of birds dying for apparently no proovable reason. Maybe there's absolutely no link between those 2 events, but after seeing this video a little

sign suddenly popep-up into my mind related to this. That's about what I had to say.

Funnily enough, when I showed my girlfriend the video she mentioned the same thing. I would love to know even 10% of the tech they've got that they don't show us if they'll happily give us a gander at this.

reply to post by Hypernova86

I would love to know even 10% of the tech they've got that they don't show us if they'll happily give us a gander at this.

Maybe when we can get these for ourselves, we can program them to take a peek and find out, nya, nya, nya.....

The control system of that thing is what most impresses me. Quite a bit of research and knowledge had to go into the algorithms for keeping it upright while attempting to move it about. In addition to that, they figured out how to put all that computation & power & mechanical into such a small package.

Now that they have that down, putting in some autonomous features (preprogrammed flight paths & GPS) shouldn't be too far off.

I guess the counter measures to this would be a cat?

reply to post by harrytuttle

I guess the counter measures to this would be a cat?

OR, upon doing some"hummingbird predator" research, you could train one of these:
www.hiltonpond.org...
A dragonfly?!? !

peace,
spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

Actually, if you could get an audio sample of that UAV hummingbird, you could set up microphones that feed into a computer designed to identify the audio signature of the bird - and perhaps even pinpoint it's location based on triangulation.

The problem with hummingbirds, is that people like to look at them - so they draw attention. You need something like a crow or raven - and groups of them - as they won't stand out as much. Of course, that's a more difficult endeavor.

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
reply to post by thruthseek3r

 

I hear ya, you know the potential for this thing. Next it will be mosquitos then the flying swarm of nanobots!
But these tech advances are inevitable and will become part of our lives regardless, which will probably include spying on us. Of course some may take up target practice if that happens.

spec

Yes exactly and it is a bit scaring me knowing this UAV (whatever the use, maybe spying) is being developped by DARPA. Knowing it is a military agency and that it has a budget of 3.2 billion a year, possibilities goes far beyond mind limits in our era of technology.

What is DARPA ?

reply to post by thruthseek3r

Oh yea, if it's been thought of and funded, it's probably here, just not for us to see.
With nanotech, space weapons, bio engineering and the entire spectrum of quantum science and physics,I bet they can achieve all of the siddhas (.) abilites by now.
C'mon replicator

spec

Originally posted by thruthseek3r
As strange as it could seems, it reminds me of the many ( thousands ?) of birds dying for apparently no proovable reason. Maybe there's absolutely no link between those 2 events, but after seeing this video a little

sign suddenly popep-up into my mind related to this. That's about what I had to say.

Hmmm... what if the 'birds' who 'died' were drones, and they either malfunctioned, or were purposefully taken out to collect data on thresholds, or else killed (space weapons, anyone?) by our dear government or some other Government... or not!

I like when other peoples post give me a flash of what could be. I like that about ATS.

About this hummingbird drone being new tech Ha Ha There is a Tinkerbell that flys in the same manner that can be found on a site called wow wee and it's a kids toy. Now remember that everything has existed for thirty years before it becomes mainstream and we get to see it. I should know had a Gvt Q clearance.

I wanted to make sure that you could find the toy site and where to look in it to see this technology as a toy.. www.wowwee.com and look under flytech. Had to back up my facts.

Yeah, we bought a Tinkerbell: It worked - around and around and around. But I can't remember what happened to her. As for the nano-drone, someone told me that she'd whack the spy out of the air if perchance of a rare encounter. Just need to find a big enough swatter.