U. Penn Super Quadcopter Learns New Tricks 124
Freddybear writes "University of Pennsylvania's GRASP lab posted new video of their scary fast maneuverable quad-rotor drone. It can now fly through openings (hoops) which are themselves moving." The entire list of GRASP projects is worth crawling through.
Re:Killing me in my sleep? (Score:5, Insightful)
So technically you're awake for a second (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure it's noisy, but did you see how fast that thing moved? You'd be awake for about a second, max, before it was on you.
Re:Nothing new to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
"We've already got quadricopters. And you can control them with an iPhone. And they could already do this sort of maneuvering."
(A) Yes we do. (B) So what? An iPhone is hardly an optimized flight controller. It's a toy. (C) No, they can't. If you can maneuver your quadricopter with your iPhone anywhere near the way this thing can move, I'll eat your shorts.
I am pretty sure that my digestion is safe for the time being.
Oblig Skynet (Score:3, Insightful)
Those little buggers are sure going to be hard to shoot down. Y'all better start skeet shooting right away if the human race is to have any chance!
Good timing (Score:3, Insightful)
If I throw a hoop up at the right time, I can get a rubber-band to fly throught it.
Navigation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing new to see here (Score:1, Insightful)
Uh, he is safe for the time being seeing as you need a $500k VICON system to pull off the sorts of maneuvers the quad rotors are pulling off in the video. You seriously think this is controlled solely by on board cameras or even one external camera? Why do you think in all these videos you see these glaring red lights? They are the locational cameras (GRASP Lab has 16 I think) identifying where in space the quad rotor is and it's orientation. There is a huge external computation component that you don't see doing most of the heavy lifting required to control this quad rotor.
I'm fairly certain this can't be replicated by a quad rotor with merely and iPhone. That's kinda laughable.
Re:Good timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oblig Skynet (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS [wikipedia.org]
No, no they won't be hard to shoot. Fight science....with SCIENCE!
Re:Nothing new to see here (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, because those things fly so blindingly fast, and autonomously. Right...