US Army demos first robot Black Hawk helicopter

[klr]

US Army demos first robot Black Hawk helicopter

Video The US Army has reported the successfully completion of a two-hour low-level test flight by an automated Black Hawk helicopter dubbed RASCAL, aka the Rotorcraft Aircrew Systems Concept Airborne Laboratory.

"This was the first time terrain-aware autonomy has been achieved on a Black Hawk," said Lt. Col. Carl Ott, test pilot and chief of the Flight Projects Office at the US Army Aviation and Missile Research’s Development and Engineering Center.

During the flight last month, the RASCAL swooped through the California hills near San José at between 200 and 400 feet in altitude. The on-board systems successfully located a safe landing spot and came down to a hover 60 feet (13 per cent of a brontosaurus) above it to within a 12 inches (3.3 per cent of a double-decker bus) of accuracy.

"A risk-minimizing algorithm was used to compute and command a safe trajectory continuously throughout 23 miles of rugged terrain in a single flight, at an average speed of 40 knots," said Matthew Whalley, the Autonomous Rotorcraft Project lead. "No prior knowledge of the terrain was used."

Inside the helicopter for the flight was the RASCAL systems operator, along with developer Dr. Marc Takahashi and two test pilots with hydraulic controls in case the fly-by-wire computer system suffered a Blue Screen that really could lead to death.

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more text and video here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/06 ... er_flight/

[Cormac]

Thank you for including accurate metaphorical measurements. The only dimension I am missing is one that relates something to the distance to the moon, and preferably back.

[JimC]

I can see it now. Robot helicopters, with an advanced AI, criss-crossing the air space of all major cities, having been given the over-riding imperative to enforce law and order at all costs...

Black, of course...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I like the new look.

[mistermack]

This is nothing new.

Artificial intelligence has exceeded the average human intelligence in the USA for the last fifty years, since the invention of the coffee percolator.

[Audley Strange]

That'll be handy for the emergent botswarm colony intelligence to use to manifest its will on us.

[pErvinalia]

Cyberdyne Systems...

[Coito ergo sum]

I can see it now. Robot helicopters, with an advanced AI, criss-crossing the air space of all major cities, having been given the over-riding imperative to enforce law and order at all costs...

Black, of course...

That danger doesn't really come from robot blackhawk helicopters.

The real thing to worry about is nanobots, sent out in swarms by the billions.

In a not too long period of time, there won't be anywhere the State can't look, just by switching on nanobot cameras.

...think you're in private while wanking it to porn on your iPad in the bathroom...think again... lol

The death of privacy is upon us my friends. Embrace it. There is no way to stop it.

[Ian]

That danger doesn't really come from robot blackhawk helicopters.

The real thing to worry about is nanobots, sent out in swarms by the billions.

In a not too long period of time, there won't be anywhere the State can't look, just by switching on nanobot cameras.

...think you're in private while wanking it to porn on your iPad in the bathroom...think again... lol

The death of privacy is upon us my friends. Embrace it. There is no way to stop it.

I don't think it'll be the death of privacy so much as the emergence of transparency. They're not the same thing.

The State already can look pretty much anywhere they like... if it's legal. It's not at all hard for federal investigators today to install hidden surveillance devices, including video, anywhere they please. Nanotechnology might make it easier for abuses to take place, but the issue with that will be the same as with any other technological advancement one could mention: proper oversight.

I think advantages in foreign intelligence collection will be fantastic though.
Again, negating abuse will be dependent upon proper oversight. Nanotechnology does not make this impossible. The law will always be the law. And in an Information Age of ever greater transparency, getting away with abuses of this technology will be ever more difficult.

I don't think we're approaching George Orwell's 1984, but I do think we may be approcahing something like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

But this is a derail. Sorry 'bout that.

[Cormac]

That danger doesn't really come from robot blackhawk helicopters.

The real thing to worry about is nanobots, sent out in swarms by the billions.

In a not too long period of time, there won't be anywhere the State can't look, just by switching on nanobot cameras.

...think you're in private while wanking it to porn on your iPad in the bathroom...think again... lol

The death of privacy is upon us my friends. Embrace it. There is no way to stop it.

I don't think it'll be the death of privacy so much as the emergence of transparency. They're not the same thing.

The State already can look pretty much anywhere they like... if it's legal. It's not at all hard for federal investigators today to install hidden surveillance devices, including video, anywhere they please. Nanotechnology might make it easier for abuses to take place, but the issue with that will be the same as with any other technological advancement one could mention: proper oversight.

I think advantages in foreign intelligence collection will be fantastic though.
Again, negating abuse will be dependent upon proper oversight. Nanotechnology does not make this impossible. The law will always be the law. And in an Information Age of ever greater transparency, getting away with abuses of this technology will be ever more difficult.

I don't think we're approaching George Orwell's 1984, but I do think we may be approcahing something like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

But this is a derail. Sorry 'bout that.

IF YOU'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG THEN YOU'VE NOTHING TO FEAR!

[Ian]

That wasn't remotely my point, but thank you for using the Hitler emoticon.

Now, back to the robot hunter-killer drones helicopters...

[Animavore]

Sploosh!

[Animavore]

For reference.

[Cormac]

That wasn't remotely my point, but thank you for using the Hitler emoticon.

Now, back to the robot hunter-killer drones helicopters...

You're welcome.

(It was meant humorously you know!)

[Coito ergo sum]

That danger doesn't really come from robot blackhawk helicopters.

The real thing to worry about is nanobots, sent out in swarms by the billions.

In a not too long period of time, there won't be anywhere the State can't look, just by switching on nanobot cameras.

...think you're in private while wanking it to porn on your iPad in the bathroom...think again... lol

The death of privacy is upon us my friends. Embrace it. There is no way to stop it.

I don't think it'll be the death of privacy so much as the emergence of transparency. They're not the same thing.

The State already can look pretty much anywhere they like... if it's legal. It's not at all hard for federal investigators today to install hidden surveillance devices, including video, anywhere they please. Nanotechnology might make it easier for abuses to take place, but the issue with that will be the same as with any other technological advancement one could mention: proper oversight.

I think advantages in foreign intelligence collection will be fantastic though.
Again, negating abuse will be dependent upon proper oversight. Nanotechnology does not make this impossible. The law will always be the law. And in an Information Age of ever greater transparency, getting away with abuses of this technology will be ever more difficult.

I don't think we're approaching George Orwell's 1984, but I do think we may be approcahing something like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

But this is a derail. Sorry 'bout that.

They aren't the same thing, but it will be the death of privacy.

The State doesn't have the capacity to look anywhere it likes yet. And, most of the time it needs a warrant, which requires a demonstrable reason to peek. It's not "hard at all" foir the FBI to install cameras, but they still need a warrant, even if it is not served until after the surveillance. A judge needs to be involved.

The technological advancement changes what is reasonable under the circumstances. The reasonableness test is always made by courts in light of the technological capacity and expectations at the time. For example, the courts have normally allowed surveillance by law enforcement without a warrant if the cop can use the naked eye or even binoculars and telescopes to see. If you leave your drapes open, and a cop looks in from the street with binoculars and sees something, then that is not unlawful. So, will the courts allow infrared or other such surveillance from the same location? Given it time....

I agree - I'm not expressing some paranoia about the future. I am expressing a realization that things will change. People will all have chips in their bodies soon. It will happen. It will happen because of safety. Parents will put chips in their children to ensure that they can never be taken and that their whereabouts will always be known, and that hospitals will have all their health information immediately and a host of other reasons. One generation of a large mass of the population growing up that way, and the objection to having them by adults will seem bizarre. But, it won't seem to people like 1984 seems to us. It will seem perfectly normal to them, and they will look at past society without it as antiquated.

Example - 30 years ago if you told people that phones will be high technology and will allow police to zoom in to your whereabouts to within a few feet anytime they flip a switch, and you'll be monitoring your teenagers exact whereabouts via an app, people would have (and probably did - I bet I could find articles about it) cried 1984! Ohmahgawd! And, that kind of thing. Now, it's commonplace. We all know that the police can find us in an instant, if they need to, as long as we have our phone with us. That's the first place they look. In many ways there are huge benefits to this, which is why nobody today is much alarmed by it. We're used to the technology. But, from the front end, a couple decades ago, it was an alarming concept.