A new approach to building the soft actuators, which drive the drones’ wings boosts the lift-to-weight ratio to 3.7 to 1.
It may have seemed like an obscure United Nations conclave, but a meeting this week in Geneva was followed intently by experts in artificial intelligence, military strategy, disarmament and humanitarian law.
The reason for the interest? Killer robots — drones, guns and bombs that decide on their own, with artificial brains, whether to attack and kill — and what should be done, if anything, to regulate or ban them.
Once the domain of science fiction films like the “Terminator” series and “RoboCop,” killer robots, more technically known as Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, have been invented and tested at an accelerated pace with little oversight. Some prototypes have even been used in actual conflicts.
Researchers at Toyota Central R&D Labs have recently created an insect-scale aerial robot with flapping wings, powered using wireless radiofrequency technology. This robot, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, is based on a radiofrequency power receiver with a remarkable power-to-weight density of 4,900 W kg-1.
“Small drones typically have a very limited operating time due to their power source,” Takashi Ozaki, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “The purpose of our recent research was to overcome this limitation. Currently, no-contact power supply using electromagnetic waves has been put to practical use in various products, but it was unknown how far it could be applied to small flying robots.”
The main objective of the recent study by Ozaki and his colleagues was to power an insect-size flying robot using no-contact, wireless charging technology. The robot created by the researchers is essentially comprised of a flapping, piezoelectric actuator that is powered through a 5 GHz dipole antenna.
All good things come to an end.
Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have proved to be something of a revolution in many aspects of our modern world. Among the most dramatic, in the field of combat.
The ability to project power at a distance without risking a human’s life is an incredibly technological feat. It could be so revolutionary, in fact (if some experts are to be believed), that it could put an end to more than a century of aerial dominance in warfare.
Continue reading “Will the Emergence of Drones Mean the End of Crewed Aircraft?” »
HD video isn’t the only thing Saildrone captured. Data from the heart of the storm could help researchers, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bexdRUnUo-0&feature=share
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And it’s likely to meet its 2024 deadline.
United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), a subsidiary of Rostec, the Russian state corporation that supports military manufacturing, has unveiled the first flight prototype of its S-70 Okhotnik combat drone, Tass reported. The unveiling that took place on Tuesday was attended by Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister, Alexey Krivoruchko.
Continue reading “Russia’s Heavy Stealth Drone ‘Hunter’ is Ready for Its First Flight” »
Further exploration of the unknown worlds of the deep sea may soon be possible, along with low-energy monitoring. Engineers at Caltech, ETH Zurich, and Harvard are developing an AI that will allow autonomous drones to navigate using the ocean’s currents rather than struggling to move through them.
According to one of the authors of a recent paper published in Nature Communications 0, John O. Dabiri, communications with robots exploring at depths of 20,000 feet is near impossible. They are difficult to control via joystick, and researchers are unable to feed them data about local ocean currents. So it becomes necessary for ocean-borne drones to be able to make their own decisions and move by themselves.
Cyber attackers could target 3D printed objects in health care, aerospace, and other fields.
Cybersecurity researchers at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and the Georgia Institute of Technology have proposed new ways to protect 3D printed objects such as drones, prostheses, and medical devices from stealthy “logic bombs.”
The researchers will present their paper, titled “Physical Logic Bombs in 3D Printers via Emerging 4D Techniques,” at the 2021 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference on December 10, 2021.
The same Saildrones captured the first-ever video from inside a major hurricane from sea level in September.
Six autonomous Saildrones are taking off on a six-month journey to tackle some of Earth’s most challenging ocean conditions, in order to improve climate change and weather forecast computer models, reported CNN.
They will travel to the Gulf Stream throughout the winter months where they will collect data about the process by which oceans absorb carbon (carbon uptake). So far, the numbers on this type of activity have only been estimates produced by statistical methods that cannot, therefore, be relied upon.
Continue reading “Six Hurricane-Faring Autonomous Drones to Collect Data in Gulf Stream Region” »
