Quadrocopters juggle balls cooperatively | Hacker News Reader

Quadrocopters juggle balls cooperatively

engadget.com

314 pointsbrianwillis79 comments

Robots are the next revolution, so why isn't anybody acting like it?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380270

Seems like some people are.

Not to take away from the obvious coolness of it all, but am I the only one who was disappointed to see that "juggling" here didn't really mean "3 balls in the air at once"? The headline led me to believe it would resemble a circus routine...

Apparently, "juggle balls cooperatively" is German for "play catch".

volleyball

The solo version is closer to juggling:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/08/quadrocopters-enter-the-f...

These things feel like the iPad of robots, as in basic hardware that's massively customizable via software.

Check out their YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ETHZurichIDSC

It's funny that you say that, because you can buy an iPad-controlled quadrotor on Apple's store right here:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/H1991ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA3NA...

I think what aresant meant was that these robots represent in the world of robots what the iPad represents in the world of Tablets: basic hardware made great by its software. Or not?

Just wait till they film one controlling an ipad by gently scraping itself across the screen.... perhaps playing angry birds.

From these videos it looks plausible. The hard part now would be setting up the camera to see what's happening on the screen when the copter is on top of it.

You're going to need a sausage stylus for the 'copter to activate the capacitive touchscreen.

Also, the hard part of any such project is the control code.

Perhaps it will harvest stylus from the nearest human.

Now you have me thinking whether a severed finger would continue to work on a capacitive screen. A fine way to start the morning!

I don't think dead tissues are emitting any magnetic flux. I'm not sure though, but it seems obvious. #trivial

Sausage works. Why won't a finger? It is about conductivity, isn't it? May be the bots will pickle our fingers for best results.

These robots seem to be using external sensors (cameras mounted in the room, not just on the robot's body).

Of course, the achievement of the research group is impressive, but for those excited about the possibilities to use such robots right now: it's still a long way till relying just on internal sensors and using such robots in arbitrary environment.

You don't need an arbitrary environment.

I can imagine having them used as killer bee guards for indoor use - even if they're helpless outdoors. Well to not only think of weapons usage - they could be used for lots of tasks indoors (painting walls/ceilings for instance :D).

Catching litter before it hits the floor!

Shooing cats off the table.

Preventing insects that can carry harmful diseases from entering sterile environments - tropical hospitals could be designed with a long entry hallway swarming with little bots designed to catch flies and mosquitos.

It might be more cost effective to have the robots install mosquito netting.

It's 2011. I want some future, damnit!

Regarding mosquitoes - I'd propose that we mount anti mosquito lazers on the copterz.

There is still tremendous value in the development of the control algorithms. The external optical sensors provide lightning fast, precise 3-dimensional location information. Pair these algorithms with a self-contained position-awareness system, and you could adapt the algorithms for use in a free-flying device. The development of the self-contained position-awareness system is a large project in itself.

The Wii remote, Sony six-axis controller, and iPhone use rudimentary forms of this type of position-awareness. As these sensors and technology develop, it's conceivable that future generations will be self contained.

Military use: Personal Grenade "Return To Sender" Protection.

Fly a swarm of them around military ships. "Living" armor as missile defense.

Send two or three missiles in a row.

The Russian P-700 Granit anti-ship missile can operate in a networked swarm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit

Missiles move very fast.

But they don't change course that fast. They have great velocity, but only average acceleration. These copters have really good acceleration at low speeds, so they should be able to get in the way of a missile with a known target really well.

not really necessary... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system

Use the quadroptors in depth: first is furthest out to force a missile course change, next several sit behind and flanking first on the likeliest course changes. Integrate these with the CIWS to define "holes" where the gun can expect to find the missile.

Or, make a big one, station it up and miles off, and have it launch heat + radar homing counter missiles, timed to intercept incoming with "matching" intercepts rather than "crossing" intercepts.

Sorry about the late reply. That's a creative idea. At first blush a defense of these seems equivalent in the sense that both are somewhat "stochastic" defense mechanisms - throw up a wall of obstructions and hope something collides.

I don't know why my instinct is to anthropomorphize them, but somehow they're goddamned _cute_. Look! Robots playing ping pong!

A robot dog might be in my future :/

The last ditch effort they make to grab the ball before it falls feels very human.

Yeah, they need an attachment to pick the ball up and start again. I'm sure they're just dying to get rid of the slow human component of their game so they can play faster.

You think they're cute? I think they're incredibly sinister.

Maybe you haven't played Half Life 2?

No, he played portal.

Why aren't they using these in Fukushima:

http://metamodern.com/2011/03/24/fukushima-%E2%80%94-where-a...

EM interference from the radiation.

I don't think the radiation has had any effect on radio communications, has it? That just seems really unlikely.

Ever wondered why data cables are shielded?

As far as I can recall, most data cables arn't shielded. Audio cables usually are, however, to stop hum/etc. when travelling over long distances.

To be more specific, if you have wire it will act like an antenna. It's usually a fairly poor antenna for most types of EM that you would find, however there are some things, ie. 50hz hum from mains power and its harmonics, that are powerful enough to induce a nontrivial amount of interference for analog applications.

Most digital signals either don't care (because the interference is too weak), or don't care (because they are using twisted pairs and the signal cancels out overall) and hence they are usually unsheilded.

Nuclear radiation can't, in normal circumstance, induce a signal into a wire.

Even a leaky reactor won't do much to the RF signal, but it can affect basically every other aspect of the electronics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening

It doesn't effect radio communications. It does very nasty things to electronics though. Mostly because it can provide energy directly to the inside of, say, a transistor or the inside of a dram cell causing things to malfunction. It can also do interesting things to the silicon lattice itself, which is what typically causes complete failure of electronic devices in a high radiation environment.

Yes. They tried to send in robots to observe and help the liquidators move debris at Chernobyl, but they didn't last very long. It isn't so much the radio signal as the electronics get damaged very easily by radiation.

Uh... that's your first thought, really? You honestly think, out of the combined force of Japan, the US, the US military, and plenty of brilliant engineers across the globe, that that HASN'T crossed their mind?

Try radiation hardening electronics + battery life + hardening optics/sensors + control range + reliability/safety + size of areas involved = a 1,200lb flying robot that probably won't work, or only work for a few minutes, nevermind will probably crash and break open the pressure casing.

...

Godamnit...

It's not my first thought - it's Drexler's who's a lot smarter than me. Maybe you should read the comments over there.

[EDITED:] Your condescending tone is unhelpful.

Although this RC plane can't hover, it seems to have potentially useful range and flight time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPL16L7pjA

I do like the tethered balloon idea in the comments. Or kite even.

Actually I was surprised they didn't ship in a bunch of electric generators (since Japan is the home of Honda and Yamaha, two of the very best in portable generation) to power the water pumps.

Or one of those remote-control firefighting robots to drag a firehose into the fuel rod pool area to keep things covered in water.

I have to assume the people in charge thought of those things and decided against for some logistical reason.

I thought they should rig automated catapults to lob ice at the spent fuel pools. If solid ice could damage the fuel casings, crush it and repack it. Even if the missiles miss the pool, they would help by cooling the ambient air and slow evaporation from the pool.

Because they have no sensors, no sense of height, speed, or their position in space The room they are in determines their position in space and guides them through it.

Ghost in the Shell - Japanese miracle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Ghost_in_the_Shell#Jap...)

I guess if it's Engadget it's not blogspam?

http://www.youtube.com/user/ETHZurichIDSC

It’s never “blogspam” if additional information is provided.

These young whippersnapper roboticists have it so easy these days, what with their new fangled flying robots. Back in my day, we were happy if we could get our robots to walk. In the snow. Up hill. Both ways.

It's cool because it's about as good as ping pong as me. Even more if I had to fly.

I feel like I'm watching what would be R&D for the movie Batteries Not Included if it were being made now.

All joking aside, I love these things. Logistically, is there any hope of a solar panel attachment to keep them alive longer?

Part of the reason this works so well is that it's inside. Outside, where you have good sunlight, you have wind that you have to compensate for.

Re: solar panels - nope, they are not powerful enough... only maybe if these things will hibernate in the sun for long stretches of time between short bursts of activity.

I'm not sure those things are even electic-powered. From what I have heard from modelling, if you want your flying thing to carry any useful load (like, camera and radio) and last over 10 minutes, it is bound to have combustion engine.

I have always wondered if a quadrotor could be set up to harvest wind energy. I'm imagining it propping itself up against a tree or something and letting the wind blow it's rotors to recharge. Does anyone know why that won't work?

These aren't quadrotors, but they're relevant: http://www.makanipower.com/

Solar panels large enough to be useful would probably affect the aerodynamics too much. Simpler to add a charging station somewhere and have the robot go there when it's "tired."

Here's another video of quadrocopters flying through windows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7X0_6o9J10

Fascinating and slightly disturbing at the same time.

Fear not, unless you have a Vicon system installed in your house. Most of these quadcopter demos involved very expensive motion capture systems to determine the location of the vehicles. Pretty much all of the control software is on a separate system.

Call me paranoid, but it probably wont take too many iterations for them to get the price down, and integrate the control system into the quadrocopter. Once that happens, we'll have manhacks on the market.

> Once that happens, we'll have manhacks on the market.

Researchers at CERN have discovered an effective defense against those:

http://imgur.com/qMCeI

Ten years from now, you'll be buying them as toys at Wal*Mart

Ah. Thanks. I was curious about the level of autonomy deployed to each of the actual devices. It'd be interesting to get more details on this particular demo.

It seems it relies on 3d information about it's surroundings... Perhaps there is a future project here to try and strip out / slim down the kinect internals to use with these copters and then off load the control system right onto the copter since it won't (maybe) need any more external data.

So, how long until police/military are using these against people?

Definitely within our lifetimes, but this decade?

By the way, the programming looking like it's REACTING to the ball, not PREDICTING how it will respond be based on it's behavior.

For surveillance above crowds, within a couple of years if not already IMO.

They are already: http://www.aeryon.com/

I've stumbled across reports of "unnatural dragonfly-like" drones above crowds/protests but it's often hard to tell if those are legit sightings or imaginative conspiracists.

I'm salivating for the opportunity to write AI for this. Reminds me of these drones I saw at GDC: http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/03/05/gdc-2011-a-r-drone-f...

It's not a pleasant thought, but the military applications for this are many and will be very lucrative.

When it comes to unpleasant thoughts I'm more scared of this robot bird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnR8fDW3Ilo

When you see a quadcopter hovering you know you are being watched. But with the bird it's a different story.

I'd find it more interesting if you actually managed to get them to compete against each other. They're not playing pong, quite the opposite.

I'd like to see them paint one red and one blue and make them compete in an airborne ping-pong match.

I have a question.

It seems like they perform better when they are two than one.

I.e. when it's only one QC it lost the ball quite quickly.

Is this telling of something or is that just coincidence?

Seems intuitive to me. Once the ball bounces, a stationary robot will be able to react quicker from moving at a stand-still, where-as the robot that did the bounce has to control it's momentum, which is often going to be going to be taking it in the wrong direction (upwards) to where it wants to be (lower down with x/y shifts to anticipate ball arc)

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