Japanese engineers develop flying robotic orb | Hacker News Reader

Japanese engineers develop flying robotic orb

latimesblogs.latimes.com

155 pointsilamont41 comments

Not that impressive if you are familiar with the technology.

As someone mentioned, this is, at its simplest, an RC helicopter inside a sphere.

RC helicopters have had off-the-shelf 3 axis gyros and 3 axis accelerometers available for quite some time. There are probably well over a dozen such systems in the market today.

As far as cost is concerned, the numbers are on par with what was mentioned. My smallest helicopter system probably runs about $2,000 or so ready to fly. This includes carbon fiber rotors, skeleton, 3-axis stabilization system, radio, etc.

If you dared get close to an RC heli with a stabilization system and push it you'd see exactly what you saw in this video: The heli would recover to its prior attitude. In real life wind gusts do this all the time.

No doubt they are writing additional code to take advantage of the spherical platform.

If you are interested in seeing what a modern high-performance RC heli can do today check out this seven year old kid flying one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHJs1gBLiuQ

Here's another example of what these machines can do today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgbXcb1P6eU

Yes, they are dangerous. Power systems can exceed 10KW on the high performance helis.

Here's one of the many commercially available 3-axis flight stabilization systems in the market:

http://www.digitalflybar.com/products/sk720.html

Time to take apart one of the helis and build a sphere around it!

The difference here is not so much that it hovers and stabilises position, but that it has two modes of flying: when it hovers, it works like a helicopter (the propeller provides support), but when it goes forward, it works like a plane (the wings provide support while the propeller only provides forward movement).

This made me think of an experimental aircraft design I saw once. It uses a huge ducted propeller to be able to hover while at the same time being able to fly forward, with the wings (and duct) generating lift as in a traditional airplane. The problem is that the cockpit stays fixed, so hovering would be very disorienting for the pilot.

http://www.esotec.org/hbird/index.html

This is pretty much how the new F-35B (STOVL variant of the Joint Strike Fighter) works. There's a ducted fan in the middle of the plane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35C#F-35B

In addition to the two flying modes it can roll on the ground to get to hard to reach places. I've not seen a helicopter do that before.

I honestly have to wonder if that was inspired by a certain Japanese video game series in which the protagonist does exactly the same thing.

OK, build a sphere around the $200 VTOL plane I linked to above and you have that too.

making that sphere not interfere with airflow from the rotors is not trivial.

Also nothing new. You can buy one right now for about $200. Here's one example: http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFL...

Here's a video: http://www.horizonhobby.com/ProdInfo/Files/EFLU4780.wmv

So what is different from the flying orb (other than the chassis)? avionics software? Why $200 vs $1400?

If I wanted to build one, what off-the-shelf components would I use (electronics and controller especially)? What pieces of hardware and software would I have to implement?

Bottom line: this is cool, how would I build one in my garage with as little wheel-reinvention as possible?

Anyone else immediately think of those floating orbs from half-life 2? I'm imagining the U.S. military will be developing something similar if it hasn't already - the use cases just seem too extensive. I mean, something like that could float along in front of a unit/convoy deployed in hostile areas and scan/sense for IEDs, or you could have a distributed swarm of these patrolling streets at night with IR cameras, reporting any trouble. They'd be able to see under canopies, inside alleyways, even enter enclosures and buildings (physically if not legally). The fact that it's blades are some-what enclosed also makes it safer for close quarters operations without getting thwacked or cut up by a helicopter blade as well.

Another orwellian thought with a mixture of huxley - what if the future doesn't begin with these types of surveillance tech imposed on us by our government, patrolling our streets with cameras and other sensors, but rather with a slick company manufacturing and marketing it as a guardian-angel device?

Afraid of a family member being unsupervised? Call in the UAV to keep tabs on them from your smartphone. Want to go for a jog, but it's getting dark out? Bring along the Orb with flash-light, GPS, ability to call for help, etc. If you think it would be too ridiculous to happen, and that people wouldn't want to look ridiculous to these things hovering over them at all times, just wait until they get smaller...

It made me think of the ever-loyal Cortana from Halo. I was a little freaked out to read that this was developed by Japan's Ministry of Defense, and not a private company.

>I'm imagining the U.S. military will be developing something similar if it hasn't already

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_RQ-16_T-Hawk

I, for one, am tired of playing Reality in fixed first-person view. I just need the LED-embedded contact lenses to get to a high enough resolution for over-the-shoulder.

I went into that video thinking "Big deal; it's a helicopter inside a ball", but the way it moved in the air was actually very impressive -- especially the way it responded to being pushed by the demonstrator about a minute in.

I'm not convinced on its supposed use case though. What makes it any better at search than a smaller UAV?

It can go inside caves, buildings, tight places. Lots of use cases.

It can serve beer in a crowded pub :)

Still seems like a helicopter inside a ball, except with 3 gyroscopes to essentially auto-correct itself.

A helicopter's rotors rotate in two ways that are different from airplanes.

1) the whole rotor can tilt in a specific direction, called Collective. If you want helicopter to move left, the entire rotor assembly tilts left, changing the angle that thrust is generated.

2) The angle of attack (AoA) on the individual blades can change. If the helicopter is hovering, this alters the amount of lift generated.

In contrast, a prop driven airplane has propellers that are static. The only control you have over them is the rotation speed.

In the video, the ball is using an airplane-style prop, and using airplane-style control surfaces to change direction.

Actually, many prop planes can control the pitch of their blades as well :)

True, but this is all about the 'wings'. An one propeller heli will not fly, it will only spin around. But this thing uses flaps (or wings as you like). That's why this is not just a heli inside a ball.

Old ideas put together in a new way (literally: off-the-shelf components). It's convenient how everything - rotor, control surfaces - is tucked away. And it can execute a rolling landing.

They say they had a hover/fly plane, but take-off and landings were difficult, and the spherical design was an attempt to solve it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF0uLnMoQZA&t=1m40s (1:40)). Although... perhaps the impressive aspects come from the R&D in the antecedent aircraft.

Hobbyists have long showed-off hovering remote-controlled model planes; the automatic control is what's really impressive, encapsulating that skill.

> Old ideas put together in a new way

As is pretty much everything; new ideas are far rarer than people want to admit.

> Old ideas put together in a new way

AKA innovation

That's freaky as hell.

I've spent the last few months designing a spherical drone with counter-rotating props and Arduino controlled ailerons to direct the airflow... that looks nearly EXACTLY like the one in that video.

I still have the Sketchup files somewhere.

Now I have to go find something else that hasn't been done.

Finish the plans, put them on Thingiverse.com or something. Someone will build it and you'll be most satisfied to see it out there, I'm sure.

Yes, please do!

Put a pistol on it, or an explosive charge and you've got something the military would probably be interested in.

There's no denying this is cool, but there's also no denying that this type of technology could be used for very evil stuff. Launch one of these with a GPS a mile or so from a target and you've got an automated nasty.

Not to hard to think of counter measures. I suspect some kind of silly string ack ack could probably do bad things to those rotors. Mini "Barrage Balloons" with Monofilament lines and netting might come into vogue in certain circles...

The cheaper your weapon, the more effective the countermeasures have to be.

These things could just as easily carry a grenade (or several), and a dead man's switch. When it can't fly anymore, self-destruct.

There's not exactly a lack of killer flying drones as it is.

The video makes a big deal about how the parts are off-the-shelf; how off-the-shelf is the software?

Also, as of this writing, latimes.com claims the thing costs $140,000, but the video says $1,400 at 2:30.

They mention an R&D plane for hover/fly; and the automation of that (I'm guessing) is also a breakthrough: not off-the-shelf software.

I read this news in Japanese media, it describes material cost of this object is about 110,000 JPY ($1,446).

Sering this, I think the same thing I did when I first saw quadrotors on Youtube: So, when do things like this replace cameras and helicopters as high tech policing tools?

Just place charging stations around the city that they can land in (in this car, or affix to in the case of quadrotors,) and you've got an extra pair of eyes on the street able to cover far more ground than a patrolman. (Though, you'd stol need someone to pilot them. For now.)

Yes but can it get the princess to tell you where the rebel base is?

http://www.originalprop.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/...

Ah! It's a probe droid! :D

Finally, Anti-escape Orbs are a possibility.

THE MANHACKS ARE COMING!

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