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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

Okay HN developers -- when you get done reading the linked article and are finished laughing at the thought of a little helicopter delivering a taco or a bottle of beer, start thinking:

* Little helicopters can now lift a substantial weight.

* They aren't very expensive.

* They're easily controlled, more so than a full-sized helicopter (primarily because of computer-aided controls and GPS guidance). So you don't have to be Chuck Yeager to fly one.

* All you need to do is mate the helicopter with a decent camera that can simultaneously beam a picture to the ground for guidance and preview, and take high-resolution pictures on command by way of the radio link.

* Uses: real estate (who desperately need a way to take high-quality pictures of houses from above), surveillance, art, video productions, etc..

This is an opportunity waiting for someone willing to take it on.

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The legalities are still in the works (in the United States), but my brother has been using drones for 6 months to take photos of real estate.

http://aerialfly.com/

(P.S. - he can only get 20 minutes flight time with two li-po batteries)

Could you elaborate a little bit about what kind of stuff he's run into? I've been considering doing some arial chase scene footage of BMX events but wondering about the legalities of it? If you want, email works as well (In profile).

We already have plenty of photos of houses from above. Surveilance is still hard because these things are noisy and don't have a long linger time. The tacocopter is a real use case; I'd pay for it, particularly if it can deliver to my second-floor balcony rather than having to go down to the door.

> real estate

Aren't there already unmanned blimps built to solve exactly this problem?

> surveillance

Except they're insanely loud when they get in close to you.

> art, video productions

There are a lot of good videos and pictures taken with multicopters, but you've got to remember a couple of things:

- They're loud. Probably loud enough to annoy whatever you're filming.

- Their engines vibrate a lot.

- They can only fly for a few minutes at a time (meaning LOTS of recharging and LOTS of batteries).

- If they fall out of the sky then it is very likely that you will lose your expensive recording equipment.

This is a bit too pessimistic, even for me. Technology is only going to get better, and the quadcopters will become quieter, and with less vibration, with longer battery lives.

As quadcopter technology and things like computer vision become more advanced, it really does seem like there's a lot of possibilities for these types of devices.

I've been daydreaming of the day when I have my own personal swarm of quadcopters that continuously circle my house with a wireless camera, and then land to recharge, and another one takes off. Not that I'm particularly worried about security (my barred windows, landmines and laser booby traps are more than enough protection), but it would be fun to see that.

The other thing that would be fun with quadcopters is if you could give it your gear, like your cellphone, wallet, etc, and have it fly above you everywhere, and whenever you needed something, you could just summon it. It's like the old school Dungeons and Dragons concept of having a familiar that you can summon whenever you needed it. You could also video yourself, from a WoW-like view, just for fun.

Except they're insanely loud when they get in close to you.

Which also is a (potential) feature. Consider a burglar alarm at your home, when it goes off you can just launch the quadcopter from wherever you are to investigate (and at the same time make the burglar aware of your presence). A lot of deterrents go out of their way to be visible. It gives you the opportunity to cancel the alarm or call in the police quickly.

And as for video productions and art, there quite a few products targeting this already, where you can preprogram movements etc. that just wasn't possible before.

http://vimeo.com/35432485

> Aren't there already unmanned blimps built to solve exactly this problem?

This solution might be less expensive, more flexible, and easier to control on a windy day. Not that a model helicopter would be easy to control in a high wind, but compared to a blimp -- no contest.

Also I think the setup and takedown time for a model helicopter would be much less than for a blimp.

> Except they're insanely loud when they get in close to you.

Not an electric one -- they're surprisingly quiet. I was thinking of a battery-operated helicopter, to make the system easier to use as well as quieter.

My big fear: when the payload is hand grenades [1], i.e. a "multicopter bomber".

You can launch the multicopters from places where you're not seen. You can even do this in nighttime and have them land and wait undetected on some rooftop until you want them to continue their mission.

A handfull of such multicopters will make more terror than 9/11 ever could do because 9/11 was (almost) concentrated to a single place. 9/11 had passenger lists so it was easy to find out who took control of the planes. Multicopter bombers have no passenger lists, no sender address. You don't know how many more planes are in the air and when they will strike.

Redundancy and multi-target missions are even cheaper and more efficient with multicopters than in the 9/11 attacks. Multicopters are so cheap that the terrorists can launch a bunch of them and not care if half of them fail to get to their target. Multicopters bombers works for targeting e.g. Disney Parks and other places with a lot of easily frightened people out in the open.

With 9/11 it was easy to get away from the attacks (i.e. just leave that part of Manhatten). Multicopter bombers are like a swarm of supersized wasps. You don't know where to go, you don't know when they'll be back.

1: Homemade "grenades": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copeland

When you say "my big fear", I can't help but read "m irrational fear".

Do you _really_ fear "multicopter bombers" with a fleet "like a swarm of supersized wasps"?

To me, that's in the same class as people wo are afraid of flying, yet happily drive their car to the airport.

Realistically, terrorists don't skill up with brand new technologies to try carrying hand grenades around, they use cars/trucks/airplanes. If _I_ had a budget set to get explosives in amongst people, I'd be buying or renting cars/pickups/small trucks which can carry thousands of pounds of explosives around a city relatively inconspicuously. I wouldn't be training up teams of rc-pilots/hobby-UVA-geeks to be able to deliver a pound or three of explosive at a time.

What's the easiest and cheapest:

a) buying a few hand grenades and premade multicopters? Hobbyists in Germany have already multicopters which are GPS pre-programmed so you don't need any pilots to control them during the mission.

b) creating thousands of pounds of explosives? Try read the detailed diary from the 2011 Norwegian terrorist to see how much time and trouble it took produce his bomb: way more time and effort than most would think.

The next 10 years will make multicopters much more accessible to non-geeks, but "thousands of pounds of explosives" won't be any easier than today. New tech gets old very quickly.

Why do you need multicopters? Terrorists already can (and some have) plant small timed bombs in crowded areas. I don't really see much difference other than that they can target more secure areas. This would be useful if they wanted to attack military targets, but since their usual goal is civilian casualties, they can by definition already get to places civilians congregate.

When planting a bomb you have to visit the scene of the crime and risk being seen.

With multicopters there's virtually no risk of getting caught.

A multicopter is going to be a lot more conspicuous than a person with a briefcase. I don't buy it.

I have absolutely no idea where where I can purchase a live grenade. However, living in a rural area, I'd have no trouble finding people who know how to make explosives from common (and cheap) farm materials. Hell, I was making blackpowder when I was 11 years old.

Now add to that the fact that in the US I can buy a used car or pickup truck cheaper than I can buy a cheap GPS-equipped model helicopter and I definitely know which option I'd be more worried about.

Hobbyists in Germany have already multicopters which are GPS pre-programmed so you don't need any pilots to control them during the mission.

Hobbyists everywhere can have this - Arducopter (DIYDrones.com) and other projects have had this for years. Arduino + compass + GPS + accelerometer + altimeter + optional XBee radio (~2km+ range on some models) + autopilot software... preprogrammed routes, live telemetry and course changes via Xbee and ground control software.

What about 3D printers making guns? And chemical construction machines making drugs and explosives?

We're heading for a very interesting future.

What about 3D printers making guns? ... We're heading for a very interesting future.

We're already there. These guys printed a lower receiver (legally considered to be "the gun") of an AR-15:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133514-the-worlds-first-3...

Now you can't (right now) even with laser sintering produce some of the highest tolerance parts of a gun, such as the barrel. But we're getting there.

producing a barrel is not even hard with a well set up lathe, is it? I mean, certainly you can outperform muskets easily enough.

Yeah, I was just thinking of the scenario where you just download a file, print it, and you have a finished product, with some assembly.

With 3-D printers, this can currently be done with only very simple products. But the capabilities are expanding...

This has been happening since 2000, over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. With guided rocket propelled "grenades" and the terrorists are the CIA and pals in USA government.

You should put your talent to good use, I bet you have it in you to write a first rate thriller.

(I'm not being viscicious - plenty of people have imagination, plenty of other people can rationalise about what could work in practice, drawing these together is a skill).

There's a book called Kill Decision that came out about a month and a half ago - drone bombings are a major part of the plot.

http://thedaemon.com/killdecisionsynopsis.html

You could also go to a rooftop and just throw granates on the street.

So what's the difference between 10 guys with multicopters and 10 guys using the tactics of the crazy you link?

And then what, you have a scattered handful of very very small bombs going off? That's a lot of effort to go through for not much impact.

I'm more afraid of lobsters than handgrenades.

Forget grenades, what if they drop knives on people!

We should ban multicopters before it's too late.

Steak knives too. Steak is bad for you anyway.

America - home of the brave

It's an opportunity for sure, but lots of FAA red tape if you start doing this on a larger scale for commercial use. Many existing projects and products fly under rules for hobbyists, which prevent commercial use. Taking pictures commercially for real estate probably would fly "under the radar", delivering tacos might be harder to keep quiet. Probably could be tackled, but a definite question mark.

The opportunity has been exploited for years.

IIRC, Rotomotion was the first outfit to Open Source their autopilot, and that was almost 10 years ago. I think they've since gone closed source, but their initial market was powerline and pipeline monitoring from semi-autonomous helicopters carrying cameras. Whether related to their OSS efforts or not, the DIY UAV scene exploded soon after.

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/famed-photographer-edwar...

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