
The race to find the 'holy grail' of drone technology - goodcanadian
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/the-race-to-find-the-holy-grail-of-drone-technology-1.3671065
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smegel
I would have thought the holy grail would be a battery that lasts a week of
continuous usage.

And we have self driving cars, arguably far more complex than the relatively
simple task of flying through empty space.

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mdonahoe
That would be a holy grail for a lot more than the drone industry

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ars
Why do you need AI for collision avoidance? Even the simplest fly can handle
that.

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PhasmaFelis
Flies are far from simple. Read up on their biomechanics sometime. They have
six degrees of freedom--forward, backward, up/down, side to side, and rotating
around all three axes. They're fantastically sophisticated flying machines.

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th0ma5
Anyone know the latest about ADS-B or ADS-B like initiatives for drones?

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dbyte
What we really miss is an ADS-B low-cost variant for drones. Safety
requirements are different if ones takes into account the unmanned
characteristic of drones. Furthermore it will be a great exercise in solving
the known problems with the existing version. The main idea of broadcasting
navigation data is worth the shot to optimise even more the use of airspace.
Without lives at risk technical iteration can be, at least in theory, faster.
We need more IETF-style drafts and RFCs rather than classic standards (i.e
that require often more than 10 years to reach the market) to see a clever use
of such a technology in our daily-routine.

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Animats
That's available. ADS-B receive only in a 6 gram package. A full ADS-B
transponder in a 20 gram package.[1] Now your drone is visible to ATC and
aircraft, and in turn, can see other aircraft, in areas where there's ground
radar.

This is more for commercial operations in class B airspace, where you need to
get permission from the controlling FAA tower. Real estate photography in a
city or shooting a movie, for example.

This doesn't help with avoiding stationary objects; that's a separate problem
and requires sensors. ADS-B just tells all the players in controlled airspace
where the other players are.

[1]
[http://www.uavionix.com/products/ping2020/](http://www.uavionix.com/products/ping2020/)

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dbyte
Yes I agree with you but you are point out the existance of low weight
packages while I would say that cost is a more important constraint for
drones. I guess users can argue with the idea of equipping their low-cost
drone with an expensive certified ADS-B receiver. It won't be as cost
effective as one may think.

Also one has to consider that the mode S transponder is using a 24bit
identifier. While this has a lot of sense for modern civil aviation (there are
not as many planes) the same cannot be guaranteed as soon as you have many
more temporary users of your airspace (e.g. swarms of Amazon delivery drones).
IMHO regulators should aim first to create an effective solution that works
well for drones (e.g. allowing ATC to broadcast digital commands to guide
drones if necessary, btw there is a similar effort already for commercial
planes) and then find a smart way to integrate commercial and drone aviation
systems.

Btw really nice product!

