
China made the best drones, now Anduril does - MikusR
https://palmerluckey.com/america-is-back-on-top-baby/
======
CamperBob2
_" Twelve years of watching drone technology at CES emerge and then boom has
made one thing abundantly clear: China Won. American companies have built a
lot of cool science fair projects that get lots of media attention, but
minimal real-world deployment – from light shows to food delivery. We also
design a lot of interesting low-volume consumer drones, but most of them lean
heavily on Chinese R&D and then go on to have their product manufactured in
China. Yes, I know, I am fully aware I did the same thing years ago with
Oculus."_

He's not wrong. A few years ago, I spent $399 for a point-and-shoot digital
camera that took decent photos under decent lighting conditions. It supported
resolutions up to 1920x1080 or so. DJI just sold me a camera for the same
price that takes better photos. Also, it takes videos. Also, it fucking
_flies_. It can fly for over 20 minutes, shoot a 1080p or 2.7K video two miles
away, and find its own way back home. Uncle, already.

In a completely-unrelated anecdote, some _other_ people in China just sold me
a 3 GHz vector network analyzer with performance and features comparable to a
$10,000 portable VNA model from Keysight. It cost $70, batteries included.
(And in an amusing bit of irony, its Chinese designer is currently upset
because some other Chinese people used its CC-licensed design and GPL-licensed
firmware to undercut her own Tindie offering.)

Not many people will find the second example very meaningful, but quite a few
people can appreciate the first one. If you haven't played with a quad yet and
your toy budget can accommodate $399 (really $499, because you want the 'Fly
More' kit), consider setting aside a Saturday afternoon to goof around with a
Mavic Mini. It'll change your perspective on the evolution of consumer-
accessible technology _and_ on your own neighborhood.

I can see why the Powers that Be in the US are pulling out all the stops to
hose China by any means necessary. This is what it must have felt like to
watch the rise of Japan in the 1970s, as they turned a reputation for being a
bunch of half-assed copycats into a world-class engineering culture.

(It should go without saying that none of this is an attempt to justify any
political, military, economic, or social actions on the part of China's
government. But it won't, so there, it's said.)

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jacknews
I realise this isn't aimed at us civilian plebs (yet, lol!), but still, I
guess the old adage applies, if you have to ask, you can't afford it. Unless I
missed the price sticker somewhere?

~~~
baybal2
Take a look on Yamaha R-MAX

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emcq
This is FUD. Skydio has produced and sold amazing drones in the US for several
years. Both are invested in by Andreessen Horowitz and Palmer almost certainly
knows about them.

~~~
coolspot
Impressive:

> Ghost is a single-rotor aircraft. The mechanicals of the rotor system are
> harder to design and manufacture than a DJI-style quadcopter, and flight
> controls are harder to program, but the result is much lower aerodynamic
> disk loading that results in longer endurance (over 100 minutes with real
> mission payloads), near-silent acoustic signature, high max payload capacity
> (dozens of pounds), and high speed. Compare this with a DJI Inspire 2, a
> high-end offering that costs $3000 that can lumber around with a couple
> pounds for 24 to 27 minutes, props screaming.

> Ghost is autonomous, powered by an onboard AI Core that can perform 32
> trillion operations per second.

~~~
baybal2
Single rotor controls are much, much simpler.

At least it does not require a mandatory PID control to not fall out of the
sky.

Very little math involved in control of a helicopter. A 3 actuator type with 1
actuator for each axis basically has no need for any control signal
manipulation, and can be made fully analog.

And a helicopter can be made more or less statically stable by pure mechanics,
and aerodynamics.

 _P.S.

It doesn't seem that the drone in question exist in anything, but CGI at the
moment.

P.P.S.

And quite unsound CG at that. On some of their CG shots, a swashplate
actuators are attached with their axis coincidal with that rotor..., and a
tail rotor control yoke not attached to anything..._

~~~
CamperBob2
Given this, what are some reasons why single-rotor RC aircraft have never been
as popular as quads?

~~~
baybal2
Single rotor crafts do not avail for plasticky parts, and require more non-
off-the shelf parts in general.

Even very first quads were for example easily makeable with existing toy
parts, and plastic.

But with just a bit more efforts, single rotor craft take a lead from quads by
a significant margin.

~~~
CamperBob2
Interesting, thanks. I've never heard this perspective before. So you'd say
that anyone building an elaborate homebrew quad -- e.g., the TechIngredients
guy at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZPvZiJLbvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZPvZiJLbvI)
, who generally seems to know what he's doing -- would be better off putting
comparable effort (and comparable cash) into a single-rotor aircraft instead?

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heckerhut
Wow, this guy has a war fetish. Makes the ideas and intent behind OR and its
subsequent sale to FB all the more questionable. Sick, sick world.

~~~
d1lanka
I mean, I get your sentiment, but what's the alternative?

So far, this tech seems to be recon + defense oriented and not straight up
slaughterbot killer drones etc.

If we aren't building it, someone else will - and I'd rather us have this than
China etc. or some other authoritarian government.

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sneak
Context, from wikipedia, that sheds some light on the nationalistic headline:

> _In June 2017, Luckey co-founded the defense technology company Anduril,
> along with former Palantir Technologies executives Matt Grimm, Trae Stephens
> and Brian Schimpf, and early Oculus hardware lead Joe Chen.[40] (Anduril,
> like Palantir, is named after an object from J. R. R. Tolkien 's fantasy
> writings.) In March 2018, Anduril began a pilot program for the U.S.
> government to detect illegal immigrants attempting to enter Texas from
> Mexico; the program led to 55 attempted entrants being caught in its first
> 12 days in operation._

This post is advertising for a drone company that sells surveillance equipment
to the militarized federal police department in the US that is responsible for
running the concentration camps in Texas.

~~~
georgeburdell
Your post could do without the "concentration camp" flame-bait; it diminishes
the phrase for those with family members who died in actual concentration
camps during WWII. Drones are basically a toy weapon, so your complaint is
that a for-profit company that sells toy weapons would pursue business from
its largest potential customer.

~~~
sneak
Not flamebait, just facts.

[https://www.esquire.com/news-
politics/a27813648/concentratio...](https://www.esquire.com/news-
politics/a27813648/concentration-camps-southern-border-migrant-detention-
facilities-trump/)

~~~
elefanten
“We have what I would call a concentration camp system,” Pitzer says, “and the
definition of that in my book is, mass detention of civilians without trial.”

Here we have category of "person invents a definition that advances their
political goals."

GP's point stands that invoking what is signified to most readers by
"concentration camp" is in a different universe from what you're talking
about.

You can call out, highlight, criticize and advocate against bad practices
without sensationalizing the discourse.

~~~
DanBC
Just checking whether you know that people call the camps run by Nazis
"concentration camps" and "extermination camps", because there's a difference.

EG, here's the Auschwitz Memorial twitter account bio:
[https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum](https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum)

> Official account EN. The Memorial preserves the site of the former German
> Nazi Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. You can help
> [http://donate.auschwitz.org](http://donate.auschwitz.org)

You said the person "invents a definition", but that's easily refuted by
looking in a dictionary.

concentration

7\. attrib.: concentration camp, a camp where non-combatants of a district are
accommodated, such as those instituted by Lord Kitchener during the South
African War of 1899-1902; one for the internment of political prisoners,
foreign nationals, etc., esp. as organized by the Nazi regime in Germany
before and during the war of 1939-45; also fig.; concentration cell Electr., a
cell whose difference of potential is due to the difference of concentration
of the solutions in which the electrodes are immersed.

1901: J. Ellis in Hansard's Parl. Deb. Ser. iv. XC. 180 “The policy of placing
the women and children confined in the concentration camps in South Africa,
whose husbands and fathers are in the field, on reduced rations.”

1901: Contemp. Rev. Oct. 528 “Considerable controversy has taken place
concerning the Concentration Camps.”

1930: O. Williams tr. P. Monelli's Toes Up iii. 210 “Those who returned from
being prisoners were parked in a concentration camp under the guard of other
soldiers.”

1934: Ann. Reg. 1933 173 “Germany..For dealing with the masses of prisoners
special concentration camps were opened.”

1934: C. Lambert Music Ho! i. 52 “The purely fashionable change in the tastes
of the concentration camp of intellectuals to whom Diaghileff played up.”

1935: B. Russell Relig. & Sci. x. 248 “In Germany and Russia,..those who
openly disagree, even if they escape with their lives, are liable to forced
labour in a concentration camp.”

1940: H. G. Wells Babes in Darkling Wood iii. i. 234 “The White Paper of Nazi
atrocities in the concentration camps and elsewhere.”

1941: [see Aryanization b].

1943: [see Aryan a. 2].

1959: J. Braine Vodi v. 76 “He caught sight of his own arms, reduced almost to
concentration-camp dimensions, the veins blue and obscenely swollen against
the white skin.”

~~~
imtringued
Yes, concentration camps are basically informal prisons where people end up
when they "disappear". The Nazi regime made sure the prisoners didn't get
enough food and were worked to the bone which caused them to die them as a
side effect but that is just one way to run a concentration camp. A
concentration camp where no one dies is also awful.

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tristan123456
This is an ad, not more not less?

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xnx
Seems like a drone with these characteristics could have a lot of nonmilitary
uses as well: search and rescue, wildlife research, small deliveries, etc.

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kalium-xyz
3DR is american and makes DJI their gymbals.

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ETHisso2017
This sounds like the ad for slaughterbots.

~~~
imtringued
I always laugh at that video because once you realize what applications
loitering munitions have in real life they are not much more dangerous than a
tank shell or recoilless rifle. Meanwhile what slaughterbots is showing is
already happening except it overly dramatizes it. The USA sends drones and
deploys hellfire missiles against suspected terrorists killing innocent people
in the process. The video is just some FUD crap trying to make toys look
dangerous. Tattletail and Five Nights at Freddy’s are horror games that take
advantage of this emotion.

I would be more worried about current governments that are committing genocide
with good old fashioned guns or chemical weapons. Drones are just one more
tool in an existing arsenal.

