
Aerial robots swarm the stage at TED [video] - 3lit3H4ck3r
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/03/robots-swarm-the-stage-at-ted.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29
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javert
Maybe I missed it, but contra the title, I did not see any robots flying in
the TED venue. Since I've seen most of these other vids (but not that), that's
what I was looking for :(

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falcolas
The quadroter in the gentleman's hand landed there at the start of the talk,
but otherwise it was all in the videos.

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robotresearcher
On of the students is carrying an RC remote when he comes on stage at the end.

It would be very hard to fly these little guys autonomously at TED, since they
use the off-board Vicon multi-camera IR motion-tracking system in their
control loop. That's a big, expensive installation in the lab.

Kumar's group is very well respected in the field. They've had several years
of strong innovation. Vijay is really good at what he does, and a nice guy.

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falcolas
They were discussing quadroters that don't use the motion tracking system as
well - ones that use the onboard kinect to do the spatial mapping.

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modeless
The Kinect-mapping quadrotor was the most interesting demo; that could be
useful today. Imagine letting loose a swarm of quadrotors in a large building
and having a complete map and textured 3D model of the interior and exterior
within just a few hours.

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tobias3
The Kinect has a very limited range, is not accurate and works only in certain
lightning condition. That's why they added a laser scanner. Those are over
$1000. Then in order to build the map via SLAM in real time you need a really
powerfull PC/Laptop. Even a netbook is not going to do it, at least for the
SLAM in ROS(ros.org). Then it looks like they added a all angles are 90°
assumtion, because normally the map does not look that nice because little
errors accumulate. So it will take a while till we see something like that
outside universities.

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modeless
Kinect-like sensors are going to improve very quickly
([http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/29/2834088/samsung-camera-
sen...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/29/2834088/samsung-camera-sensor-
captures-image-depth-information)), as are SLAM algorithms using Kinect-like
data. High cost isn't necessarily a problem for this application, as one team
of copters could map many facilities. Computing power can be mostly
centralized at a base station that can be as beefy as you want. Certainly a
commercial product is years rather than months away, but I think even this
limited demo could already be useful for e.g. mapping the nuclear reactors at
Fukushima.

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notatalker
That was weird. I read, "Aerial robots swarm the stage at TED". I thought how
rad of a demo that would be. Then I saw "[video]". And got excited to see
video of a TED talk with robots swarming the stage.

The canned video they had was riggin' rad, but I was disappointed. Damn you,
Ken Fisher!

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MCompeau
After seeing these mind-blowing quadracopter videos from UPenn popping up
online all over the place for the past couple years, its great to finally see
a culminating talk about the work being done there. Congrats guys!

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TeMPOraL
The other talk (not yet on-line) featured a remote-controlled hummingbird
drone flying around the TED stage.

See also: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgbdKNsw3Kc>

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fmstephe
This is just the thing I love to see on Hacker News. Every time you see this I
remember why I spend all those hours hacking and learning. Really lights a
fire under your ass.

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dLuna
Am I the only one who wants to mount a nerf gun on a squad of these and then
play war in the back yard?

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sologoub
I'm sure pentagon types are thinking just that... minus the nerf part. :)

The first thing I thought of how many lives could be saved with scouting
buildings.

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nwatson
The second thing I thought of was how cross-border and urban illegal drug
distribution is gonna be made much easier with this. I won't be part of it,
but, just sayin'.

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learc83
One of the things I think of when I see autonomous quadrotors is a localized
missile defense shield.

A swarm of disposable quadrotors surrounding a ship, set on a rotating
recharge schedule, that intercept missiles and detonate a small explosive
payload.

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3lit3H4ck3r
Unfortunately, I agree. From the first time I saw this technology the top
application that jumped off the page to me was of a military nature. Perhaps a
day will come when this may not be so. Until that day comes, tech like this, I
believe, will save lives; on and off the battlefield.

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gnosis
Save lives, or cost lives (or both), depending on who's in charge and what
their aims are.

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3lit3H4ck3r
The scariest part of inventing/innovation; the realization that what one
creates may fall into the hands of those with aims that are less than noble...

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aqme28
I can't help but think that that swarm-building-a-cube algorithm could be
vastly improved. Those robots are doing a lot of waiting around.

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iwwr
Can we get the designs of these robots somewhere?

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wittgenstein
Amazing work from the Penn GRASP lab! This is ground breaking!

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joshu
Blah, I was at TED and missed this. Dangit.

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tambourine_man
A bit scary but very cool.

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iradik
Can they deliver me a burrito?

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miahi
You have to sudo for that.

