Through the Interface

8 responses to “The need for autonomous drone navigation”

1. 

   James Maeding

   July 18, 2014 at 3:00 pm

   I think all RC hobbyists crash their first model. Its the most painful too unfortunately. Like a hazing or something by an unknown RC union you never paid dues to or agreed to join. Stoked you got one with arducopter board, I am looking at that currently. As I never used to say "If it uses a 'mega, it has to be good!" Now to see what kind of quality you can get with Recap 360. My first attempts with handheld camera are very average.

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2. 

   John Beltran

   July 18, 2014 at 3:04 pm

   I'm not sure whether more autonomous systems are needed, or pilots with better judgment (no reflection on the author intended).

   One of my passions is aircraft. I built my first radio controlled glider in 1981 and have stayed abreast of the modeling industry in the US for many years.

   Drones are really changing things for modelers in many ways. When I started modeling there were many barriers to entry: besides the cash outlay, you needed to invest a huge amount of time building an aircraft. To be successful you also had to understand some basic aircraft theory (like weight and balance), understand mechanics, and have some skill in flying most often developed the "hard way". Most new pilots spent about 20 hours building and fixing their machines for every hour of flight - and most flights ended with a trip to the workbench. But the process had the side-effect of weeding out those without the skills and commitment to get things flying. And because pilots had invested so much money and time in their aircraft they were typically very careful with them and operated them with relatively good judgment.

   About 15 years ago things started to change. Radios got very cheap and companies started to offer ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) or Ready-To-Fly aircraft. While ARF a RTF aircraft had been around for years they were fragile and did not fly well. Manufacturers were starting to deliver higher quality designs and used materials (often foam!) which were very tolerant of rough landings. Pilots could buy a plane and be flying (and crashing) that afternoon, but the planes were so durable that people could crash a dozen times before needing to do repairs. And the planes were getting inexpensive so when one wore out you could go out and buy another.

   The barrier to getting up and flying - the point where the sport gets dangerous - became much lower. People were also getting hurt at record rates. A plastic propeller spinning at 20000 rpm cuts a finger very easily, and now people could go to the hobby shop, spend a few hundred dollars, and be in the emergency room that night. About the same time lithium battery technology was becoming widespread and lithium fires were becoming more common as people without an understanding of how the battery and charger worked were shorting the wiring doing repairs or overcharging the batteries. The natural barriers that kept impulsive users from getting into a deceptively dangerous hobby were gone.

   Today I see the industry at the beginning of a similar trend with drones, which present a whole new set of issues beyond those of pilot safety.

   For example folks like their privacy, and don't like model airplanes with cameras buzzing over their heads or backyards. In the US there is currently no law preventing your neighbor from flying his aircraft in the public airspace over your backyard. (A young man was recently assaulted by a woman for flying his drone over a public beach - perfectly legal under current laws, but questionable judgment - https://www.youtube.com/wat...

   As you recently discovered with your own trials, flying is a learned skill. It takes time. It takes crashes. It takes repairs. It takes understanding how the system works and what can go wrong, which is difficult if you didn't build the system and the manufacturer doesn't provide a lot of information. (Hint: the less you pay, the less information you get that tells you what to do).

   Insurance companies are getting more involved as more people drop their drones on someone's head or property. Amazon making a splash in the news about using drones for delivery doesn't help - I don't see that every being acceptable from a public safety perspective, and I have trouble seeing the FAA allowing it.

   In the United States the FAA owns all of the airspace down to ground level. The laws here allow the operation of "model aircraft" with a fairly liberal set of rules - basically don't do anything stupid like operate them near full sized aircraft. Yet people do (and always have done) stupid things anyway. 🙂

   Drones, and the international security climate, are drawing attention to model aircraft accidents more and more. It seems there is a new accident in the news every day and the FAA is looking closely at dramatically regulating model aircraft operations in the US. Maybe that should have been done a long time ago.

   In graduate school I had an engineering professor who worked on China's first indigenously designed aircraft (a cargo plane designed in a cave during the cultural revolution). To ensure that the hand calculations performed in designing the aircraft were correct, the engineers working on the design were required to be on the first flight of the aircraft with the test pilot. A real stake in the outcome.

   Bottom line, I'm not sure any of the social and safety issues get better with autonomous drone control - if anything it just lowers the barrier so that more people with bad judgment can get into trouble. The problem is the judgment of the operator, whether that operator is twiddling sticks or programming a computer it doesn't affect their judgment. Autopilots can fail, you might program the wrong flight plan, there might be a bug in the system, the system may not be properly designed, or you might be operating it in a dangerous manner. The latter is especially problematic when the operator isn't the one whose personal property and health are at risk.
   I see a backlash against drones in society coming soon. Hopefully it can be avoided, but I see things already going this direction in the US with regulation the FAA is considering. That's probably a good thing for the public, and a big inconvenience for those who already fly model aircraft responsibly.

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   1. 

      Kean Walmsley

      July 18, 2014 at 5:48 pm

      Great historical context and perspective - thanks, John! You also get the prize for the longest comment that doesn't include a complete program listing that this blog has ever received (I'm guessing, but am probably not far off).

      I'm definitely coming at this the perspective of seeing what's possible with modest investment (time, effort and money). Which may or may not put me at the dangerous end of the spectrum: the lessons I'm already learning are steering me towards solid calibration, testing and mission planning, as well as learning and respecting my limits as an operator.

      The backlash is absolutely happening, and often for very good reasons. It will be interesting to see how things play out over the coming months/years.

      Kean

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      1. 

         John Beltran

         July 18, 2014 at 9:27 pm

         Finally I finish first in something. 🙂

         And if you think this is verbose, you should see my subdocs! (For those who don't work at Autodesk, a "subdoc" is a document we submit with our code changes that describe what you changed and why. I sometimes spend more time on my subdoc than I do writing the code which it describes).

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         1. 

            james maeding

            July 22, 2014 at 10:22 pm

            a coder? Have I penetrated the autodesk veil of secrecy and found the name of an actual coder? Care to reveal what products you work on, I have years of questions to ask if you work on AutoCad.

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            1. 

               Kerry Brown

               July 23, 2014 at 4:27 pm

               james, you're asking John to subject himself with self inflicted injuries ... not a fair call 😉

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               1. 

                  james maeding

                  July 24, 2014 at 8:25 pm

                  I'll keep him alive with cash, I mean blood transfusions yearly 😉

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   2. 

      james maeding

      July 22, 2014 at 10:19 pm

      I agree its crazy you can just buy modern quadcopters and fly them without much of the learning curve previous modelers were used to. The tricky part of all this is how do you defend against a drone flying 200 feet away you cannot hear if any noise is going on? A previous generation pilot had to have line of sight, or you yell "I lost it" and start sweating about what happened. I'm more worried about when gangsters figure out you can cheaply deliver damaging devices with them. Then we will see some serious technical innovation. I keep telling people not to invent another drone, but an anti-drone.

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