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Robotics Education Toys Technology

Robot Planes and Helicopters Taught Aerobatics 73

Posted by Zonk from the educating-the-bots dept.
holy_calamity writes "MIT and Georgia Tech researchers are teaching small robotic aircraft some impressive stunts. MIT's RC plane's can take off and land from vertical perches (video), while the Georgia Tech helicopter can land on slopes of up to sixty degrees, by flipping backwards into freefall as it lands (video)."
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Robot Planes and Helicopters Taught Aerobatics More

Robot Planes and Helicopters Taught Aerobatics

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  • One of the best Helicoptor pilots (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23, 2007 @09:42PM (#21459213)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc [youtube.com]

      Alan Szabo Jr

    • Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chuckymonkey ( 1059244 ) <charles@d@burton.gmail@com> on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:06PM (#21459335) Journal
      That was amazing. The military needs to figure out how he does all of that. While a human would not be able to take the forces something acting like that would exert, a remotely controlled fighting craft would be incredible. Back on topic that's some pretty interesting stuff. Most UAV require a landing strip like an airplane to take off and land on, if they could just do what these do it would make them much more portable and much easier to use in the field. Amazing world that we live in these days. My dad couldn't imagine having a phone in his car when he was a kid in the 50's much less aircraft that could fly themselves around.

      • Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots (Score:5, Interesting)

        by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) * <bittercode@gmail> on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:14PM (#21459373) Homepage Journal
        Some of the UAVs that you see in the media a lot like the predator and global hawk do need some space to operate, due to their scale. But I don't think it is safe to say that most UAVs are that large or require a runway. There is a whole range of Miniature UAVs [wikipedia.org] that can do some slick stuff. I guarantee if you're seeing it on youtube and thinking of possible military applications, the military has probably already made that connection some time ago. There are a lot of people, some of them pretty smart, who have dedicated their lives to this kind fo thing.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @11:03PM (#21459677)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
            *I* have built R/C planes of the hand launched variety (3-5 foot wingspan) that can stay aloft for 2+ hours on *BATTERIES*. And that's without taking advantage of thermals. What the military could do with a budget and (maybe) fuel cells would amaze you (based on the assumptions your incorrect post indicates).

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
              Comment removed based on user account deletion

              • Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots (Score:5, Interesting)

                by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Saturday November 24, 2007 @04:24AM (#21461175) Homepage Journal
                onboard avionics consisted of just a three-axis gyro based autopilot (in case of control loss). cameras were medium-resolution still and low-resolution radio-transmitted video, visible light only (well, as little IR as I could manage, you know how CCDs are). gps was only for tagging with the camera, a small non-interactive reciever.

                oh yeah, and i flew well outside visual range. thats what the video camera is for. radio and reciever were tested to 1.5 miles, probably good to at least 2 on a good day.

                the army can have as many as they want for $2000 apiece. screw hardening, the enemy can knock down 99% of them and they will still be cheaper than any "real" military UAV ive heard of.
                • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

                    by Cederic ( 9623 )

                    For tactical use, something small enough and cheap enough to have in a box in the back of the truck for immediate recce purposes might be of interest. A platoon commander would love to be able to answer "What's happening half a mile over there" at will.

                    Of course, I'm mostly just guessing.

                  • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                    by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
                    About as well as a proposal to equip soldiers with silly string would go. Laughed off out of hand, impossible to accomplish officially, but wildly useful when actually delivered at private expense.

                    Screw the $2000 version. For $250 (each, in quantities of 20+) I can give you a UAV with a 30 minute flight time and remote video at a 1 mile range that will fit [no-tools disassembled] inside a shoebox for carrying*, with a MTBF of 1000 hours [in the air]. $10 each for sets of rx/tx crystals, leaving channel a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
        A full scale helicopter could not do the things in that video due to a lack of power. That is one of the major differences in scale model aircraft. In a helicopter or plane model that size, you can easily get many times the minimum required thrust, opening up a wide range of aerobatic maneuvers. I have seen 40 gram airplanes that produce 100+ grams of thrust (and can thus easily hover, nose-up). That model helicopter probably weighs something like 5 pounds and puts out at least 40 pounds of thrust (base
      • Unfortunately, basically all cool youtube videos involving aerobatics and remote controlled aircraft are due primarily to the fact that the craft have ridiculous power to weight ratios. These same power to weight ratios are not realistic for craft with real-world payload and/or endurance requirements at this time. More to the point, "the military" (by which I assume you mean "the US military") already has plenty of gadgets. We don't need more hardware dreamed up by middle-class SUV drivers in office park
        • Thank you for making assumptions about me. Too bad what you don't realize is what I've done and where I've been, Iraq...twice. Now, I've worked with helicopters, UAV, and many other really cool gadgets and I can tell you that something like what these are capable of would be a great boon. I do know that the technology for something carrying a payload to do this isn't there yet. That's the key word though, yet. What I was getting at as well is looking at how they have that helicopter and R/C plane confi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ozbird ( 127571 )
        That was amazing. The military needs to figure out how he does all of that.

        First, make your helicopters weigh only 3kg...
      • I've often thought about this, and one potential problem I can see is lag and interference -- a split second of it and you could be eating dirt, unless you also had some sort of autopilot like in the video to hold/stabilise the aircraft.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MouseR ( 3264 )
      Woah. Just, woah.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mcrbids ( 148650 )
        Woah. Just, woah.

        The stunts themselves aren't particularly eye-catching. The first (landing the chopper on the slope) is similar to what I was taught as a pilot for emergency landing procedure on an upslope - approach on the fast side, then "pull back" to climb up the slope as close to the ground as you can without touching. As you climb, your airspeed will drop unusually quickly, and you'll "drop" onto the upwards slope.

        The latter stunt is proof that when you connect a very large engine to a very light air

        • The stunts themselves aren't particularly eye-catching.

          You're looking at the wrong videos. The "Whoah, just whoah" was a response to this one [youtube.com], not the ones linked to in the summary.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mcrbids ( 148650 )
            Ok, gotcha now. This is pretty !@# kewl. Now, picture that helicopter at 100% real size. Now picture yourself as a passenger in said aircraft. Then it's more like whoh, just WEARFGH.. BLEHWHAHAH...

            • Ok, gotcha now. This is pretty !@# kewl. Now, picture that helicopter at 100% real size. Now picture yourself as a passenger in said aircraft. Then it's more like whoh, just WEARFGH.. BLEHWHAHAH...

              No kidding. I was in the 19th Special Forces Group of the Utah National Guard, and I got some nap-of-the-earth helicopter rides during exercises that were better than any roller coaster ride I've ever been on, and that was straight and level compared to the mildest tricks Szabo was doing in that video.

    • Re:One of the best Helicoptor pilots (Score:4, Funny)

      by superwiz ( 655733 ) on Saturday November 24, 2007 @12:39AM (#21460167) Journal
      Why is Wagner playing in my head while I watch this?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by serbanp ( 139486 )
      Come on! This guy can't fly the damn 'copter in a straight line!

      Joke aside, Mr. Szabo Jr.'s fingers are really golden. I wish I could see them working the gymbals but it seems that the bloody cameraman finds every single time the 'copter to be more interesting than the hand work. That's a shame!

  • Not RC (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SnoopJeDi ( 859765 ) <snoopjedi&gmail,com> on Friday November 23, 2007 @09:56PM (#21459285)
    I see nothing that suggests that the MIT plane is remote-controlled. It was inspired by a pilot's skill on an RC model.

    Unless the controls are issued by a remote computer?
    • Yes, it certainly seems this way. It's not RC in the typical sense, though, and applying this kind of automation to UAVs, you'd probably be on the scale of a clever engineer being able to work the weight and space in for an onboard flight computer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HEbGb ( 6544 )
      These are almost certainly remote controlled; the algorithms are much easier to design/implement externally, before miniaturizing everything. It would seem like a big waste of time to do all that integration so early in the research. That is, unless these control systems problems are much easier than I suspect they are (or there are severe limitations outside of the demos).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djradon ( 105400 )
        It's probably better off as remote control... i.e., server-based command and control. It probably won't take too long to outfit this with a WiMaX radio or whatever the military's high-speed data signal might be.

    • Re:Not RC (Score:4, Informative)

      by The Raven ( 30575 ) on Saturday November 24, 2007 @02:08AM (#21460635) Homepage
      It is absolutely remote controlled. If you RTFA, it states:

      testing indoors with off-board control systems and sensors. "The bit in the air is the cheapest part of these experiments," he says.

      The controls, cameras, everything is not on the plane. The plane/heli are just simple cheap RC toys, controlled remotely by expensive processors and sensors.

  • I, for one, ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:01PM (#21459307)
    ...welcome our small robotic aircraft overlords!

    But, I suspect that we'll soon be chased around by flying advertisements!

    [mechanical voice]: "Wait, Mr. Smith, stop running! I've got to tell you about Splam!"

    (Sound of one flying ad machine shooting down another)

    [second mechanical voice, swooping in]: "Don't listen to that guy! Splastic is the new Splam!!!"

  • milestone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by giampy ( 592646 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:07PM (#21459339) Homepage
    The videos are very interesting, especially the second one from the group of Jonathan How. The developmen of control laws that are able to fully control the aircraft flying in those conditions, (not to mention being able to handle the transitions between such flying modes) is a hard problem.

    This is due to the fact that the overall system is highly nonlinear, scarcely controllable, (since the control surfaces have little to no effect), and also not very well known in such conditions.

    Whenever they can handle this problem in a systematic and rigorous way, (that is without ad-hoc quick fixes), i'd say that a milestone in control science will have been reached.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by timeOday ( 582209 )

      Whenever they can handle this problem in a systematic and rigorous way, (that is without ad-hoc quick fixes), i'd say that a milestone in control science will have been reached.

      The opposite may be true; I think it most likely this was achieved by machine learning rather than control theory using programming by demonstration, reinforcement learning, etc. Classical linear control theory is nice and formal, but formalisms can limiting rather than empowering when you fail to think beyond the narrow limits of

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djradon ( 105400 )
        Agreed, this is a beautiful A.I. challenge. (and a weird sociological development.)

        GP: Can you describe more what you mean by scarcely controllabe? Something's controlling the plane's movement, why couldn't it be receiving signals from an external controller (person or software)? Or do you mean those kind of maneuvers could only be done by a computer?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by giampy ( 592646 )
          I am not sure i'd call that AI. A number of animals like for example insects exhibit an amazing control of their body within a wide variety of situations, but "intelligence" in the usual sense does not have to be involved. I'd call it simply sensing, motion planning and control. By that i don't mean is a simpler problem than AI, (it may very well be harder), i just think it's different.

          Autonomous learning techniques can help, to a certain extent, but i personally think that they cannot do the whole job, as
        • Can you describe more what you mean by scarcely controllable?

          An airplane is controlled by movable flaps on the wings and tail. The pressure of the air moving against these flaps as the plane is flying causes the plane to change direction. See here for details [rc-airplane-world.com]. The key to how the control surfaces work is that air is moving over them. It's all about airspeed.

          The problem here is that when the plane is hovering nose up, there is no air moving past the control surfaces. Well almost none, the tail gets a

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by flyingV ( 72384 )
            However, when an airplane is hovering there is no airflow over the ailerons, and so they can't be used to correct the counter-torque.

            Not quite true here: in the video, you can see that the ailerons are being used to counteract the torque. The large deflection angles, though, do indicate that there is very little airflow over the ailerons.
            • I've just re-viewed the video, and you are correct... for this particular model. The ailerons on most planes are at the wing tips. This particular model has ailerons that run the entire length of the wing, which will put them into the propeller backwash. This plane must be a stunt model.
    • The developmen of control laws that are able to fully control the aircraft flying in those conditions, (not to mention being able to handle the transitions between such flying modes) is a hard problem.

      This is due to the fact that the overall system is highly nonlinear, scarcely controllable, (since the control surfaces have little to no effect), and also not very well known in such conditions.

      What if you had a very high degree of positional awareness? Wouldn't that make it a lot easier? I'm asking because I

  • Can I get that software... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kclittle ( 625128 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:27PM (#21459453)
    ... in the flying car I made a $10K deposit on?

  • That's nice, but I only find it mildly impressive. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's surely no major difference between the algorithm to pilot an RC plane/heli as shown in the videos and the algorithm to pilot a virtual plane/heli in a flight simulation.

    However, here are the nice news, that means that you can safely and precisely auto-pilot RC planes/helis, which could lead to interesting domestic uses. I could bet that within the next 15 years, every self-respecting Slashdotter will have a fully automa

  • >>MIT's RC plane's can take off and land from vertical perches (video), while the Georgia Tech helicopter can land on slopes of up to sixty degrees, by flipping backwards into freefall as it lands (video).

    Maybe it is time for TPB to get RAIDed again?

  • Convair Pogo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by plsuh ( 129598 ) <plsuh&goodeast,com> on Friday November 23, 2007 @11:05PM (#21459683) Homepage
    Just for historical reference, the Navy experimented with something like this back in the 1950's. According to the writeup from the Smithsonian, the Pogo suffered from a lot of control problems due to propwash buffetting near the ground at takeoff and landing. Back then it took a very skilled test pilot to keep it under control; modern flight control systems like those used to keep semi-unstable airframes (such as the F-16) in controlled flight must make similar VTOL handling a lot easier today.

    http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/convair_pogo.htm [si.edu]

    --Paul
  • The article says the MIT research was inspired by a video of a skilled RC pilot. I wonder if it was this one? [youtube.com].
  • ... none of this beats the Predators 'cut power and dive straight into the ground' stunt.
  • Autonomous control of ultra-light, miniature craft like this is great. This may not be AI, but I think it's the path towards AI - overcoming one, then a few, then many challenges like this. But... for those that think this has relevance to craft that can carry real payloads, like people or bombs, slow down a bit. There are scaling problems that need to be overcome too.

  • I'm scared of the capabilities of these things.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Po_acmAJnU [youtube.com]
  • Computers and planes don't like each other too much http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJjsUix7dfA [youtube.com]
  • It would be very cool if the knowledge obtained from this could be used to fly unmanned drones around for military purposes. It would certainly save a lot of lives.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )
      I think you mean a lot of lives on one side of a conflict.

  • They say all pilots dream of being birds. I'm not sure that's true, but in a way that's what happened to me.

    I was still in the glass box but in a way I was back out of it; my perceptual environment was no more real than the simulation I'd built inside but now the signals came from real sensors and cameras. I wasn't just flying the helicopter; I was the helicopter. The parts of my mind that weren't concerned with flying and navigation had been carefully edited away.

    I suppose that sounds horrible. It isn't. I

  • Nice achievements. But I really like the autonomous aircraft systems being built at BYU.

    The BYU autonomous aircraft can fly in precise aerobatic formations. And unlike the examples above, they BYU planes seem to have all of their autonomous control electronics on-board the aircraft.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfLwbW-R3IE [youtube.com]
  • My only question is what day Skynet becomes self-aware and destroys the planet. I hope it's not next Wednesday. I have to bring the xmas tree out of the crawl space that day.

  • 20 degrees? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Saturday November 24, 2007 @10:04AM (#21462159) Homepage Journal
    The second video says the best real helicopter can only land to 20 degrees. There are two things I have to ask about that and they both relate to why it works with the model.

    (1) how much of that limit has to do with the design of the model helis? I fly model helicopters, and they (tho not I !) are capable of inverted flight by pitching the main blade the other way. I assume the model in this video is using this method to drive the heli down and pressing it against the slope when it has touched down. It's quite possible there's a pressure switch on the bottom of the skids that jacks the pitch the other way when it makes contact with a surface. Not a bad idea really, and this change happens in a VERY short period of time. You don't see any full scale helis capable of inverted flight, no doubt due to the mechanical difficulty in making the main rotor able to support the weight of the craft in the inverted position. The fact that the video does not show the heli taking back off again makes me seriously wonder if there isn't a contact switch at work.

    (2) kinda dark in that video, I wonder what sort of surface they were landing on? Surely not velcro. Maybe a rubber mat? Probably a lot easier to do that, especially with a light craft, than on say a steep grassy slope or dirt hill. And what was on the bottom of the skids?

    I'd be interested to see some statistics on the power-to-weight-ratio and such comparisons between a model heli and a passenger heli also.
    • I suspect it's because a fast approach would be required to be able to hold a steep flare position, and given how dangerous landing a big heli in stormy conditions on a ship is, it might be a bit too much for the pilot to handle. Without approaching in a flared position, the rotors would probably be too close to the deck to be safe, and I'm guessing that in big helis, harsh collective movements is probably more preferable than harsh cyclic movements. Especially when their tail booms are more like tinfoil tu
  • I spent 7 years competing with R/C airplanes and fly R/C helicopters as a hobby. I also spent some time developing a basic autopilot software. This kind of airplane weighs between 4-7 oz. People usually go to extreme measures to save 5 grams in order to make the planes fly better. It's very unlikely there's enough carrying capacity to drag around 6DOF gyros/accelerometers and data transmitter on that platform (and it's not visible anywhere on the airframe). If it was tethered by a cable (eliminating the ne
    • If computers are always so smooth, then why does the tail of my RC heli sometimes act erratically if the gyro is not set properly? From what I've read in the comments (which isn't exactly reliable, I know), the heli is remotely controlled, but by a set-up of expensive, big computers, rather than a human.

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