Hasta La Gadget!

While some bot makers are busying themselves designing AI to simulate humans’ natural and distinct lack of intelligence, it’s nice to see there are still old-fashioned researchers out there keeping the Skynet dream alive. Northrop Grumman‘s aeronautics gurus have paired together a Global Hawk unmanned aircraft with a manned Proteus ship way up in the skies — 45,000 feet, to be precise — with the vessels of ingenuity managing to fly in tandem at a distance as short as 40 feet. Unsurprisingly, this is the first time such intimacy has been reached between UAVs (the Proteus had a monitoring crew on board to ensure the insurance bill wasn’t through the roof) in high altitude, and the ultimate goal of having two Global Hawks doing the deed without any human intervention is said to be within reach by next year. That’s when these light and agile air drones will be able to refuel themselves and go on for a mighty 120 hours in the air… plenty of time to complete a well planned extermination down below, if one were so inclined.

Continue reading NASA’s Global Hawk completes unmanned airborne refueling simulation, will do it for real next year (video)

NASA’s Global Hawk completes unmanned airborne refueling simulation, will do it for real next year (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 03:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We were plenty impressed when we saw the initial tests of AeroVironment’s robo-hummingbird — now officially dubbed the Nano Hummingbird — but we can’t say they quite prepared us for the final product that the DARPA-funded company is now showing off. Not only does the bot look and fly like a real hummingbird (at least if you don’t look too closely), but it packs a built-in camera and a downlink of some sort that’s capable of transmitting live video. According to the company, the hummingbird’s also able to hover for up to eight minutes, reach speeds of eleven miles per hour in forward flight, and remain stable in wind gusts of five miles per hour — not to mention make a perfect landing. Head on past the break to check it out in action — it may well be one of the few chances you’re actually able to see one in the wild.

Continue reading DARPA-funded Nano Hummingbird spybot takes flight (video)

DARPA-funded Nano Hummingbird spybot takes flight (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A next-gen Hummer isn’t going to build itself, and these days we can’t trust our government bodies to come up with all the cool ideas. DARPA is looking for some help, and if you’re feeling up to it that can be you. Our favorite Advanced Research Progects Agency has selected a chassis from crowdsource car designers Local Motors (the same one found inside the company’s Rally Fighter) and is asking civilians of all shapes and sizes to figure out what shape and size the Experimental Crowd-Derived Combat-Support Vehicle will be. Sure, XC2V doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like “Flying Humvee,” but it sure does sound a lot more practical. If you want to have your say (and a chance at the $7,500 prize) you’d better hurry up, because submissions are due by March 3rd. Sadly, designs drawn in Crayon on the back of homework are not eligible, otherwise you’d all be fighting for second place.

DARPA working with Local Motors to crowdsource next-generation combat vehicles originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Way back in September 2009, we reported on an omnipotent war blimp from Lockheed Martin, now it looks like a similar dirigible could be hovering 20,000 feet above Afghanistan by this fall. (It’s not clear whether or not the two blimps are one and the same, but Lockheed’s craft was slated for an Afghan debut in 2011.) As part of the $211 million Blue Devil initiative, the US Air Force plans to pack the bloated beast — which sports seven times the carrying capacity of the Goodyear blimp — with up to a dozen interchangeable sensors and a supercomputer for processing data. It will then hover for stints as long as a week, collecting, assessing, and relaying important surveillance data to ground troops in a matter of seconds. It’s a tall order, but Air Force officials hope that an on-board wide-area airborne surveillance system (WAAS), which uses 96 cameras to generate nearly 275TB of data every hour, and a supercomputer hosting the equivalent of 2,000 single-core servers will fit the bill. The aircraft isn’t complete quite yet, but barring unforeseen obstacles, like a run-in with a giant needle, it should be up in the air starting October 15th. For more on Blue Devil check out our links below.

US Air Force enlists super blimp for Blue Devil surveillance initiative originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The hyper-ambitious folks at DARPA are totally over the current state of military data collection, and they’re pretty sure they know how to fix it: teach sensors how to think. Well, they’ve got an idea how to fix it, but they’ve put out a call for mathematician to do the dirty work. The Mathematics of Sensing, Exploitation, and Execution (MSEE) program seeks a unified mathematical language that cane teach sensors not only to collect data, but to interpret, and act on it too. The aim is to eliminate the “data deluge” that comes from ever-increasing streams of information, like cellphone intercepts and video drone feeds, allowing analysts to focus on the important stuff. Currently the onus falls on humans to interpret the overwhelming amount of information collected by military sensors, but DARPA is confident that the right algorithm could have machines interpreting the world as early as 2014. Which gives you right around three years to fulfill every fantasy you’ve ever had.

DARPA’s MSEE to develop new mathematical language, race of sentient machines originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 06:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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