R2-D2 Gets Real

Keep your eyes on the sky--a flock of robots may be heading your way

  • By Fred Hapgood
  • Smithsonian magazine, March 1998, Subscribe
 

 

Article Tools

 
  • Comments
    		•
  • Font
    		•
  • Email
    		•
  • RSS
    		•
  • Print
    		•

    "On some level we have always known that when robots arrived, some serious accommodations would be required," writes Fred Hapgood. Somehow we'd always assumed, though, that they'd arrive on legs or wheels, not by propeller. Last summer, as a group of students descended on Orlando, Florida, to launch autonomous-flight vehicles in the seventh annual International Aerial Robotics Competition, a few private companies, research institutes and the Air Force were already testing what could only be described as flying robots.

    In the March issue of Smithsonian Magazine, meet Dave Kroetsch and Pawel Lukasynski, two high school students from Kitchener, Ontario, who decided one day that they needed a "challenging" class project. Together they built an autonomous flyer in just nine months, entered it in the robotics competition and did surprisingly well. Like Dave and Pawel, the world's engineers are quickly working out the technologies that could make flying robots ubiquitous. And while the machines may be very difficult to build at this point, the key attraction is that they would be very easy to fly, requiring perhaps no more skill than a human command to fly from point A to point B.

    As the technology develops, safety becomes a research theme. The FAA has not yet released regulations for flying robots. Other issues will ultimately need to be discussed. Will, for example, the Fourth Amendment permit continuous surveillance from the air? Join Fred Hapgood as he explores this technological frontier and the issues surrounding it.


    "On some level we have always known that when robots arrived, some serious accommodations would be required," writes Fred Hapgood. Somehow we'd always assumed, though, that they'd arrive on legs or wheels, not by propeller. Last summer, as a group of students descended on Orlando, Florida, to launch autonomous-flight vehicles in the seventh annual International Aerial Robotics Competition, a few private companies, research institutes and the Air Force were already testing what could only be described as flying robots.

    In the March issue of Smithsonian Magazine, meet Dave Kroetsch and Pawel Lukasynski, two high school students from Kitchener, Ontario, who decided one day that they needed a "challenging" class project. Together they built an autonomous flyer in just nine months, entered it in the robotics competition and did surprisingly well. Like Dave and Pawel, the world's engineers are quickly working out the technologies that could make flying robots ubiquitous. And while the machines may be very difficult to build at this point, the key attraction is that they would be very easy to fly, requiring perhaps no more skill than a human command to fly from point A to point B.

    As the technology develops, safety becomes a research theme. The FAA has not yet released regulations for flying robots. Other issues will ultimately need to be discussed. Will, for example, the Fourth Amendment permit continuous surveillance from the air? Join Fred Hapgood as he explores this technological frontier and the issues surrounding it.

        Subscribe now for more of Smithsonian's coverage on history, science and nature.


    Digg
     
    Comments

    Post a Comment


    Name: (required)

    Email: (required)

    Comment:

    Comments are moderated, and will not appear until Smithsonian.com has approved them. Smithsonian reserves the right not to post any comments that are unlawful, threatening, offensive, defamatory, invasive of a person's privacy, inappropriate, confidential or proprietary, political messages, product endorsements, or other content that might otherwise violate any laws or policies.



    Advertisement