Silicon Valley technologists and VCs debate that and other questions about hot tech topics—such as, Is mining the killer app for 5G?—at an AT&T salon
via Could Tesla Become the Google of the Internet of Things?
Could Tesla Become the Google of the Internet of Things?
Silicon Valley technologists and VCs debate that and other questions about hot tech topics—such as, Is mining the killer app for 5G?—at an AT&T salon
via Could Tesla Become the Google of the Internet of Things?
Drone Download: The “can you shoot ‘em?” edition
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Question of the week
This week a Kentucky judge cleared a man of charges for shooting a neighbor’s drone out of the sky with a shotgun. The defendant, William Merideth — of Bullitt County, Kentucky — claimed his neighbor used the drone to spy on Merideth’s family, and worried in particular about his teenage daughter who had been sunbathing in the back yard. The plaintiff and the drone’s owner, David Boggs, said he was flying well above the “ten feet” that Merideth claimed, and taking pictures of a neighbor’s house. Boggs backed this up with flight data that showed the drone at 250 feet and above. (If true, this is actually a pretty impressive distance for Meredith to hit with a shotgun.)
The judge, however, dismissed Boggs’ allegations of wanton endangerment and criminal mischief. She ruled that the drone invaded Merideth’s privacy, and so he had cause to shoot it out of the sky.
Aside from the general recklessness of firing live ammunition knee-jerk style into the air, the decision points to another problem: how the FAA defines drones.
It’s a felony to fire a weapon at an aircraft in U.S. national airspace. And the FAA claims its dominion over drones by defining them as aircraft. So on the surface it would seem to be a felony to shoot a gun at a drone.
The FAA, of course, doesn’t really want to touch this. But if rules don’t get firmed up soon, I can picture a Duck Hunt type of Christmas, with an expected one million drones sold. For now, the FAA only “advises” that you don’t shoot at drones, primarily for the public danger that a falling drone presents, which they assume would be more than a struck duck.
So the question this week: What do you see as the pros and cons of this ruling? Let me know in the comments section. It’s definitely a hot issue, so rant away.
And now, the best drone stories from last week.
Headlines
A Kentucky judge clears a man charged with shooting down his neighbor’s drone. (Daily Dot)
A British Airways pilot reported seeing a drone on his approach to JFK. He laughed it off. The sighting — which is possibly unfounded — would bring the year’s total sightings by JFK to 40. (Press Reader/Long Island News 12)
Google’s Project X announces an ambitious goal of achieving drone delivery by 2017. (Business Insider)
Culture and commentary
Check out our latest podcast, hosted by yours truly: Drones & the Media, with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Matt Waite. Admittedly biased, but Matt is an extremely knowledgeable and entertaining guest. (3DR)
If the Kentucky case has you interested in a chronology of drones in court, here are the five craziest drone arrests, per TechDay.
In this great tutorial, aerial expert Eric Cheng schools you on how to capture artful drone shots. (Gizmodo)
Slate wonders why no civil liberties advocates were named to the FAA’s registration task force. “There are potential civil liberty concerns on both sides of the registration issue: on the one hand, people want to trace privacy violators; on the other, it impinges on spontaneous videography.” Not to mention first-amendment rights.
Tech
Researchers at MIT have developed a stereo-vision system that enables drones to fly through thick forest at 30 mph. The algorithms “run 20 times faster than existing software, MIT says, and let the device detect objects like trees and, in real-time, build a map of its flying area. The software operates at 120 frames a second, and was designed to extract depth information at up to 8.3 milliseconds per frame.” (Fast Company)
Swarms of pumpkin-shaped submersible drones (developed at MIT) could help us map the ocean floor — of which only an incredible 5% has been explored. (Quartz)
Literally 
Video
Punts, not guns: In a video that went viral, a teenage rugby player in New Zealand takes a drone down with a punt. He said he’s “stoked” to be an internet celebrity. (stuff.co)
Pumpkins, not punts: In this video, a cannon that fires pumpkins at 200 mph, which for some reason was invented, knocks a drone out of the sky. (Daily Dot)
Drones, not pumpkins: A swarm of bees tries to take down a drone. (SF Gate)
Watch this incredibly successful Shark Tank pitch for a pocket drone that physically incorporates your smart phone as an autopilot. The 12-minute pitch increased the company’s valuation to $6 million. (Fortune)
Last but not least: A sneak peek at some footage from a prototype GoPro drone. (HUH)
The post Drone Download: The “can you shoot ‘em?” edition appeared first on 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology.
via Drone Download: The “can you shoot ‘em?” edition
MIT Drone Flies Autonomously While Avoiding Obstacles
Using only onboard hardware, this drone can dynamically avoid outdoor obstacles
via MIT Drone Flies Autonomously While Avoiding Obstacles
Life with robots: 'What people enjoy most is avoiding social interaction'
Silicon Valley Robotics boss says robots can spare people from having to interact human-to-human
Why does humanity need robots? Sometimes, to spare us the need to talk to other humans, according to Andra Keay, managing director of Silicon Valley Robotics.
Speaking at the Web Summit conference in Dublin, she cited the example of Relay, a robot designed to work in hotels, taking items from staff to guests.
Continue reading...via Life with robots: 'What people enjoy most is avoiding social interaction'
Startup Developing Autonomous Delivery Robots That Travel on Sidewalks
Finally an urban delivery robot that might actually work
via Startup Developing Autonomous Delivery Robots That Travel on Sidewalks
3DR & Shibamoto: Our first international enterprise launch
We’re excited to announce that 3DR will collaborate with Japanese trading company Shibamoto, Inc., to bring our drones and enterprise solutions to the Japanese market. This marks our first international enterprise launch, and we’re thrilled to partner on this initial journey with Shibamoto, a company with a diverse 98-year legacy in industry and distribution.
Japan has a relatively long and progressive history of commercial drone use: Japanese farmers have been using drones as crop-dusters for nearly 20 years now. Now Shibamoto will sell our drones directly to farmers, through its joint venture subsidiary New Holland HFT. Mr. Masaaki Shibamoto, President and COO of New Holland HFT Japan remarked, “Matched with the Precision Land Management techniques and products that we are offering, 3DR’s drones will give our customers ever more information about their crops, and will aid in their drive to reduce their costs and improve their yields.”
In addition to putting drones in farmers’ hands, Shibamoto will also work with university agriculture and robotics departments to foster education and further drone development. 3DR built our open source platform specifically for this reason: Accessible and robust enough to be open for development to industries and research departments anywhere.
Chris Anderson, our CEO, who traveled to Tokyo for the announcement, said, “We’re thrilled over our entry into the Japan market, and could not have picked a better representative than Shibamoto & Co. They have a proven record of representing leading brands in the Japan market, with a commitment to customer support. We share that passion, and I’m looking forward to serving our new customers in this dynamic market.”
The post 3DR & Shibamoto: Our first international enterprise launch appeared first on 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology.
via 3DR & Shibamoto: Our first international enterprise launch
Solo’s “Black Box”: What flight logs are and what they mean for you
What is a flight log?
Solo’s ridiculous amount of computer overhead means the system can record a ridiculous amount of flight information in real time. We collectively call this information Solo’s “flight logs.”
Solo records 500 parameters of operational data at 20 Hz (meaning 20 times every second). It’s an almost unimaginably large store of information. You can “pull” these logs from Solo onto your computer and analyze them yourself for what you could call a highly technical story of your flight. Logs look like computer code. (In this regard, Solo isn’t exactly an exciting storyteller.)
If you’re interested in learning how to read flight logs, you can check out this tutorial.
Even more importantly, though, you can share your flight logs with us. And unlike any other drone out there, we record flight logs to the controller as well as to the drone. This means that even if you lose your drone, you still hold the “black box” in your hands and can send us your flight data immediately through the Solo app — even while you’re still in the field.
Additionally, flight logs are useful diagnostic tools for our tech support team: They can see exactly what happened in flight and when and where it happened. They’re also great information for our engineers developing the next updates for Solo.
Here’s a top-level explanation of what exactly flight logs are, what kinds of data different log types record and why it’s all useful and important to you.
Types of logs
Solo records several types of flight logs. These are mostly categorized according to which part of the Solo system they monitor (as you’ll see here, Solo is an incredibly complex system). Some of these categories are logs for the controller, the WiFi link, Smart Shots and telemetry. Here’s a breakdown of the most important logs—what data they record, and why that’s useful.
RC logs: This information mainly concerns the controller and its communication with Solo. RC logs monitor this communication (WiFi, via SoloLink) as it pertains to command and control—that is, what you have Solo do with your controller. When the WiFi signal gets from the controller in your hands to the autopilot in the copter, SoloLink has to convert that WiFi language to something called PWM, which is the language that the autopilot understands. If there’s a break in communication or some other error, we’ll see it in the RC logs.
In simple terms, RC logs show us what the user asks Solo to do and how that information has been communicated and translated.
Solo logs: This is like Solo stretching out before its flight. Solo logs record a top-down system check, a self-diagnosis that Solo performs each time you power up. Solo logs record these data from all of its major internal mechanisms: the autopilot firmware and status; Sololink firmware and status; WiFi initiation; and the controller firmware. This is Solo making sure everything’s in sync. This information is useful because if, for instance, your controller for some reason doesn’t pair with your copter, we can see exactly where the hiccup was by reading the Solo log.
Wifi logs: This is the record of your WiFi signal strength and the integrity of the connection between SoloLink’s sending and receiving hubs. One of these hubs is on the controller, created by the controller’s computer; the other is on the copter, created by the copter’s computer. If your WiFi drops any information (called “packets”) in transmission, that shows up here, too.
Data flash logs: One of the more critical logs, data flash is the record of all of the detailed information from the actual flight. This includes read-outs for all of the autopilot’s IMU sensors (accelerometers, gyros, and the two barometric altimeters), as well as Solo’s GPS and compass readings.
These data let us see the story of Solo’s orientation, direction, speed and behavior during your flight. The data flash logs are also a record of all user inputs. This means that when taken all together, we can three things: your inputs; what the copter wanted to do; and then what actually happened. If there’s an error in flight, we can check these three things against each other and find the root of the problem. From this we will know for sure whether it’s user error or something in the system itself.
Data flash logs that track in-flight vibration
Importantly for you, data flash can serve as your evidence: These logs hold all parties accountable, so our customer support is guaranteed to be totally transparent. These logs are currently saved on the SD card that plugs into Solo’s autopilot. We’re working on pulling them to the controller’s computer in a future update.
However, even if you lose the copter, you can still send us your flight evidence. To do this, you’d share your…
Telemetry logs: Data about “the pipe.” Telemetry data are shown on both your controller screen and your Solo app screen; they include stuff like altitude, heading, speed, etc. These data are sent from Solo to your controller through SoloLink’s WiFi. The telemetry flight log is a record of how long it takes to send each packet of information through the SoloLink “pipe,” how big each packet of information is, etc. Basically, the telemetry log records how and how well the flight information that you see on your controller screen has been transmitted.
The T-log also provides us with user input information and allows us to check that against Solo’s behavior. This is your evidence. For an example, check out the header image of this blog. You can see what Solo did, and you can see what the user asked it to do. In this case we can clearly see and show that the cause of the crash was user input and not system error.
Shot logs: Information about Smart Shot commands. Among other things, shot logs record how your controller buttons are programmed, as well as all GoPro information, such as the mode, battery life and when you start and stop recording.
Also, when you’re flying, the data about where Solo is supposed to point are sourced through the Solo app, and then sent as instructions to the copter through SoloLink. The shot log shows all of those actions. This means that when you set up a Smart Shot and press “play” on the app, the shot log will say, “sending Solo to x orientation at x altitude.”
Why do we record all of this stuff?
How do we use logs?
Most importantly, we do all of this so that in the case of error or a crash we (and users, if they’re familiar enough with this technology to read the logs themselves) can see exactly what went wrong. And because you hold the black box in your hands, we’ll be able to help you even without the data from the copter. Only Solo’s dual computers can deliver this.
We (and you) can also see if anything about the copter isn’t performing well. In other words, we can monitor the health of the vehicle. For instance, if one motor is taking more amps than the others, we can anticipate that motor will burn out sooner.
Our engineers also use log data internally to tweak and improve performance. The bigger and better the logs, the more comprehensive the picture we have of Solo, and the greater possibility we have for improvements. Flight data also hold possibilities for new technology and innovations that can tap into this information in real time. Basically, the more information there is to access, the greater the possibilities for using that information in an innovative way.
Is this a privacy or security issue?
You should have no more concern about privacy with flight logs than you have with something like Facebook. Well, no, don’t freak out because that’s a bit of an overstatement. That’s because unlike Facebook, with Solo you yourself have to make the conscious decision to send us your data. And even if in the future these flight data get integrated into social platforms, it will be on an opt-in basis.
The post Solo’s “Black Box”: What flight logs are and what they mean for you appeared first on 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology.
via Solo’s “Black Box”: What flight logs are and what they mean for you
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