MIT's Acrobatic Helicopter

YourHero writes: "MIT has a new toy, a remotely-piloted helicopter that's agile, stable, and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat and reconnaisance and surveying disaster sites. Oh, and it's also good for aerial photography. It's so good that it even does 360-degree aileron rolls at the flick of a switch. The release gives some basics, videos and other juice are here. This cost $40k, excluding labor, because technically, student labor is "priceless" - so a nod to Kara Sprague, Alex Shterenberg, Ioannis Martinos, Bernard Mettler, and Vlad Gavrilets, who probably provided most of the labor. Stringfellow Hawk has not been reached for comment."

Usefull

[HUMOR]
Though I wouldn't want one of these for an evac chopper.... Some things just can't be replaced.
[END HUMOR]

Pop-up ads

Oh, and it's also good for aerial photography.

How long until someone starts selling these with some stupid pop-up ad campagin, a la X-10 cams.
(Works ... anywhere (bow chika bow wow!))

how cool is this?

They should take this concept vehicle and do a demo for the DOD. The military has been experimenting for a good while on unmanned spy vehicles (some really far out stuff, if anyone saw the TLC show on it) and a vehicle like this that is so lightweight and agile as well as being able to take nifty pictures would be a real bonus to them.

Awww

Yet despite all of the physics and scientific perfection...

...there is still no Helicopter Ejection Seat ;)

Re:Awww

not so. the Russian Ka-50 has an ejection seat - pull the handle and the rotor blades are blown off by an explosive; when they're clear the seat fires. I've heard rumors that the Comanche will have a similar feature, but there are always rumors about that kind of thing.

I don't have a link, sorry.

Is my Karma up to 50 yet? it's a slow day at work..

The Comanche rumour is BS, and other corrections

(Old US Army Aviator speaking here)

Every effort at creating an ejection system for US rotary wing aircraft has been met with irristable resistance by the Aviators.

One methid, firing the seat through the floor. That is fine if you are an airforce guy at FL 2 zillion, but for us the ground is about 10 to 50 feet below the aircraft when we are most likely to need an ejection seat.

Second, not many of us like having explosives strapped around the rotor head at any time.

Third, most of us are not all that confidant that the firing sequence would work every time, i.e., not trusting the explosives in the head to blow early enough for the blades to clear the path of the seat flying up through the plane of the rotor disk.

One glairing item from this story:

HELICOPTERS HAVE NO AILERONS! They might mean a "snap roll" or a 360 degree z axis roll, but there are no ailerons on a helicopter.

This is nothing new anyway, any fully articulated rotor system OR rigid rotor system, with a powertrain posessing enough power, can safely do rolls, loops, etc. Don't try this at homw with your UH-1 or OH-58/Jetranger or Longranger, they have semi-rigid rotor systems that will break if you try to maneuver at less than .5G

perfect for urban combat

... and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat ...

you people are scary.

Potential uses are astonishing.

Now I can easily move my storm troopers and GI Joe's into battle without risk of a human pilot falling into harms way!

Making movies is not cheap

And if they think that this thing will make it cheaper, they are in for a shock. Budgets on movies that can afford aerial shots are large enough that hiring professional cameramen and helicopter pilots is not an issue.

The main usage of these is air shows. Even for the military, there isn't much need for a maneuverable drone. What they need are fast drones that are very expendable. These things are way too complicated to be useful in the near term.

Re:Making movies is not cheap

And if they think that this thing will make it cheaper, they are in for a shock. Budgets on movies that can afford aerial shots are large enough that hiring professional cameramen and helicopter pilots is not an issue.

Dude, that doesn't make any sense. Just because the studios can use a cheap drone helicopter doesn't mean they would have to give up professional cameramen. Furthermore, it brings all kinds of different cinematography to the table, without the need for CG.

Even for the military, there isn't much need for a maneuverable drone.

What are you basing this statement on? I would say it's very clear the military definitely has a need for small, cheap, maneuverable drones. Between combat and safety, I can think of a myriad of applications for these.

Re:Making movies is not cheap

Even for the military, there isn't much need for a maneuverable drone.

The Comanche costs [fas.org] (will cost? may cost? link is from 1997) $26M each. Even at the current cost that means approximately 650 of these helecopters for the cost of one Comanche. They are (were?) taking about buying 1600 Comanche helicopters. That works out to 1,040,000 drones for the same cost.

Imagine you add a saturday night special to the helicopter and you send a million of these things sweeping into Iraq. Now the only problem is finding enough trained [helosim.com] pilots.

Wait. Scratch that thought. I just had a vision of a million, unsupervised 14 year old boys in control of armed, remote control helicopters.

Re:Making movies is not cheap

"Wait. Scratch that thought. I just had a vision of a million, unsupervised 14 year old boys in control of armed, remote control helicopters."

Did you ever watch the Robin Williams movie _Toys_? They were basically doing this. The movie, while not being *good* per se, is a pretty interesting watch, if just for the visuals.

ummm...

Stringfellow Hawk has not been reached for comment
untill this thing can go mach one and lift ernest borgnine, i really doubt stringfellow hawk will need to comment...

double edged sword

> in the current public mood, perfect for urban > combat and reconnaisance and surveying disaster > sites. Oh, and it's also good for aerial > photography. So it's also good for surveying targets, dropping chemical/biological/nerve agents, and photographing the results. Maybe /bin/laden guys will even hack it to email al jazeera with exclusive footage.

"innovative control strategies"

This quote from the article is probably the most important piece of information. The last decade has seen so massive advancements in our understanding of nonlinear dynamics and how they can be applied to engineered systems. Problems with traditionaly engineering approaches are that we often have to assume nonlinear systems (i.e. everything in the real world) are "linear about a point". While this is fine for some problems, like automobile suspension systems, it's just not sufficient for tasks like control complex airflow, predicting weather patterns, or driving robots across uneven systems.

As nonlinear analysis techniques become more and more prominent in engineering design, we'll start to see more and more of these technologies which can accomplish extremely difficult technical challenges.

How did they code this?

Much of the 12,000 lines of code necessary to fly the helicopter were written by Kara Sprague (M.Eng. 2002 in electrical engineering and computer science) and Alex Shterenberg (M.Eng. 2000 in electrical engineering and computer science).

Now that would be a cool thing to hack!

This isn't the only one

Check out the IARC [gatech.edu] competition website. There are teams' webpages linked from there, too. My school (UT Austin [utexas.edu]) is planning its first ever entry for the 2002 competition.
The task this year is to fly 3 kilometers along 4 waypoints, identify a building and an open entrance on the building, deploy a subvehicle (not necessary, but practically necessary) through the entrance, and have the subvehicle return reconaissance to the judges 3km away.
Many people opt to use R/C helicopters and modify them (we are using an XCell .60 Gas Graphite by Miniature Aircraft USA [x-cellrchelicopters.com]).

Stringfellow Hawk

Just in case you don't know who he is. [imdb.com]

getting into rc helis

I used to fly radio controlled helicopters, they can be had for alot less around $1000-$1500 with full aerobatic capability check out http://www.acehobby.com/products/helicopter/index. html
the Raptor 30 is an excellent model to start with

Delivery!

Sandwiches and pizza slices, delivered to your window (just watch out for the blades).

Requisite Open Source Tie-In

And for all you open source nuts who want to tie in this story to the rest of /.
Autopilot.SourceForge.Net [sourceforge.net]

Doing this for a few years now...

As stated above, its been done and for a LOT cheaper. Yes I read the information and its a little different, but not really... Most modern advanced radio controlled heli's (just like this one) are simple enough to fly with some practice and are all computer controlled already. I can make my helicopter do a loop and a roll without me doing anything but flicking a switch. Its very simple with the computer radios and some simple commands input into the radio. Yes, its stable and I have used my heli to take pictures too. Total cost to me so far ~$2500.

You know

You can buy an X-cell 60 Chopper, build it, and fly it without the aid of MIT researchers for less than $2k., including aerobatics.
I just thought I would add that bit of information since landing and takeoff of radio controller helicopters are arguably the most difficult thing to learn to do.
Also, companies have produced camera/camcorder mounts for these types of helicopters too.

My idea: privatize the war on terrorism

Humor, not to be taken seriously

Imagine this: The Pentagon offers to transport, arm, and fuel home-built drone aircraft to fly against Al Qaeda. Your aircraft must meet the following requirements:

• On-board GPS
  
• On-board video capability
  
• Must be controlled via a soon-to-be-built wireless IP network in (let's say Somalia)
  
• 500-pound payload
  

From the comfort of your home, you can patrol your Pentagon-assigned territory, and engage targets as designated by the JSTARS targeting system.

I figure the Pentagon can probably turn a profit by charging fees as they provide what is essentially the world's most realistic flight simulator. As an added bonus, they could sell the TV rights to the on-board video. Wouldn't it be fun to watch "The World's Most Terrified Terrorists"? Imagine what the MIT folks could build for this mission!

I think the most ironic part of the whole idea is that it turns the tables on the bad guys. Under this scenario, their most terrfying time of day would be when school gets out in the US. "Oh no! Schools out! Everyone head for the caves!"

What a neat application for embedded Linux.

Still using "Wright Brothers" fuel tank?

That little flippy was quick to land ;-)

Free Software helicopter autopilot

We're building a GPLed helicopter autopilot [sourceforge.net] and stabilization system [sourceforge.net]. It's built entirely with Free Software and all the designs are available under the GPL. There is a realtime sensor board [sourceforge.net] that controls the servos and monitors the accelerometers [sourceforge.net] and gyros. It also tracks engine stats [sourceforge.net] and acts as an engine governor. The entire package fits on a standard model helicopter airframe [sourceforge.net].

Unlike the academic projects, you can download our code [sourceforge.net] and contribute!

Aileron Roll????

The link to MIT quite explicitly states, over and over, that this craft does aileron rolls. I'm not completely familiar with helicopter flight dynamics terminology, but it seems strange to me that a vehicle with no ailerons could do aileron rolls...

Anyone able to shed some light on this? Creative terminology, or something more interesting?

Combat?

This thing seems way too small to fit some kind of weapon. For this to be useful in combat, it'd have to carry a machinegun or maybe a small rocket launcher. A machinegun with 1000 rounds would weigh, say, 15-20 kg, and the recoil would probably be too big for this chopper.

The recoil of a rocket launcher, on the other hand, would be minimal. Problem is to aim the pod, since you can not adjust fire during firing in the same way - since you would carry only, say, 10 rockets. The aiming problem would mean you'd probably have to include hydraulics for tilting and rotating the pod, wich means more weight.

'course, you could just pack the thing with 15 kgs of plastic explosive, fly it into a building full of your opponents of choice, and set it off.

The Hellfire missile [fas.org] used on the Predator UAV [fas.org], for example, weighs 45 kgs. Obviously, this is too much for this litte chopper.

I wonder how this extra weight affects flight performance. Does anyone have any more info on this?

"Priceless" labor...

This cost $40k, excluding labor, because technically, student labor is "priceless"

You mean free, as in beer?

/. effect in full effect.... or something

but god bless the Google cache. [google.com]

Will Hopefully Replace Traffic Copters

This looks like a great and low-cost way for radio stations to do away with sending reporters up in helicopters to cover traffic. Back in 1993 WNBC listeners throughout New York City were listening [tripod.com] to one such broadcast and heard the copter crash, killing the reporter and pilot. Many other such crashes have occurred over the years. With luck, this MIT copter could make it obsolete to send traffic reporters in the air.

Screw the Split-S

Let's see them make it do a Hammerhead stall.

Then, we arm it, and figure out how to put booster jet engines on it.

THEN we call Stringfellow.

So easy to use it practically flyes itself...

"Anyone can fly it. I can fly it. You can fly it," said Vlad Gavrilets, the aero-astro Ph.D. candidate primarily involved in the project

Couldn't get any easier than that!!

Maybe not good for all-around recon

I can see why these robo-copters might be useful for certain types of recon, such as in tight spaces or places where the camera must be stationary. I can't see that these would be generally superior to the fixed-wing reconnaisance drones in use now, however. They've solved one of the drawbacks of copters - the difficulty of piloting them, especially in spots where you don't have line of sight with the remote-controlled copter itself. They haven't solved one of the main drawbacks though - fuel efficiency. Copters, especially little remote ones, don't have nearly the range of a fixed-wing aircraft. I suppose the military could build larger ones that can carry more fuel than the mini copter made by MIT, but the problem is still the there. Copters just don't have the same range for a given amount of fuel.

They're also probably a lot louder than existing drone planes.

I could see how these might be useful for, say, scouting out forested areas below the forest cover, or even going inside (large) buildings, etc. But if you want to send one into Iraq from Saudi Arabia, that's not going to happen.

School kids way behind adults

it could also give filmmakers a cheap, risk-free way to shoot aerial footage. Currently, says Gavrilets, "It costs $20,000 a day to rent a helicopter and a pilot for certain types of aerial shots."

Grown ups in the commercial world already had this idea, and implemented it years ago:
http://www.hicam.com.au/art_bw1.htm [hicam.com.au]

Incorrect term

It's so good that it even does 360-degree aileron rolls at the flick of a switch.

According to Dictionary.com [dictionary.com] an aileron is:

"Either of two movable flaps on the wings of an airplane that can be used to control the plane's rolling and banking movements."

Since a helicopter doesn't have ailerons, only a control rotor, this isn't, strictly speaking, an aileron roll; its more of a control rotor roll.

seen it all before...

Every Saturday I go out to Palomar Flyers [palomarflyers.com]'s Johnson Field and fly my Kalt 30 Baron r/c helicopter. I'm still a newbie, but there are always plenty of people doing things there beyond even what this MIT bird is capable of, and I put a wireless video camera on mine, and it was pretty easy, so... whats so special about this mit thing? :)

vs. Predator

The article compares this to a predator UAV [army-technology.com], and implies that if scaled up, it could replace the predator. But, basically, the $500k pricetag is a number pulled out of nowhere. The Navy is already working on an unmanned helicopter, the firescout [naval-technology.com], and it would provide a much better idea of how much an unmanned helicopter would be costed. Just for fun, though, let's look at how far the xcell has to go to be more useful to the military... XCell .60 Pro Graphite 2K (top of line) [x-cellrchelicopters.com] vs predator UAV [army-technology.com]:

Predator: range 400 miles/40 hours, altitude 25,000 feet, cruise speed 70 knots.
XL: Total weight 11 pounds. Total run time 5 minutes.

Predator: Payload > 450 pounds. Accessories: helfire missles, high resolution optical and infrared zoom (19-560mm) cameras (I actually used the a Wescam in development, it was sweet!), synthetic aperture radar (resolution 1 foot) for all-weather surveillance, a laser designator and rangefinder, electronic support and countermeasures and a moving target indicator (MTI). Automated gunfire detection.
XL: Total weight, ~11 pounds. Payload: A small video camera.

Predator: UHF and VHF radio relay links, a C-band line-of-sight data link (range 150 NM) and UHF and Ku-band satellite data links.
XL: A 49 MHz hobby RC link

Predator: fixed-wing design, which is generally lower maintainence.
XL: rotary wing, which generally has higher maintainence.

-----
I think that this could probably be turned into a tool for war, and that the automated flying (like what is built into the Predator) being developed for helicopters by this project would be useful to that end, but it's just one aspect of the total system... to accurately cost a production system, you'd have to have a much better idea of the entire system's design requirements.

Just what MIT needs

Another toy for the hackers to steal for use in quickly deploying hacks on top of the Great Dome...I like it! Click here [mit.edu] if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Now only if MIT could pull off another stunt at the big Harvard v. Yale football game.

Urban combat... anti-globalization protesters

and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat

How would these helicopters help in such situations? They could be used to douse protesters with pepper spray and tear gas directly from above -no need to send police into a crowd anymore! How to distinguish those pesky so-called "free-speech" protesters from window-smashing anarchists? Just equip the copters with face recognition software! Officers can put their time to better use photographing crowd members' faces to feed back into the system!

Have an rowdy situation unfolding? Simply arm these copters with fletchers full of sleeping potion, and you can rest assured they'll be hauled off to the slam, where they belong!

(In New York City, this past Saturday we saw one of the largest turnouts for a global trade-related protest in ... ever, perhaps. The main march had, by NYPD estimates, over 14,000 participants -CNN said "hundreds"... sheesh. I was there, it was thousands. In several situations, the NYPD broke up peaceful gatherings and rallies, clubbed participants, and took them off in ambulances and paddywagons. Check out the coverage on http://www.indymedia.org.)

Existing Industrial Use Unmanned Rotary UAV

The ability to do aerobatic maneuvers is interesting, but not tremendously valuable to most rotary UAV missions. Take-off and landing in high wind conditions with a flick of a switch would VERY impressive.

Yamaha Motors has been selling a rotary-wing UAV for the past 5 years. They have also demonstrated an automonous flight using a voice commanded flight control system.

Link to Yamaha's Industrial Rotary-Wing UAV: http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/sky-e/index.html

SoloTrek's MULE (Mobile Unmanned Lift Enabler)

The following was lifted from this link [solotrek.com]. I could already see how an unmanned air vehicle could come in handy for re-supplying troops in remote regions, and re-con. It may have also been useful in pilot recovery situations similar to Captain Scott O'Grady's.

MULE(TM) Mobile Unmanned Lift Enabler

A PRACTICAL VTOL PLATFORM CONCEPT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

The MULE tactical UAV is a vertical take-off and landing JIT logistics platform meeting today's military mission-payload-delivery requirements. It is designed for ultra-high reliability, very low dB & IR signatures, and minimal field servicing, maintenance and overhaul. The MULE will efficiently, and autonomously, re-supply remote locations, retrieve downed-pilots, and/or perform surveillance and reconnaissance.

Preliminary Specifications and Predicted Performance: (Sea level; Standard day conditions)

MINI-MULE *** MAXI-MULE
Normal Gross Take Off Weight - 700 Lbs. *** 1500 Lbs
Fuel Capacity - 100 Lbs. (15 Gal.)*** 300 Lbs. (45 Gal.)
Mission Payload (net of fuel) - 200 Lbs. *** 500 Lbs.
Empty Weight - 400 Lbs. *** 700 Lbs.
Hover/Loiter Endurance - 2+ Hours *** 2.5+ Hours
Max Range - 130 Nautical Miles *** 350 Nautical Miles
Min/Max Speed - 0 to 115 Knots *** 0 to 160 Knots
Engine (Advanced Int. Combustion) - 120 HP *** 300 HP
Fuel Requirements - Heavy Fuel *** Heavy Fuel
Transport Crate Dimensions - 60" X 60" X 96" *** T.B.D.

This has been around for years!

Don't you remember that James Bond movie at the beginning with Ernst Stavro Blofeld going after Bond from his wheel chair with a remote control helicopter!

This is also being doing at Carnegie Mellon

The main site is posted here [cmu.edu]. But basicly CMU is also doing this, and has gotten very far. It can track a person running around a field with a life-vest. It can also lower some object into a person's hand. This might seem easly, but this is still all autonomous. One of the big projects this is for is the Coast Guard wants these to quickly find and possibly help people in the oceans. Teams of these things can scan the ocean for people while the choper with people are just loading up. Check out the videos on the site, very cool stuff.

MIT has come up with some really great things...

I just hope they know to stop short of releasing thousands of advanced hunter-killer probes upon the surface of the earth, DoD contract or not. :P

Ailerons?

360-degree aileron rolls

Helicopters generally don't have ailerons. 'Rolls' would have been not only sufficient, but more accurate.

-- Nit Pick Nazi

It's not working!

The video link isn't working. Did you guys manage to /. MIT!?!

aileron rolls

It's so good that it even does 360-degree aileron rolls at the flick of a switch.

That would be great if helicopters had ailerons.

Some cost considerations

> This cost $40k, excluding labor

1. This cost figure can not accurately represent the costs of redeveloping the SW and control systems for a military / highly-robust system. The SW development methodologies for an academic proof of concept and a military project differ substantially. Basically, instead of 1 grad student producing thousands of lines of code, you would have a large team of programmers, checkers, double checkers, certifiers, testers, and systems engineers developing the system. This adds substantially to the cost of development. Professional developers (not hackers), please comment.

2. AFAIK, the $40k cost did not include the cost of the inertial navigation system. These are very expensive, but neccesary to complement the GPS system used. I think, although I might have misforgotten, that the Draper Lab donated the one used in the test units.

[e-mail]

Shadow Conspiracy

Am I offbase in thinking that a terrorist with one of these equipped with automatic weapons could use it for wholesale assassination? How could it be stopped? How could even one track the "pilot" if it were controlled remotely via radio and navigated via an attached camera. Shadow Conspiracy, anyone?

Some Emory students did the very same thing

about 5 years ago. Also, Yahmaha has one that they use for spraying crops! It just costs $400k

http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/sky-e/rmax.html

Ummm...

If you actually read the article, you'd seen this:

Small, agile, robotic helicopters could provide a new means of military reconnaissance or weapons delivery in mountainous, urban and other challenging terrain off-limits to larger aircraft and too dangerous for manned aircraft. They could fly at low altitude in tight spaces between skyscrapers or locate a terrorist's cave in the mountains, sending live images to an aircraft carrier or to bombers in flight.

Obviously, this could have been quite useful in the mountanous terrain where Al-Qaeda might have been hiding.