Saturday, January 15, 2011

Answers To Jerome Shostak Vocabulary Units

observers in the sky

  Mini-Überwachungsdrohnen oder doch
nur Insekten – oder vielleicht beides?



Auf Demonstrationen und anderen politischen Veranstaltungen gibt es in den USA immer wieder mal Menschen, die Mini-Überwachungsdrohnen am Himmel gesehen haben wollen, während andere sagen, es wären nur Libellen oder andere Insekten gewesen. Wer von beiden recht hat, kann ich not say. But what is interesting about this is the fact that in these cases, both at the same time could be right. At least in the not too distant future. For in the research and development of still smaller surveillance drones has happened in the last few years.

Research on UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles ) or also called drones, dates back to the Second World War. Tom Ehrhard , a retired Air Force colonel, said in an interview for the Washington Post: " Flying robots by the military since the Second World War II, used but in the last decade, their number and their level of development has increased enormously. " [1]

Today, there are all kinds of UAVs, ranging from those in the size of aircraft such as the Predator or Reaper models that come about in Afghanistan for surveillance and attack purposes used to called MAVs ( micro air vehicle ) which are mostly for intelligence and military intelligence use and its size has been reduced some of them already on a plate, to even smaller Small UAVs (Suave), many of which are still in the developmental phase, and, officially at least, not yet in use. The trend in these mini-threat is very clear so as to develop ever smaller, better camouflaged surveillance drones.

Many of the officially used UAVs are based on the rotor drive principle or on the principle of helicopters or Quadrocopter. The so-called Ornithopter form another class of UAVs. They are based on different variants of the oscillating wing-drive which has already been explored by Leonardo da Vinci just under 500 years. The concept behind the swing-wing drive is to attempt that through the study of birds, dragonflies, flies and other animals function is the movement techniques on mechanical techniques to transferred.

researched early as the 1970s the Office of Research and Development the CIA in gasoline Ornithopter drones which they Insectothopter called and had roughly the size of a dragonfly. In this Laborbedingugen Insectothopter were fit to fly, under natural conditions But apparently they had quite a big problem to control things. In any case, the program was reinstated, as these drones had been checked for side winds too difficult. [2] from gasoline operation is now ready to come, but the research and development of ornithopter ran continuously and had made great progress. There are now free for years on the market, toy Ornithopter different Shapes and sizes. [3] And the development continues. Today there are Ornithopter the size of a fly, and possibly even already have smaller versions. Dr. Robert Wood constructed several years ago at Harvard University mg one airworthy Ornithopter with a wingspan of 3 cm and a weight of 60. [4] students at the Delft University of Technology demonstrated in their DelFly project a flying Ornithopter with built-in camera with a weight of 3 grams [5]

Who among modern surveillance drones, so something in the way imagine how in dem Bild weiter oben mit dem Polizisten und seinem monströsen Quadrocoper, der liegt sehr weit daneben. Die Drohnen, an denen heutzutage gebastelt wird sind so klein wie Fliegen und sehen beispielsweise so aus: [6]


Bei diesen Ornithopter -Modellen handelt es sich natürlich still prototypes. But intelligence agencies like the CIA's research also, but in secret, in such and similar drones. And how far can they are already well advanced in its development only guess.

As mentioned before, but there has for some years already reports of similar Ornithopter models on events such as demonstrations in the USA will be gone into action [7] what the authorities however, is disputed. is talking about how far you really with the development of such threats, you will by the authorities but not necessarily.

What Alber is now known, the n 's just the helicopters or UAVs with Quadrocopterantrieb, of which various versions have long been in use, and besides the just mentioned Ornithopter technologies, is also stimulating in very different types of UAVs. An ultimate surveillance drones, to be precise. Smart people of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) thought arises: Why build complicated and a lot of money for ever-smaller mechanical robots that try to simulate the behavior of insects, but if you look like cyborg insects can breed. Small, seemingly harmless creature flying around by remote control and watch so everything can be completely unobtrusive: Cybugs .

this purpose, the DARPA program called Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) before [8] few years, in which in which one operates on a budget of $ 12 million moth cyborgs and the like tinkering. [9] As a first step, they built a " Cyborg Beetle Microsystem " as it was then called. By implanting electrodes in different brain and muscles of a beetle, they could remotely control it soon appeared. [10]


Then came the experiment of this research program on moths or on their larvae. Dr. Jack Judy , program manager justifies the HI-MEMS research on the project as follows:

" The animal world has the human For thousands of years served as a means of transportation. For example, we have used horses and elephants for locomotion in wars or trade. Birds were used to send secret messages to recognize and gas in coal mines. ... The HI-MEMS program aims to develop technology that allows to get more control over the movement of insects, be just like saddles and horseshoes needed to control the movement of horses. ... The HI-MEMS program seeks to develop close-knit machine-insect interfaces by planting micro-mechanical systems in the insects while they are still at an early . State of metamorphosis are "

He said further that with the help of these micro-mechanical systems insects can then remotely control a variety of ways: by means of GPS coordinates, radio frequencies, optical or ultrasonic signals. And cheap is this all be ever: "The derived from HI-MEMS technology will enable many robotic capabilities at low cost, with great importance on the development of future autonomous defense systems." [11]

 

Rodney Brooks , Direktor des Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab am Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), der ebenfalls am HI-MEMS Programm beteiligt ist, erklärte in einem Artikel der Sunday Times , [12] dass Roboter-Technologien mittlerweile zu den wichtigsten Forschungsgebieten des US Militärs gehören würden, und das die Cyborg-Motten nur eine von einer Anzahl von Technologien wäre, welche bald in Kampfzonen zum Einsatz kommen würde. Hinsichtlich der Motten sagte er: „ Einige Experimente wurden in den letzten paar Jahren durchgeführt, bei denen einfache Tiere wie Ratten oder Küchenschaben per Joystick ferngesteuert wurden, doch dies ist das erste Mal, dass ein Chip bereits im Verpuppungsstadium [der Motte] eingepflanzt wurde und dieser sozusagen innen gewachsen ist. … Sobald die Motte schlüpft wird maschinelles Lernen angewendet um sie zu kontrollieren. Brooks ist auch der Ansicht, dass es Zeit wäre, die Genfer Konvention dahingehend abzuändern, dass die Verwendung Such cyborg drones are allowed


The HI-MEMS researchers hope eventually to use swarms of insects which are all equipped with different sensors such as video cameras, microphones or chemical detectors and can be sent on reconnaissance missions.

As with all the emerging technology of warfare and security, come several inevitable questions. Such as how technologies such as cyber-insects will be affected by the warfare of the future? And as the future standard view on the use of animals for the creation of hybrid animal-cyborg creatures and Bioengineering in general? Will there be common in the future, the governments of all sorts of biological life forms in this way exploit for political and economic goals? And if the governments of these technologies at some point in widely available, have to be that way they have in the context of internal security, so in civilian use? moment we know in any case only that a are unknown such cyborg insects in the laboratories of the DARPA bred and grown under the eyes of scientists to remote-controlled moths

-. Domingo Conte (January 2011)



cyborg moth in an early phase of the experiments






_______________________________
Sources:

[1] Washington Post, "Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs “ (October 9, 2007)
[4] MIT Technology Review: Robotic Insect Takes Off (July 19, 2007) and http://micro.seas.harvard.edu/research.html
[5] DelFly micro site
[6] image sources: http://www.delfly.nl/? DIII site = & menu = & lang = nl and http://www.trendbird.co.kr/2347
[7] See for example: Washington Post, "Dragonfly or Insect Spy ? Scientists at Work on Robobugs "(October 9, 2007) and The Telegraph:" U.S. accused of making insect spy robots (. 10 Oct 2007)
[12] The Sunday Times: Can cyborg moths bring down terrorists? (May 24, 2007)

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