autonomy & robotic flying/water swimming devices

[jefferiestubes8]

Let's discuss autonomy and robotic flying/& water swimming robot drone devices working as a swarm.

When you hear drone you probably immediately think of the military Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones. No I'm talking about future uses of this technology and not just to drop bombs or for surveillance.
Three have been a few threads that mention specific things such as :
Cooperative Grasping and Transport using Quadrotors. (from 2010)
and last months' Nano Quadrotors..??
Is this flying swarm hinting at the robotic air force of the future? Two with surveillance and the others with weapons?

But the ultimate goal of this work only became obvious when Kumar showed how he had built a quadrotor that carried a stripped-down version of Microsoft's Kinect hardware. Instead of being limited to a carefully controlled environment, these robots could enter an unknown building and gradually map their surroundings. Feedback from the control computer would have the robot move and orient itself to fill in blank spaces on the map, maneuvering into new rooms and heading through the structure vertically as needed.

with help of motion capture system:

quadrocopters
hover, change orientation at full speed.

move in groups, avoid obstacles, and change formations in 3D space. Each of the nano 'copters is self-sensing,

9-20 robots flying move in formation

cooperative transportation carrying cargo

automonously building a structure.
Aerial robots article source


The full Youtube video:
Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly ... and cooperate

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outside of a building equipped with Microsoft Kinect and Hokuyo Laser Scanner
to map an enviroment.

GRASP [General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception laboratory] Lab
University of Pennsylvania
KMel Robotics
http://kmelrobotics.com/

With how these 9 robots can build a structure I see exactly how Japan thinks about its plan for a moon base:

ther 2015 humanoid robots are part of a larger plan.

the droids will begin construction of an unmanned base near the south pole of the moon that will be powered by solar panels,

Japan taking humanoid robots to moon by 2015

as far as underwater:

Unlike today's aerial drones, which are remotely controlled using GPS signals and data link, robotic submarines can't receive satellite commands as it scours the ocean floor. So the machines need to be able to navigate on their own to carry out missions.

Submarine drones need advanced onboard computers to detect and dodge mountains jutting from the sea bed.

Navy says autonomy is key to robotic submarines
considering 3/4ths of our planet is water I'd say robotic unmanned autonomous submarines is the future. They may eventually play a role when a ship sinks in locating it for saving crew or salvage operations for insurance companies.

 

[Lindley]

Of course, quadrotors won't be much help on the moon.