A father of five and a professed geek, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, is always looking for child-friendly activities that could, he hopes, inculcate his children with techie sensibilities.
So one weekend in 2007, Anderson brought home a model radio-controlled airplane and a Lego Mindstorms robotics kit. Soon he and the children put the two toys together, making the Lego robot fly the plane. The result was a clunky Lego drone.
His children moved on to other playthings. But Anderson was captivated. And that led him to found an online network for amateur drone enthusiasts, DIY Drones and to cofound a new business, 3D Robotics, which features an online store for those hobbyists.
"This is the future of aviation," Anderson, 49, said. "Our children will not believe that people used to drive cars and drive airplanes. We are the weak link in the chain."
Unlike traditional radio-controlled planes, unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have the capacity for autonomous flight and navigation. A radio-controlled plane becomes an autonomous drone when it is given an autopilot, which Anderson calls "giving the plane a brain."
Anderson was among the enthusiasts in Boulder, Colo., recently attending the third annual Autonomous Vehicle Competition, where about 50 teams of software programmers and robot tinkerers from across the country faced off in robot races.
Though many of the racers focused on antics like dressing their robots as dinosaurs, Anderson thinks unmanned aircraft are not just for fun-loving hobbyists. He argues that small drones outfitted with sensors could be used to assess emergency situations such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, to find survivors of natural disasters, to assist law enforcement and to monitor pipelines,Co-Axial RC Helicopters, agricultural crops and wildlife populations.
He is not alone in his thinking; many companies and research institutions are working to design drones for commercial and other uses.
The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that around 50 companies, universities, and government organizations are at work on at least 155 drone designs in the United States alone.
Some companies already manufacture sophisticated drones. AeroVironment, based in Monrovia, Calif., designed the 4.2-pound, hand-launched Raven aircraft currently used by U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Boeing subsidiary Insitu, based in Bingen, Klickitat County, also makes unmanned aircraft for commercial and military applications.
Still, there are privacy and safety concerns, which the FAA mitigates by limiting commercial opportunities for UAVs and by requiring special permits for unmanned vehicles to fly in the National Airspace System a complex web of more than 19,000 airports that involves about 100,000 flights a day and thousands of air traffic controllers.
So far, the agency has issued 240 such permits the Department of Homeland Security received permission to patrol the border with drones, and NASA was allowed to fly unmanned aircraft to spot wildfires across the West.
The FAA has an additional 164 permit applications pending, and early this fall expects to release new rules, which Anderson hopes will be more lenient toward unmanned aircraft.
Anderson founded 3D Robotics with Jordi Munoz, 24. The company now sells the autopilot hardware, cords and sensors needed to build unmanned planes and quadcopters, small helicopters with four rotors.
"We are growing really fast,Rally RC Cars," said Munoz, the company's chief executive, who assembled early prototypes at his home. "When we first started I was working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for almost a year."
The company opened a manufacturing facility in San Diego, which now employs 14 people to assemble and ship drone parts. Last year, the company had a 20 percent increase in sales every month, the founders said, with total sales over $1 million. Customers pay about $300 for an autopilot that includes a GPS device, accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and all the gadgetry necessary to turn a model plane into an autonomous drone.
Other companies sell pre-assembled drones.
Under FAA guidelines, recreational fliers like Anderson and his customers must keep unmanned aircraft lower than 400 feet, away from other aircraft and within the operator's sight.
Nicholas Roy, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, works with students to build the software to run small-scale drones that do not rely on GPS equipment, which is often faulty indoors and in cities what Roy calls an "urban canyon."
"In terms of understanding what it means to operate in the physical world with intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles are a fantastic way to do that," said Roy, who also leads MIT's Robust Robotics Group.
But he has some reservations about the widespread use of drones.
"It's easy to say, these things are so small,Beginners RC Helicopters, what damage can they do?" he said. "But they can carry an awful lot of energy and they can accumulate energy very quickly. When one comes out of the sky and hits the ground the potential for real damage is there."
But, at the drone event, Anderson and Munoz seemed most concerned with keeping their aircraft dry and airborne despite the snow flurries.
"No guts, no glory," said Anderson, who expected some drones to crash.
After a day of sputtering failures and spectacular and often unpredictable flights, first place in the aerial category went to Antonio Liska, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer who hopes to start a business selling drones. He programmed his own autopilot and plans to fly his unmanned aircraft into volcanoes in Central America "just because I can," he said.
Yesterday, Jinniu CDC staff emergency red light path of Shu large second class Kindergarten classrooms were disinfected. From 24 to yesterday, the baby nursery, 26 vomiting, abdominal pain symptoms, and some had to go home after hospitalization,donna mbt, there are six dolls still in the hospital transfusion. 26 dolls, most are large Class Two. Currently, relevant departments are still to find the cause.
maternal and child health hospital in Sichuan Province, Chengdu Evening News on the parents, said Yip, 24 evening, her children suffer from abdominal pain and vomiting, will quickly be sent to the hospital. Then she saw the same symptoms occur one after the baby admitted to hospital, I asked, are the red doll kindergarten.
children in the hospital was diagnosed with acute gastritis. The hospital emergency department deputy director Xie said that these dolls because of similar symptoms,mbt scarpe, onset time is similar to other suspected causes of disease.
As of yesterday morning,sconto mbt, the red nursery has 26 dolls have been to the hospital, and now there are six dolls in the hospital transfusion,mbt prezzi, and other baby has been discharged after treatment.
red kindergarten principal, said Lu, the incidence of large dolls are basically two classes, the first baby who was suspected of drinking milk after a nursery is not granted, may be a problem with milk. However, there are more than 500 children throughout the nursery, and other baby drank the milk, are not any problems. Moreover, some children do not drink milk, but also symptoms admitted to hospital, the basic rule out the milk
, vice-principal also mentioned, 24 noon, a large second class of dolls Luo Jiani first spit once,uomo mbt, his family reflect her sick, drinking medicine, vomiting may be a relationship with the wash down medicine. 5 pm the day off from school, the kindergarten to seven or eight children were found in the vomiting, Ju Yuan Long said, the kindergarten classroom party time every day for the disinfection of the nursery after the incident also eliminate the virus, there is no further incidence of the dolls.
yesterday morning, Jinniu CDC staff preparation on a large second class of chlorine to disinfect the classroom. The center CDC chief Korpi said they had collected food samples to the nursery and is currently on samples for testing, two or three days is expected to result.
Chengdu Evening News Luojia Yuan Li, Yu-Long Photography
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