Posted on 02/04/2012 9:49:45 AM PST by Sprite518
It’s shocking.
“These things can surely be scaled up.”
They are NANO. Meant to be small. I fly these small quads and helicopters and they are tossed around by any wind because they weight next to nothing. It is one thing to fly solo in the wind, but in formation they would wipe each other out.
The point I see here isn’t necessarily that they can be programmed to fly in formation; it is that this is the degree of control and maneuverability that the software can provide.
A scaled-up system, bigger, heavier, and sufficiently powerful could surely be made to fly outdoors in any weather, able to follow a waypoint path perhaps, for surveillance, guarding, or even as an offensive weapon system. It seems to me that they could be effective even in built-up areas, with the addition of some way to detect obstacles they could semi-autonomously avoid them.
We are truly on the cusp (hopefully not a precipice) of a brave new world.
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