Wired online: Linux Powers Airborne Bots

[Randy Burge]

Linux Powers Airborne Bots

By Kevin Poulsen

02:00 AM Jun. 01, 2005 PT
http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,67695,00.html

[Full Story]
British researchers are turning to Linux and embedded processors to build a
fleet of tiny, robotic helicopters capable of swarming like angry bees and
evaluating their surroundings with a single hive mind.

The University of Essex's UltraSwarm project is an experiment in swarm
intelligence and wireless cluster computing that might one day spawn
military surveillance applications. In one scenario, a flock of unmanned
aerial vehicles, or UAVs, with video cameras could take in a hostile
landscape from a variety of angles and process the image locally, in the
sky.
For their proof of concept, the researchers are using lightweight $69
Proxflyer Bladerunner toy helicopters equipped with gumstix processors --
tiny self-contained computers weighing 8 grams (0.28 ounces), but packing
enough power to run the Linux 2.6 kernel and communicate over a built-in
Bluetooth module.

The coaxial Bladerunner weighs only 50 grams (1.8 ounces) and is held aloft
by two rotors, one atop the other, spinning in opposite directions to
achieve a stable, insect-like flight. It's sold as a remote-control toy, but
after adding the gumstix and a downward-facing video camera, the Essex
University researchers have already turned one of the choppers into what
they describe as the world's smallest flying web server.

If all goes according to plan, the helicopters will communicate with one
another over Bluetooth, allowing them to move as one entity, and even to
carry out sophisticated computation-heavy tasks using distributed computing
techniques.

"We'll have a flock of helicopters; they will be autonomous individually and
as a swarm, and they will be gathering and processing visual data in
distributed way," says Owen Holland, project director and deputy head of the
university's computer science department.

The team says the concept was inspired by the graceful flow of flocking
starlings, and the knowledge that the accumulated brain mass of a flock of
1,000 birds adds up to that of a human brain. By harnessing wireless
communications and distributed computing, Holland reasoned, he could put a
powerful computer into the sky in tiny, feather-light pieces.

Holland specializes in autonomous robotics inspired by nature -- an earlier
project aimed to create a "SlugBot" that would fuel itself by trapping and
chemically digesting slugs. ("We didn't actually succeed," he notes.) His
previous research into flocking used a model airplane with a 52-inch
wingspan as a platform, but had to be abandoned for fear that an accident
might send the experiment plummeting down on innocent bystanders. "The range
and speed of these things make it potentially dangerous, and to attempt to
fly them under their own control is something you have to consider very
seriously from a risk-management point," said Holland.

In contrast, the Bladerunner would be hard pressed to damage a cat. That
makes it safe to experiment with, but also imposes new limitations. The toy
can only fly for about 10 minutes on a single charge, and the extra gear
reduces that even further. And the proof-of-concept flocking system will be
too light to fly outdoors -- a 100-square-meter arena at the university's
robotics lab will serve as the test bed.

Finally, piloting the toy chopper using software isn't easy. Ph.D. candidate
Renzo de Nardi -- who's designing, building and coding the system -- says
the task has forced him to delve into the intricacies of several divergent
disciplines, including aerodynamics and visual processing. "Probably the big
challenge is to merge all these things together," says Nardi. "Each of these
is (a) separate area of expertise."

The researchers are presenting a paper on their work at the IEEE Swarm
Intelligence Symposium in California next week. Challenges aside, they
expect to have the system up and flying soon. "It's going to be weeks rather
than months," says Holland.

In March, Brooklyn-based defense contractor Atair Aerospace announced the
first successful demonstration of flocking and swarming techniques in a UAV,
after dropping five computer-guided Onyx parafoil gliders in an experiment
funded by the U.S. Army. The company says the parafoils can be released from
35,000 feet, autonomously glide as a flock for 30 miles, then land together
within 150 feet of a preprogrammed target. The system is designed to
air-drop troop supplies with once-unachievable precision.

http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,67695,00.html
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