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Toward Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Technology

Posted January 28, 2009 8:06 AM

From Slashdot:

Researchers at Purdue will soon experiment with an unmanned aircraft that pretty much flies itself with little human intervention. The aircraft will use a combination of global-positioning system technology and a guidance system called AttoPilot ... to guide the aerial vehicle to predetermined points. Researchers can be stationed off-site to monitor the aircraft and control its movements remotely. AttoPilot was installed in the aircraft early this year, and testing will begin in the spring, researchers said.

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Anonymous Poster
#1

Re: Toward Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Technology

01/28/2009 10:43 AM

Initially I thought that it might be simple to make such planes go away or possibly fall out of the skies by simply "shouting" false GPS data at them.

But a quick search on Google reassures me the US government thought of this possibility years ago.

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/bulletin/Dual%20Benefit/warner_gps_spoofing.html

I don't know what option(s) have been chosen for this aircraft or if they came up with something better. But at least it's presumably been addressed.

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Guru
Engineering Fields - Systems Engineering - New Member Popular Science - Weaponology - New Member

Join Date: Jun 2006
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#2

Re: Toward Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Technology

01/28/2009 12:22 PM

So many things wrong with this idea

Think I'll go back to the train - and wear a hard hat

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