What started as a platform for hobbyists is poised to become a multibillion-dollar industry. Inspection, environmental monitoring, photography and film and journalism: these are some of the potential applications for commercial drones, and their enablers are the capabilities being developed at research facilities around the world.
Ono što je započelo kao platforma za hobiste pretvoriti će se u industriju koja vrijedi milijarde dolara. Inspekcija, praćenje okoliša, fotografija, film i novinarstvo: ovo su neki od potencijalnih primjera za korištenje komercijalnih dronova, a oni koji ih osposobljavaju, predstavljaju mogućnost razvitka u centrima za istraživanje po cijelome svijetu.
For example, before aerial package delivery entered our social consciousness, an autonomous fleet of flying machines built a six-meter-tall tower composed of 1,500 bricks in front of a live audience at the FRAC Centre in France, and several years ago, they started to fly with ropes. By tethering flying machines, they can achieve high speeds and accelerations in very tight spaces. They can also autonomously build tensile structures. Skills learned include how to carry loads, how to cope with disturbances, and in general, how to interact with the physical world.
Na primjer, prije nego što je zračna dostava paketa ušla u našu socijalnu svijest, bespilotna flota letećih strojeva izgradila je šest metara visok toranj sačinjen od 1.500 cigli pred publikom u FRAC centru u Francuskoj, a prije nekoliko godina počeli su letjeti pomoću užadi. Kada svežu leteće strojeve, mogu postići velike brzine i ubrzanje u uskim prostorima. Također mogu samostalno izgraditi i zatezne strukture. Naučene vještine uključuju, kako nositi teret, kako se nositi sa smetnjama, i generalno, kako komunicirati s fizičkim svijetom.
Today we want to show you some new projects that we've been working on. Their aim is to push the boundary of what can be achieved with autonomous flight.
Danas vam želimo predstaviti neke nove projekte na kojima smo radili. Njihov cilj je pomaknuti granice onoga što se može postići s bespilotnim letom.
Now, for a system to function autonomously, it must collectively know the location of its mobile objects in space. Back at our lab at ETH Zurich, we often use external cameras to locate objects, which then allows us to focus our efforts on the rapid development of highly dynamic tasks. For the demos you will see today, however, we will use new localization technology developed by Verity Studios, a spin-off from our lab. There are no external cameras. Each flying machine uses onboard sensors to determine its location in space and onboard computation to determine what its actions should be. The only external commands are high-level ones such as "take off" and "land."
Da bi sistem funkcionirao samostalno, mora znati lokaciju svojih moblinih objekata u prostoru. U našem laboratoriju ETH u Zürichu, često koristimo vanjske kamere kako bi locirali objekte a to nam daje mogućnost da se fokusiramo na brz razvoj visoko dinamičnih zadataka. Za demo verzije koje ćete danas vidjeti, koristiti ćemo novu lokalizacijsku tehnologiju, razvijenu od studija Vertiy, nusproizvod našeg laboratorija. Ne postoje vanjske kamere. Svaka letjelica koristi senzore kako bi odredila vlastitu lokaciju u prostoru i računanje kojim određuje što treba raditi. Jedine eksterne naredbe su one visoke razine kao što su "polijetanje" i "slijetanje."
This is a so-called tail-sitter. It's an aircraft that tries to have its cake and eat it. Like other fixed-wing aircraft, it is efficient in forward flight, much more so than helicopters and variations thereof. Unlike most other fixed-wing aircraft, however, it is capable of hovering, which has huge advantages for takeoff, landing and general versatility. There is no free lunch, unfortunately. One of the limitations with tail-sitters is that they're susceptible to disturbances such as wind gusts. We're developing new control architectures and algorithms that address this limitation. The idea is for the aircraft to recover no matter what state it finds itself in, and through practice, improve its performance over time.
To je tzv. slijetanje na rep. To je letjelica koja pokušava imati svoju tortu i pojesti ju. Kao i druge letjelice s fiksnim krilima, učinkovita je u letu naprijed, mnogo više nego helikopteri i njihove varijacije. Za razliku od ostalih letjelica s fiksnim krilima, sposobna je za lebdjenje, a ima i ogromne prednosti za polijetanje, slijetanje i prilagodljivost. Ne postoji besplatan ručak, na žalost. Jedan od nedostataka letjelica koje slijeću na rep je da su osjetljive na smetnje, kao što su udari vjetra. Razvijamo nove kontrolne arhitekture i algoritme koji oslovljavaju te nedostatke. Ideja je da se letjelica oporavi, bez obzira u kakvom se stanju nađe, i da kroz praksu, poboljša svoju izvedbu.
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OK.
OK.
When doing research, we often ask ourselves fundamental abstract questions that try to get at the heart of a matter. For example, one such question would be, what is the minimum number of moving parts needed for controlled flight? Now, there are practical reasons why you may want to know the answer to such a question. Helicopters, for example, are affectionately known as machines with a thousand moving parts all conspiring to do you bodily harm. It turns out that decades ago, skilled pilots were able to fly remote-controlled aircraft that had only two moving parts: a propeller and a tail rudder. We recently discovered that it could be done with just one.
Kada istražujemo, često si postavljamo osnovna apstraktna pitanja koja pokušavaju doprijeti u srž stvari. Npr, jedno takvo pitanje glasi, koji je minimlani broj pokretnih dijelova potrebnih za kontrolirani let? Postoje praktični razlozi zašto bi htjeli znati odgovor na takvo pitanje. Helikopteri, na primjer, su poznati kao strojevi s tisuću pokretnih dijelova koji su se urotili da bi vam nanijeli tjelesne ozljede. Ispostavilo se, da su desetljećima prije, iskusni piloti mogli upravljati letjelicama na daljinsko upravljanje koje su imale dva dijela koja se pokreću: propeler i repno kormilo. Nedavno smo otkrlili da se to može učiniti i samo s jednim dijelom.
This is the monospinner, the world's mechanically simplest controllable flying machine, invented just a few months ago. It has only one moving part, a propeller. It has no flaps, no hinges, no ailerons, no other actuators, no other control surfaces, just a simple propeller. Even though it's mechanically simple, there's a lot going on in its little electronic brain to allow it to fly in a stable fashion and to move anywhere it wants in space. Even so, it doesn't yet have the sophisticated algorithms of the tail-sitter, which means that in order to get it to fly, I have to throw it just right. And because the probability of me throwing it just right is very low, given everybody watching me, what we're going to do instead is show you a video that we shot last night.
Ovo je monospinner, na svijetu mehanički najjednostavniji upravljački leteći stroj, izumljen prije samo nekoliko mjeseci. Ima samo jedan dio koji se pokreće, propeler. Nema klapne, šarke, krilca, nema druge pogone, ni druge kontrolne površine, samo jednostavan propeler. Iako je mehanički jednostavan, svašta se događa u njegovom malom elektronskom mozgu kako bi mogao letjeti mirno i kretati se, bilo gdje u prostoru. Ipak i dalje nema sofisticirane algoritme letjelice koja slijeće na rep, a što znači, da bi letio, moram ga baciti kako treba. A pošto je šansa da ga bacim kako treba, jako mala, s obzirom da me svi gledaju, umjesto toga, pokazati ćemo vam video koji smo snimili sinoć.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
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If the monospinner is an exercise in frugality, this machine here, the omnicopter, with its eight propellers, is an exercise in excess. What can you do with all this surplus? The thing to notice is that it is highly symmetric. As a result, it is ambivalent to orientation. This gives it an extraordinary capability. It can move anywhere it wants in space irrespective of where it is facing and even of how it is rotating. It has its own complexities, mainly having to do with the interacting flows from its eight propellers. Some of this can be modeled, while the rest can be learned on the fly. Let's take a look.
Ako je monospinner vježba u štedljivosti, ovaj stroj ovdje, omnikopter, sa svojih osam propelera, je vježba viška. Što sve možete s ovim viškom? Ono što se može primjetiti je, da je jako simetričan. Rezultat toga je taj, što je ambivalentan prema orijentaciji. To mu daje izvanrednu sposobnost. Može se kretati bilo gdje u prostoru bez obzira s čim se susreće i kako se rotira. Ima svoje složenosti, koje su uglavnom povezane s tijekom interakcije od njegovih osam propelera. Nešto od toga se može modelirati, dok se ostatak uči pri letenju. Ajmo pogledati.
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If flying machines are going to enter part of our daily lives, they will need to become extremely safe and reliable. This machine over here is actually two separate two-propeller flying machines. This one wants to spin clockwise. This other one wants to spin counterclockwise. When you put them together, they behave like one high-performance quadrocopter. If anything goes wrong, however -- a motor fails, a propeller fails, electronics, even a battery pack -- the machine can still fly, albeit in a degraded fashion. We're going to demonstrate this to you now by disabling one of its halves.
Ako će leteći strojevi ući u naš svakodnevni život, morali bi postati veoma sigurni i pouzdani. Ovaj ovdje stroj je u stvari stroj podijeljen na dva dijela stroja s dva propelera. Ovaj se vrti u smjeru kazaljke na satu. Dok se drugi vrti suprotno od kazaljke na satu. Kada ih spojimo, postanu jedan kvadrikopter visokih preformansi. Ukoliko nešto pođe po zlu -- ako motor otkaže, ako propeler otkaže, elektronika ili čak i baterija -- ovaj stroj još uvijek može letjeti, ali na slabiji način. Sada ćemo vam to demonstrirati, tako da onesposobimo jednu njegovu polovicu.
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(Pljesak)
This last demonstration is an exploration of synthetic swarms. The large number of autonomous, coordinated entities offers a new palette for aesthetic expression. We've taken commercially available micro quadcopters, each weighing less than a slice of bread, by the way, and outfitted them with our localization technology and custom algorithms. Because each unit knows where it is in space and is self-controlled, there is really no limit to their number.
Ova posljednja demonstracija je istraživanje sintetičkih rojeva. Veliki broj samostalnih, koordiniranih entiteta omogućuje novu paletu estetskog izražavanja. Uzeli smo komercijalno dostupne mikro kvadkoptere, a svaki od njih je lakši i od komada kruha, i opremili smo ih našom lokalizacijskom tehnologijom i posebnim algoritmima. Jer svaka jednica zna gdje se nalazi u prostoru i kontrolira samu sebe, i njihovm broju zaista nema kraja.
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Hopefully, these demonstrations will motivate you to dream up new revolutionary roles for flying machines. That ultrasafe one over there for example has aspirations to become a flying lampshade on Broadway.
Nadamo se da će vas ovo izlaganje motivirati da više sanjarite o novim revolucionarnim ulogama za leteće strojeve. Ova ultrasigurna tamo, na primjer želi postati sjenilo na Broadwayju.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
The reality is that it is difficult to predict the impact of nascent technology. And for folks like us, the real reward is the journey and the act of creation. It's a continual reminder of how wonderful and magical the universe we live in is, that it allows creative, clever creatures to sculpt it in such spectacular ways. The fact that this technology has such huge commercial and economic potential is just icing on the cake.
Realnost je da je teško predvidjeti utjecaj tehnologije koja se rađa. A za ljude poput nas, prava nagrada je put i sam čin stvaranja. To je stalan podsjetnik kako je divan i čaroban svemir u kojem živimo, i da dozvoljava kreativnim, pametnim stvorenjima da ih oblikuju na toliko spektakularnih načina. Činjenica da ova tehnologija ima ogromni komercijalni i ekonomski potencijal je samo šlag na torti.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)