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IN FOCUS: IAI pursues fly-on-the-wall UAV technology
When the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) "butterfly" unmanned air vehicle, or rather super micro vehicle, takes off in one of the company's hangars, it looks like a toy for spoiled boys who have parents with really deep pockets. In reality, it is being developed for far more serious scenarios.
The "butterfly" is practically silent and, when it hovers a few metres above your head, sometimes merges with the background and seems to disappear. This is exactly what IAI wants to achieve - a miniature UAV that can enter buildings and relay video and sound to forces outside.
Six years ago, an engineer involved in some of IAI's major projects decided to study the motion of butterfly wings to create a fluttering robot suitable for military missions. The idea came as no surprise for many at IAI as the engineer in question is also chairman of the Israeli Lepidopterists Society.
The project flies under the banner: "If nature can do it, we have to try to mimic it." IAI decided to start off by mimicking a dragonfly, which has four wings that enable it hover.
"This is an interim stage. We have succeeded in mimicking the motion of a dragonfly's wings. We want to fully mimic the motion of a butterfly's wings, but we are not there yet," says Isabelle Okashi, from IAI's military robotics laboratory.
She says current models have two sets of wings, with the rear pair used as an elevator and rudder, but the scientists are working to make this pair redundant by changing the "amplitude" of the main wings - the range in which the thin, transparent structures can flutter.
Work is also under way to control the tension of the wings' membrane, allowing more control of the robot butterfly's movements. However, IAI admits it has yet to get an analytical picture of how a real butterfly's "X-wings" system works.
But no matter how well nature hides its secrets from nosy scientists, huge efforts are being made in the IAI laboratory to crack the mystery of a butterfly's wings.
Okashi says IAI envisions an artificial butterfly in the vest pouch of an infantry soldier, who would control it via a device resembling a smartphone. The two versions we were allowed to watch are much larger.
The small butterfly weighs 8g (0.3oz), and the "bigger" one 13g, both powered by a lithium polymer battery weighing 2g with an endurance of 20min. The tiny battery powers an electric motor with 7,000rpm that in the small version supplies 17Hz, and 40Hz in the bigger one. The video camera on both models weighs 0.1g and supports a ciphered video link.
IAI has developed a flight control system for the butterflies that weighs 3g, and gazing on these transparent wonders takes you to a future world of military robotics beyond the dreams of Hollywood producers. The butterflies' wings are hand-made using transparent carbonfibre but when series production begins, special manufacturing processes will have to be in place to achieve the correct shape of these almost weightless parts.
Guy Marom, an aeronautical engineer working on the project, says that in the future the butterflies may be capable of "energy harvesting" by landing on a high-voltage power line and "sucking" electrical energy to charge the battery.
One of the main efforts of the team is to outsmart nature and use only a pair of wings. Okashi says "a few" months of work is needed before all requirements are achieved.
The IAI team and other experts who follow the project say the project is mainly aimed at urban warfare, pointing the butterflies in the direction of helping soldiers get real-time intelligence in situations that are currently "dead ends".
Let us imagine a scenario: terrorists take over a building and hold hostages in an upper floor. There is no way to see or hear what is going on inside the building. A "butterfly" takes off, enters the building via a window or air vent and begins to relay footage to troops outside via a camera and microphone.
Chatting to IAI team members, they hint that their butterfly's only limit is the human imagination. As I left, one butterfly was hovering near the hangar ceiling but I only noticed it when someone pointed to the robot. It still took me a few seconds to spot it - and that is the whole idea.
Source: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/in-focus-iai-pursues-fly-on-the-wall-uav-technology-379394/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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