Amazon Awarded Patent For "Self-Destructing Drones"

Amazon has just been granted patent number 9,828,097 for drone technology that allows the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to self-destruct in a sequence in the event of a catastrophic failure.

The abstract of the patent describes the process as “directed fragmentation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)”, which basically means the craft will strategically disassemble itself in the air during an emergency.

The patent describes how an onboard computer called the “fragmentation controller” would override the traditional flight systems in the event of a catastrophic failure.

The computer would then quickly analyze the future flight path, taking in calculations for weather conditions and terrain, before initiating a “fragmentation sequence.”

Amazon provides an illustration of the self-destructing drone in motion dropping the heaviest components of the craft on a tree and a body of water.

The abstract of the patent reads:

Directed fragmentation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is described. In one embodiment, the UAV includes various components, such one or more motors, batteries, sensors, a housing, casing or shell, and a payload for delivery.

 

Additionally, the UAV includes a flight controller and a fragmentation controller. The flight controller determines a flight path and controls a flight operation of the UAV. During the flight operation, the fragmentation controller develops a fragmentation sequence for one or more of the components based on the flight path, the flight conditions, and terrain topology information, among other factors.

 

The fragmentation controller can also detect a disruption in the flight operation of the UAV and, in response, direct fragmentation of one or more of the components apart from the UAV. In that way, a controlled, directed fragmentation of the UAV can be accomplished upon any disruption to the flight operation of the UAV.  

The order in which components are discharged from the craft could be based on their value, said the patent. The process of detachment is said to use “springs, small explosive charges, compressed gas charges, or similar mechanisms”.  Even though Amazon has been granted the patent, it doesn’t make the development of a self-destructing drone inevitable.

According to The Verge, the company has applied for various patents including: “parachutes built into shipping labels, drone beehives for distribution in big cities, and drone-carrying blimps.” Further, the article believes Amazon’s style is to “aggressively throw ideas at the wall” in the form of patents and see what sticks.

Nevertheless, all these wild and wonderful inventions have yet to be approved by government regulators, thus making it a pipeline for now.

Perhaps in a preview of things to come, Amazon delivery drones self-destructing in the sky might not be the best idea, as per the video below:

LAPD Prepares To Unleash Drones Amid Public Outcry

The LAPD first toyed with the idea of ramping up its public spying safety program with the introduction of drones back in May 2014.  At that time, the LAPD announced it had acquired two "unmanned aerial vehicles" as gifts from the Seattle Police Department, Draganflyer X6 aircraft to be exact, after a public outcry in Seattle grounded the controversial program.  Unfortunately, or perhaps not, LA"s drone efforts quickly met the same fate as Seattle"s.  Per the Los Angeles Times:

The LAPD’s dance with drones began in 2014, when the department received two Draganflyer X6 drones from police in Seattle — drones the Washington agency unloaded after heavy criticism from the public. Although the LAPD said it would deploy the drones for “narrow and prescribed uses,” civil liberties advocates questioned their use in even a limited fashion.

Less than a week after getting the drones, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said he would not fly the unmanned aircraft until the department had sought public feedback as well as approval from the Police Commission.

“I will not sacrifice public support for a piece of police equipment,” Beck said at the time.

The drones were then locked away in the office of the LAPD’s inspector general. Department officials said the move was a response to public perception and federal laws limiting use of the unmanned aircraft.

Now, some three years later, it seems that the LAPD is ready to give it"s mass public spying effort another try... 

On Tuesday, the LAPD will again wade into the heated debate, as department brass are slated to present details to the Police Commission about a possible pilot program for an “unmanned aerial system.”

The commission’s agenda said the pitch was for “limited tactical deployment” of a drone, but did not elaborate.

Earlier this year, L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell announced his agency’s plans to use a $10,000 drone to help deputies responding to arson scenes, suspected bombs and hostage situations. McDonnell said the drone would not be used in surveillance but could provide critical information from previously inaccessible vantage points.

But, while populations do tend to become more comfortable with technology over time, apparently 3 years hasn"t been enough time for the citizens of LA to decide they"re now willing to give up their civil liberties.

Before the meeting, roughly three dozen activists from various groups — including the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, Black Lives Matter and Los Angeles Community Action Network — stood outside the LAPD’s downtown headquarters, denouncing the use of drones by police.

The Police Commission should “completely reject LAPD’s latest attempt to revive its drone program,” said Hamid Khan, founder of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, an anti-surveillance group that frequently criticizes the LAPD.

”L.A. does not need further militarization by the LAPD,” said Paula Minor, an activist with Black Lives Matter.

Civil liberties advocates expressed concern over privacy as well as what they described as a lack of public input in the sheriff’s abrupt announcement. The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition staged a protest blasting the department’s use of drones.

Of course, as the LA Times notes, drones are already used by some 350 municipal agencies around the country...though we would be intrigued to know whether or not the public was asked for their opinion on those programs before they were deployed...

Drones have been hailed by law enforcement across the country as a crucial technology that can help find missing hikers or monitor armed suspects without jeopardizing the safety of officers. But efforts to adopt the unmanned aircraft have frequently drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates for whom the devices stir Orwellian visions of inappropriate — or illegal — surveillance or fears of military-grade, weaponized drones patrolling the skies.

Almost 350 public safety departments in the U.S. have acquired drones, nearly half of them last year, according to a study Gettinger’s center published earlier this year. Many of those drones are no more advanced than those used by hobbyists, he said.

Some agencies have adopted the technology without much public reaction. Still, Gettinger said, skeptics have expressed apprehension not just about how police use drones today, but how they might use the technology in the future.

“We’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “The systems are going to evolve, and that’s going to bring with them questions about how they’re going to be used.”

But we"re sure it"s fine, people in positions of power rarely abuse their power...

Elon Musk Nightmare Looms: Army Seeks "Internet-Of-Battlefield Things" With "Self-Aware" Bot Swarms

After warning that "AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization," the appearance of fully-automated "robot-killers" brought Elon Musk"s apocalyptic vision even close.

As he noted, "until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal," and while that is unlikely in the streets of America (for now), Defense One"s Patrick Turner writes that after nearly two decades of war against technologically unsophisticated foes, the Army Research Lab is reorienting to counter China and Russia - with distributed bot-swarms and an internet-of-battlefield things...

The Army Research Lab is turning more of its attention to fighting land wars against far more technologically sophisticated adversaries than it has in the past several decades. In the coming months, the Lab will fund new programs related to highly (but not fully) autonomous drones and robots that can withstand adversary electronic warfare operations. The Lab will also fund new efforts to develop battlefield communications and sensing networks that perform well against foes with advanced electronic warfare capabilities, according to Philip Perconti, who became the director of the Lab in June.

After nearly two decades of war against determined but technologically unsophisticated foes in the Middle East, U.S. Army tech has, in some ways, fallen behind that of competing states, according to a May report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies on U.S. Army modernization.

For instance, Russia has invested heavily in anti-access / area denial technologies meant to keep U.S. forces out of certain areas.

“There are regions in Donbass where no electromagnetic communications—including radio, cell phone, and television—work,” says the CSIS report.

“Electronic warfare is the single largest killer of Ukrainian systems by jamming either the controller or GPS signals.”

In the coming months, the Army Research Lab will set forth on new research programs to counter these A2/AD systems. One thrust will be equipping drones and other autonomous systems with bigger brains and better networking so that they can function even when an enemy jams their ability to radio back to a human controller for direction. That’s the idea behind the Distributed and Collaborative Intelligent Systems and Technology program, which will experiment with robots packed with much more onboard processing.

“Autonomy will play a big role” in future Army concepts of operation, Perconti said. “And it has to be able to function within this contested environment…That’s what ARL is thinking about. More than one network, working together, with as much processing as possible on the node.”

The amount of onboard processing should be sufficient to allow the drone to be highly independent. It would still call home (Perconti, like his peers across the Pentagon, sees no possibility that the U.S. military would allow a robots to kill without a human saying yes.) But the dialogue between the drone and the operator would much more closely resemble an exchange between a commander and soldier, and less a human steering a thing.

Perconti said future Army drones and robots of all types should “be able to function to provide not raw data but information, and, in a sense, decisions about what needs to happen on the battlefield. When you don’t have bandwidth, when you’re under cyber attack, when you’re being jammed. That’s the problem we’re trying to address.”

The Lab will tackle questions such as: when can autonomous systems come together to deliver effects and then disperse? How do you integrate autonomous robots into a war-fighting command?

A second program called the Internet of Battlefield Things seeks to put to military use  “the research that’s going on in the commercial space” on distributed sensors and Internet-connected devices.

The CSIS report says that United States already enjoys asymmetrical advantage over adversaries like China and Russia in the way it deploys  sensors and networks to maintain a view of the battlefield, or situational awareness. But that’s also part of the problem: “Recognizing this threat, the Russians have made targeting and countering U.S. situational awareness systems a high priority of its battlefield [electronic warfare] activities, necessitating co-united U.S. investment to address and stay ahead of Russian counters,” the report says.

The challenge for the U.S. Army now is to rethink battlefield sensor networks in a way that acknowledges that rapidly advancing commercial capabilities are eroding U.S. advantage. The U.S. needs an “understanding of the knowledge gaps are, the voids,” says Perconti.

What exactly is an Internet of Battlefield Things? The program announcement describes it as a group of largely autonomous sensors or even robotic parts (actuators) and robots “capable of adapting to acquire and analyze data necessary to predict behaviors/activities, and effectuate the physical environment; self-aware, continuously learning, autonomous, and autonomic, where the things interact with networks, humans, and the environment.”

Perconti said he expects ARL to announce contract awards for both programs later this year, allowing them to begin in earnest in fiscal year 2018.

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Fully-automated, self-directed battlefield drones? What could possibly go wrong? Especially with Russia deploying Terminator 2-style fighting vehicles...