Drone Autonomy (2021)

(cggonzalez.com)

81 points | by cgg1 2 days ago ago

14 comments

  • YeGoblynQueenne 20 hours ago ago

    This is a great introduction to all the technology that people have developed over the years (since the 1970's!) to make robots autonomous, that, unfortunately, have never quite worked. As I like to point out, if we knew how to make drones (or any kind of robot) really, actually autonomous you'd see them used first of all in Ukraine, and recently in Lebanon. You don't, all the drones used in warfare are remote-controlled. Autonomy doesn't work yet. Not well enough to deploy in a theater of war.

    Btw, I did really enjoy the graphic sumarising Control Theory. I'd criticise the lack of Planning and Scheduling, i.e. the PDDL-based symbolic AI stuff which is the technology that works best and is used e.g. by NASA on Perseverance, but OK, there's basically three communities that attack the same problem from different angles: Model Predictive Control, Planning & Scheduling, and RL. Two out of three is not too bad (but I don't see how RL goes under CT; never mind).

    • weinzierl an hour ago ago

      "You don't, all the drones used in warfare are remote-controlled."

      Is this really true. My (admittedly) naive understanding was that in a first phase radio remote controlled drones were used. Then jamming became widespread and they tried to counteract with fiber-optic drones but they never caught on.

      I thought that since we see more drones then ever now it must be a hint that most of them must autonomous to some degree now.

    • hkpack 11 hours ago ago

      Not everything Ukraine uses is public knowledge.

      There are huge developments in automation happening and are being used right now.

  • amemi 18 hours ago ago

    It does not seem that the author cites the source of the control theory map. It was created by Brian Douglas [1], an engineer whose YouTube videos [2] are great for learning core topics.

    Also useful is Steve Brunton's channel [3]. He has a freely available book [4] co-authored with Nathan Kutz that ties machine learning and control.

    [1] https://engineeringmedia.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/@BrianBDouglas [3] https://www.youtube.com/@Eigensteve [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374528

  • greenpizza13 a day ago ago

    The fact that people just make this stuff and make it available to others is the most amazing thing about the internet (and the people on it).

  • CamperBob2 a day ago ago

    Keeps asking me to sign in?

    • blensor a day ago ago

      It uses polyfill.io which is no longer active and has been taken over by malicious actors.

      That's where the sign in request is coming from

      • ehnto a day ago ago

        Somehow this is only the first time I have seen this vector taken advantage of with my own eyes.

        I remember thinking it was a stupid idea to embed third party hosted JS back when jquery and prototypejs were the duopoly of javascript. I'm surprised it took me this long to see it.

    • iamflimflam1 a day ago ago

      I’m not seeing this? Has it been fixed?

  • infl8ed a day ago ago

    Crash course?

  • preetham_rangu a day ago ago

    [flagged]

  • wizread a day ago ago

    [dead]