Tacocopter Basics

http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2012/09/tacocopter-basics/

by danshapiro • 14 years ago

194 71 14 years ago

lutusp2• 14 years ago

Okay HN developers -- when you get done reading the linked article and are finished laughing at the thought of a little helicopter delivering a taco or a bottle of beer, start thinking:

* Little helicopters can now lift a substantial weight.

* They aren't very expensive.

* They're easily controlled, more so than a full-sized helicopter (primarily because of computer-aided controls and GPS guidance). So you don't have to be Chuck Yeager to fly one.

* All you need to do is mate the helicopter with a decent camera that can simultaneously beam a picture to the ground for guidance and preview, and take high-resolution pictures on command by way of the radio link.

* Uses: real estate (who desperately need a way to take high-quality pictures of houses from above), surveillance, art, video productions, etc..

This is an opportunity waiting for someone willing to take it on.

lmm• 14 years ago

We already have plenty of photos of houses from above. Surveilance is still hard because these things are noisy and don't have a long linger time. The tacocopter is a real use case; I'd pay for it, particularly if it can deliver to my second-floor balcony rather than having to go down to the door.

silvestrov2• 14 years ago

My big fear: when the payload is hand grenades [1], i.e. a "multicopter bomber".

You can launch the multicopters from places where you're not seen. You can even do this in nighttime and have them land and wait undetected on some rooftop until you want them to continue their mission.

A handfull of such multicopters will make more terror than 9/11 ever could do because 9/11 was (almost) concentrated to a single place. 9/11 had passenger lists so it was easy to find out who took control of the planes. Multicopter bombers have no passenger lists, no sender address. You don't know how many more planes are in the air and when they will strike.

Redundancy and multi-target missions are even cheaper and more efficient with multicopters than in the 9/11 attacks. Multicopters are so cheap that the terrorists can launch a bunch of them and not care if half of them fail to get to their target. Multicopters bombers works for targeting e.g. Disney Parks and other places with a lot of easily frightened people out in the open.

With 9/11 it was easy to get away from the attacks (i.e. just leave that part of Manhatten). Multicopter bombers are like a swarm of supersized wasps. You don't know where to go, you don't know when they'll be back.

1: Homemade "grenades": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copeland

heretohelp• 14 years ago

Forget grenades, what if they drop knives on people!

We should ban multicopters before it's too late.

Steak knives too. Steak is bad for you anyway.

Devilboy• 14 years ago

America - home of the brave

bigiain• 14 years ago

When you say "my big fear", I can't help but read "m irrational fear".

Do you _really_ fear "multicopter bombers" with a fleet "like a swarm of supersized wasps"?

To me, that's in the same class as people wo are afraid of flying, yet happily drive their car to the airport.

Realistically, terrorists don't skill up with brand new technologies to try carrying hand grenades around, they use cars/trucks/airplanes. If _I_ had a budget set to get explosives in amongst people, I'd be buying or renting cars/pickups/small trucks which can carry thousands of pounds of explosives around a city relatively inconspicuously. I wouldn't be training up teams of rc-pilots/hobby-UVA-geeks to be able to deliver a pound or three of explosive at a time.

3amOpsGuy• 14 years ago

You should put your talent to good use, I bet you have it in you to write a first rate thriller.

(I'm not being viscicious - plenty of people have imagination, plenty of other people can rationalise about what could work in practice, drawing these together is a skill).

maxerickson• 14 years ago

So what's the difference between 10 guys with multicopters and 10 guys using the tactics of the crazy you link?

tomp• 14 years ago

You could also go to a rooftop and just throw granates on the street.

njharman• 14 years ago

This has been happening since 2000, over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. With guided rocket propelled "grenades" and the terrorists are the CIA and pals in USA government.

SimHacker• 14 years ago

I'm more afraid of lobsters than handgrenades.

philwelch2• 14 years ago

And then what, you have a scattered handful of very very small bombs going off? That's a lot of effort to go through for not much impact.

qxcv• 14 years ago

> real estate

Aren't there already unmanned blimps built to solve exactly this problem?

> surveillance

Except they're insanely loud when they get in close to you.

> art, video productions

There are a lot of good videos and pictures taken with multicopters, but you've got to remember a couple of things:

- They're loud. Probably loud enough to annoy whatever you're filming.

- Their engines vibrate a lot.

- They can only fly for a few minutes at a time (meaning LOTS of recharging and LOTS of batteries).

- If they fall out of the sky then it is very likely that you will lose your expensive recording equipment.

tjoff• 14 years ago

Except they're insanely loud when they get in close to you.

Which also is a (potential) feature. Consider a burglar alarm at your home, when it goes off you can just launch the quadcopter from wherever you are to investigate (and at the same time make the burglar aware of your presence). A lot of deterrents go out of their way to be visible. It gives you the opportunity to cancel the alarm or call in the police quickly.

And as for video productions and art, there quite a few products targeting this already, where you can preprogram movements etc. that just wasn't possible before.

http://vimeo.com/35432485

steve8918• 14 years ago

This is a bit too pessimistic, even for me. Technology is only going to get better, and the quadcopters will become quieter, and with less vibration, with longer battery lives.

As quadcopter technology and things like computer vision become more advanced, it really does seem like there's a lot of possibilities for these types of devices.

I've been daydreaming of the day when I have my own personal swarm of quadcopters that continuously circle my house with a wireless camera, and then land to recharge, and another one takes off. Not that I'm particularly worried about security (my barred windows, landmines and laser booby traps are more than enough protection), but it would be fun to see that.

The other thing that would be fun with quadcopters is if you could give it your gear, like your cellphone, wallet, etc, and have it fly above you everywhere, and whenever you needed something, you could just summon it. It's like the old school Dungeons and Dragons concept of having a familiar that you can summon whenever you needed it. You could also video yourself, from a WoW-like view, just for fun.

lutusp2• 14 years ago

> Aren't there already unmanned blimps built to solve exactly this problem?

This solution might be less expensive, more flexible, and easier to control on a windy day. Not that a model helicopter would be easy to control in a high wind, but compared to a blimp -- no contest.

Also I think the setup and takedown time for a model helicopter would be much less than for a blimp.

> Except they're insanely loud when they get in close to you.

Not an electric one -- they're surprisingly quiet. I was thinking of a battery-operated helicopter, to make the system easier to use as well as quieter.

joelhaasnoot• 14 years ago

It's an opportunity for sure, but lots of FAA red tape if you start doing this on a larger scale for commercial use. Many existing projects and products fly under rules for hobbyists, which prevent commercial use. Taking pictures commercially for real estate probably would fly "under the radar", delivering tacos might be harder to keep quiet. Probably could be tackled, but a definite question mark.

lukethomas• 14 years ago

The legalities are still in the works (in the United States), but my brother has been using drones for 6 months to take photos of real estate.

http://aerialfly.com/

(P.S. - he can only get 20 minutes flight time with two li-po batteries)

lbotos• 14 years ago

Could you elaborate a little bit about what kind of stuff he's run into? I've been considering doing some arial chase scene footage of BMX events but wondering about the legalities of it? If you want, email works as well (In profile).

HeyLaughingBoy2• 14 years ago

The opportunity has been exploited for years.

IIRC, Rotomotion was the first outfit to Open Source their autopilot, and that was almost 10 years ago. I think they've since gone closed source, but their initial market was powerline and pipeline monitoring from semi-autonomous helicopters carrying cameras. Whether related to their OSS efforts or not, the DIY UAV scene exploded soon after.

Lagged2Death2• 14 years ago

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/famed-photographer-edwar...

jahewson2• 14 years ago

Things that fly are really, really dangerous, and the benefits really need to be worth the risks. I don't think a Taco is worth the risk that one of these things goes out of control over the freeway and causes a 100-car pileup. The idea of cheap and plentiful multi copters would make this sort of event inevitable.

Of course there may be a much simpler problem: hungry seagulls.

dsr_• 14 years ago

If it goes out of control over the freeway, it won't cause a 100-car pileup.

The first car to hit it will probably notice the crunching noise. A quadcopter with a 2lb payload weighs about 5lbs total.

The owner is going to be in more danger when he comes to pick up the pieces than any of the cars.

jahewson2• 14 years ago

The article suggests a "modest" speed of 40mph for the quadrocopter, which seems pretty fast to me. Let's call it 30mph. Our car on the freeway is doing say 60mph. Presuming they're travelling in opposite directions, that's 5lbs travelling at 100mph.

So what you're saying is that if I fire a MacBook Pro at car at 100mph then nothing will happen. Unlikely...

And one of these smacking a pedestrian in the head at 40mph isn't going to be much better.

jaredstenquist• 14 years ago

I hope you are right. If so my domains will become more valuable...

- pizzacopter.com - burgercopter.com - foodcopter.com

draggnar• 14 years ago

How about one that works like the osprey?

cagenut• 14 years ago

How would it kill marines if there's no pilot?

philwelch2• 14 years ago

The Osprey is incredibly complicated to design and operate. The only reason the Marine Corps even bothers with it anymore is because it makes the impossible possible in terms of long range vertical insertion. The cost-benefit just isn't there for tacos.

brador• 14 years ago

Called it: http://nerdr.com/3-ridiculously-slow-systems-for-startup-dis... (Amazon delivery copters)

lazyjones• 14 years ago

I'd prefer something like this:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/01/urban-mole-robot-could-de...

- no noise - no accidents involving people - less energy needed - much simpler / robust construction

wheaties• 14 years ago

Is this for real or is it the most cleverly disguised viral advertising campaign for Doritos? I don't see any mention of any other taco brand plus the use of a Doritos branded image...

danshapiro• 14 years ago

OP here. I just find Doritos Locos inherently amazing.

ArekDymalski2• 14 years ago

That could be useful for delivering mail in skyscrapers. But The biggest challenge to solve would be finding the way to prevent interceptions/stealing.

chime• 14 years ago

If the cost of copter + payload is low enough, there is little incentive to steal. It should be similar to shopping cart theft or most probably less. The system can be built to go up, travel horizontally above the reach of most people, and then drop down at destination.

You could buy a perch like they show here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7X0_6o9J10&feature=playe... - the perch has a GUID, knows its GPS location, and carries insurance. When you order from any vendor, you just give them your perch ID along with your credit card. If the order is lost before it reaches your perch, it's the vendor's problem. Once the copter touches down on your perch (and informs the vendor of the safe delivery), you press 'Go Home' to launch it back. If it doesn't reach the vendor, your perch insurance takes over. Too many lost copters in your neighborhood and vendors will be able to deny service based on risk.

I think if the copters are no louder than a car pulling up the driveway, this can work very well.

ArekDymalski2• 14 years ago

I actually thought about stealing the delivered goods not the copter itself :)

stygianguest• 14 years ago

In the case of skyscrapers, I'd think pneumatic systems would be more appropriate. Since it's a highly controlled environment anyway.

tomjen3• 14 years ago

Fly. It works very well for birds.

tehwebguy2• 14 years ago

"Warning: This tacocopter's location has been dispatched to the local police department!"

Maybe even spray a canister of that bank robbery dye (probably a bad idea)

primitur• 14 years ago

I really like the idea of multirotors taking off, literally, to be part of a delivery team.

Incidentally, I'd really like to be able to use those rotors to recycle things - literally to shred, perhaps, my plastic trash - such that the remaining processed materials can be used in .. say .. a 3d printer.

Also, lets get the 3d printer and quadrocopters pretty much working smoothly together so that one provides resources to the other. Oh, no wait, lets just make the 3d printer print quadrocopters, and the quadro's feed the 3dprinters .. and .. well now lets just make a flying recycling 3d printer robot, and be done with it.

On Mars. Because if we do it here, the damn thing will take over our planet.

alexandros• 14 years ago

Fun stuff. How about a RC plane dropping off quadcopters loaded with the payload for the last mile? (the copters can meet the plane on the way back or fly home alone. You get the range + efficiency of the plane with the agility of the copter.

tehwebguy2• 14 years ago

This can probably be solved easily, but my first thought is under-tested quadcopters being dropped from planes like spinning taco bombs.

orangethirty• 14 years ago

Fun read. Though we should first perfect the dark art of pizza deliveries before attempting to fly a taco over our heads.

noonespecial2• 14 years ago

I'd really like to see a "you can fly anything commercially that weighs less than 5 pounds and has a terminal velocity below 30mph in freefall" rule. Bigger loads and speeds would be subject to some regulation and licensing.

This would cause a Cambrian explosion in development. It would be wild.

throwawaay• 14 years ago

Imagine one of these payloads landing on someone's head. Wolfram Alpha offers up "2.4x impulse force acting on a baseball being hit by a bat" as a comparison when you plug in "5 lbs * 30 mph".

I like the idea, but there probably needs to be more development in safety systems before anyone could reasonably consider allowing that.

mbell2• 14 years ago

> Imagine one of these payloads landing on someone's head. Wolfram Alpha offers up "2.4x impulse force acting on a baseball being hit by a bat" as a comparison when you plug in "5 lbs * 30 mph".

I'm not sure what value this comparison has. Impulse force doesn't tell you much of anything about how much damage would be done to a persons head.

noonespecial2• 14 years ago

Umm, the point was more about the rule, not the specific numbers. Most of the little quad's like the parrot(1) can free-fall unpowered right onto your head and cause little injury, but you are absolutely not allowed to use the pictures your parrot sends back for any commercial purpose whatsoever. Even as a hobbyist, you are not allowed to fly your parrot outside of direct line of sight, even though its technology clearly begs to be used this way.

Also bear in mind that a 5 pound sponge that hits you at 30 might be a bit more pleasant than a 5 pound chunk of concrete. Perhaps I should have worked out a formula for average density per unit of speed modulated by compressibility, but again, that's not the point. First, acknowledge we need common sense rules that allow a great deal of freedom at the bottom end. Worry about the specifics later.

The worst thing that can happen is that all unapproved drone flights remain off limits "for our safety" and exceptions are made only for those rich and patient enough to clear a bunch of bureaucratic hurdles (which will become higher each year as bigcorps dominate the space and lobby to "increase our safety" and keep the upstarts out).

(1) I am well aware that a parrot weighs less than 5 lbs.

Lagged2Death2• 14 years ago

Is it possible to guarantee a maximum free-fall velocity? Couldn't structural failure change it?

Mind you, I think it's an exciting idea in some respects.

lgeek2• 14 years ago

Long rant incoming...

I'm currently building a quadcopter from parts and I'm writing my own control software.

I wasn't really familiar with RC components before starting this project, but I must say I'm impressed with the performance and reliability you get from very low cost motors, ESCs, propellers, gyroscopes and accelerometers.

However, I think Li-Po batteries are a huge safety issue. There are multiple factors:

* The battery chemistry is very unforgiving. You overcharge, it gets damaged, you over-discharge, it gets damaged. Same for charge and discharge current. The failure mode? Flammable gasses are released and eventually the whole thing sets itself on fire. And that's a fire you can't extinguish using typical means like water or regular fire extinguishers.

* All RC Li-Po batteries use a soft shell. If your model crashes the batteries can and will get crushed, which leads to an internal short-circuit, which eventually starts a fire.

* No RC Li-Po batteries incorporate Smart Battery controllers (like in laptop batteries) which could prevent overcharge/over-discharge and over-current conditions.

There have been plenty of incidents involving Li-Po fires, including whole houses burning down.

And still, the batteries don't change. Li-Po makes perfect sense for RC applications because it has great energy density and allows high discharge current. But to me it looks like some simple safety features could make this technology safe enough that you wouldn't have to treat your batteries like small bombs.

As a side-note, I've initially tried to use laptop Li-Ion batteries for my quadcopter. Each motor + propeller unit requires almost 12A @ 11V when at maximum speed - quite typical power requirements for a medium-sized quadcopter. I couldn't get more than 16A out of an older 6 cell battery (voltage was abruptly dropping if trying to draw more, so I guess this was the limit of the cells). I've then tried a new 9 cell battery (which was too heavy anyway). The controller on this battery considers 20A discharge an over-current condition and shuts off the output. So I'm stuck with Li-Po batteries and hoping that they won't set anything on fire.

I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable with current-technology Li-Po powered vehicles flying around a city without being watched.

AndrewKemendo• 14 years ago

>No RC Li-Po batteries incorporate Smart Battery controllers

What technical impediment is preventing someone from building said controller?

lgeek2• 14 years ago

No technical reason really, it's about cost, demand and volume.

Cost is going to be a problem because of the high current involved in normal operation and even more so in case of a short-circuit.

Let's take a popular battery size, let's say 2200mAh 3S 25C. This battery should be able to safely support a discharge current up to 55A. For reference, a 10KW power shower draws less current than this from the mains network. Our smart battery controller needs to be able to measure the discharge current, and needs to be able to switch the output on or off.

You can just buy a hall effect based current sensor and a power transistor that will handle 55A. But these components need to survive in case of a short-circuit for long enough for a micro-controller to read the current at its regular polling rate and then turn off the transistor. Expect the short-circuit current to be a number of times higher than 55A.

So you end up with a parts list that costs you about $10 per unit for small quantities (500). Have I mentioned the price of the battery I was building this for? It's $13.

I've thought about building some for myself, but 1) they really should be mounted inside a hard case together with the battery and 2) I don't have a space where it would be safe to prototype this, assuming that a failure will happen.

dholowiski• 14 years ago

I've built a few high performance rc cars and lipo batteries terrify me for all of the reasons you said. It seems like they are always just a hair away from bursting into uncontrollable flames. I quit using them because I was afraid to leave them at home unattended. I wouldn't want a swarm of these flying over my city.

Tichy• 14 years ago

Why not use zeppelins? Could they be energy efficient? Just not sure how to deal with wind. But it has been done, so I guess it is possible.

andrewflnr• 14 years ago

I don't think they're very fast. On HN we've kicked around the idea of attaching a balloon to a quadcopter or similar to extend its range.

genwin• 14 years ago

When the drones come to US cities, and it seems they will within a decade, I'll be moving to a smaller town, however small or remote it takes to escape the noise. I'll accept that I'm an old fogey who can't handle "progress".

abecedarius• 14 years ago

How about ornithopters? Naively I'd guess they'd come in between planes and quadcopters in both efficiency and agility. Since seagulls can land without a runway, a tacothopter ought to be able to, too.

rubyrescue• 14 years ago

One nitpick - Bernoulli's principle is NOT why airplanes fly... it's angle of attack. Spirited debate at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)

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