latest tech fad

There have been decades of silly over-funded tech fads. Around here, the latest are drones, already oversubscribed, and now cubesats. We were just talking about cubesats last week, and today's SF Chronicle has a glowing article about them... which is typically a kiss of death for any new tech. I think there are six cubesat companies in San Francisco, a couple a short walk from our place. Like a lot of tech ventures, the technology comes first, and then people try to find a use for it.

These companies, apps and fitness gadgets and drones and cubes, all seem to employ armies of programmers. I suspect that the programming parts of the development teams spin out of control.

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These seem to have reaction wheels but no thrusters. They maintain separation by orienting the solar panels to tweak drag. The orbits are low and lifetimes short, so they don't use rad-hard electronics. They are not pressurized so thermal management must be interesting.

There's even kits available:

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There seems to be an entire supply chain for cubesat components.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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John Larkin
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I see some good solid uses for drones -- but maybe not as much use as the tech startups see. Fast processors and cheap silicon gyros have enabled them, so they are a genuinely new technology. There's quite a few uses for what are -- essentially -- small robot helicopters.

If it's really overblown at the moment then I expect that it'll wane down to something that provides solid profit for companies that can do more than just get a lot of lines of code flying through the air.

There's a YouTube video of some farmers in -- I think -- Japan cropdusting with a 1/4-scale RC helicopter. It looked like an economical alternative to paying for something that's man-rated.

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Tim Wescott 
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Tim Wescott

Agricultural and real estate/industrial property management are logical uses for drones, inspecting farms and pipelines and cell sites and power lines maybe. Forest management and such.

Hobby drones will eventually fall out of the air and hurt people, so may get regulated out of existance. Or people will just get tired of them.

There are some really potentially nasty uses for drones too, and that might get them banned.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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John Larkin

Hi,

Ok wiktionary and wikipedia can shine some light on this :D

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"A phenomenon that becomes popular for a very short time."

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"In 1999, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Stanford University developed the CubeSat specifications to promote and develop the skills necessary for the design, manufacture, and testing of small satellites intended for low Earth orbit (LEO) that perform a number of scientific research functions and explore new space technologies. Academia accounted for the majority of CubeSat launches until 2013, when over half of launches were for non-academic purposes, and by 2014 most newly deployed CubeSats were for commercial or amateur projects."

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M

Eventually? I /especially/ dislike those without propguards of any sort. If you're not squeamish:

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Talking to an R/C aircraft enthusiast flying an ME-262 model without visible props[1], he made me realise that electric motors inflict more damage than petrol motors.

When you think about it, the reason is obvious. When people catch a finger in a petrol-driven prop, it starts to stalls and delivers less torque, which further stalls it. OTOH, when an electric motor starts to stall it draws more current and the torque increases.

Let's hope it is like CB radio.

[1] the "jet turbines" were electrically driven fans inside the nacelle, running at 10krpm.
Reply to
Tom Gardner

Explore the NASA site for info on CubeSats. There is at least one project being constructed by school children and sponsored by NASA. What is so important about this is not the data that can be gleaned, but the seeding of desire and inspiration for the youngsters to embark on a scientific career. This is where it starts.

Reply to
John S

Search & rescue, even urban.

Firefighters hate going into burning buildings blind; having a drone with an IR camera on it to do a preliminary survey would be valuable.

I ran across an article about a county search & rescue team somewhere along the Snake River. They could do a preliminary search of a 5- or 10- mile stretch of river in the time that it took to get the rescue boat into the water and ready to go.

Being able to put a drone up to monitor crowds would be as useful as doing it by helicopter, but far less expensive. Even if the drone is one that's been certified for use over crowds (it has to be in the works) and therefore more expensive.

Yes, that's a good argument for why fixed-wing RC planes are banned. Oh. Wait. They aren't. Whaddayaknow.

Quadcopters are too easy to make. Ban them and the DIY guys will build them anyway, and post even MORE YouTube videos on how to do it. All the stuff you need to build a drone is pretty much available off the shelf; if you tried to ban it you'd be banning half of the stuff that DIY folks use to do other, perfectly innocent things.

A drone big enough to carry a pressure-cooker's worth of explosive is going to cost a lot more than recruiting some dumb-ass teenager to leave it in a garbage can. So don't expect ISIS to get into that line of work.

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Tim Wescott 
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Tim Wescott

On 9/25/2016 12:25 PM, Tom Gardner wrote: > On 25/09/16 18:02, John Larkin wrote: >> Hobby drones will eventually fall out of the air and hurt people, > > Eventually? I /especially/ dislike those without propguards of any > sort. If you're not squeamish: >

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Children are being harmed by the parents and friends by not taking proper precautions and thinking that their toys are harmless. Now they are saying that the aircrafts are dangerous? Do you expect protection from every item on the store shelves. Can't you think for yourself? The only way we can protect our children is to use common sense and stay aware of possible dangers.

People have been killed by petrol-driven model aircraft. I'm not saying that an electric-powered model is harmless. Rather than accepting an enthusiast's possibly biased comment, do some research and report back.

The current increases, perhaps, but I would like to see your data showing torque in your proposed circumstance.

Catching a finger in a prop is entirely different from being struck by a model aircraft doing 30-90 MPH and using a petrol motor. Petrol models are typically heaver than electric ones since they can deliver more horsepower for a given size.

Perhaps. But, things move on. I don't have a crystal ball like yours

Sure. CB moved to Family Radio at first and then cell phones.

Which is about the RPM of a 2-cycle petrol engine.

I think your post is mostly hearsay unless you can back it up with additional information from reliable sources. Try looking this stuff up at American Model Aeronautics

By the way, when I was a member there were strict rules to follow in order to get insurance. It might do you good to read them.

Reply to
John S

John,

Google "Planet Labs", a successful cubesat project that I wish I could invest in.

Steve

Reply to
sroberts6328

RC planes are relatively rare, and are usually flown over open fields. Over a million drones are sold in the US every year, piloted by amateurs. They have cameras so are usually flown over interesting objects, like houses and people.

If people had to build their own drones, with cameras and RF links, there would be a tiny fraction of a million created each year.

All the

There are all sorts of interesting and nasty things that could be done with drones. I'm surprised it hasn't happened much.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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John Larkin

Common sense isn't. (Common, that is). Shame, but that's the world we live in.

Yes, drones present /new/ dangers that aren't widely understood. There are idiots out there; I've met them and talked with them, and they have little appreciation of the concepts of kinetic energy.

And, of course, it doesn't help that drones they are marketed as /toys/ to be put under the christmas tree.

I omitted the enthusiast's personal experiences, for brevity.

Of course, but that's not the /unobvious/ danger.

"Typically" is irrelevant; all that matters is the thing in front of you (hopefully not the thing /in/ you!) I've seen

1/15 scale model /airliners/ (of a VFW-614) with fuselages >1' in diameter.

Why would I bother? I fly the real thing, not models.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Heck yeah! Drones will be used more and more every year. I saw one used just the other day. I was on the water and some skiers were being videoed by a drone. They've been doing that for some time now. Pretty much any skiing retailer on the water will video your day. Just because the public gets excited about Amazon delivering your stuff by drones when that is a long time off yet, that doesn't mean the technology is pointless. Consider remote inspection. It has to be a lot cheaper to send a drone up to check something on a tower than it is to have a guy climb, not to mention safer.

I don't know much about cubesats, but it seems to me if you can launch a few dozen at the same cost as one mainstream sat, then there could easily be a market for them. Right now most aerial imaging is done by aircraft because sat cameras are too expensive. A swarm of cubesats might be able to reduce that cost until airplanes are no longer price competitive... or maybe drones will win that battle.

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman

Yes, lord knows no on is ever hurt by anything else that people use, like CARS!

Hobby drones are already regulated in that you have to have a license now.

Yes and they are unique in that. There are no nasty uses for guns, knives or baseball bats.

I think John has been watching too many action movies.

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman

Tax assessors.

Or people will get tired of having the neighborhood perv peeping their children.

Yep.

Reply to
krw

So let's outlaw drones or models due to lack of common sense.

So let's outlaw drones or models due to little appreciation of the concepts of kinetic energy.

I believe it was an adult friend of the parents' who caused the injury. Whose toy was it? While we are at it, let's outlaw all firearms because they injure or kill people.

And your point is?

Do unobvious dangers excuse the lack of diligence on the part of the adults present?

The child in the link was not injured by a 1' diameter fuselage so that is irrelevant.

Then please excuse yourself as being not qualified to judge the safe handling of models.

Reply to
John S

When enough court cases are settled with the pilots and the news spreads, I think that will slow down the current fad. Maybe.

You cannot get insurance coverage through the AMA modeler's organization if you do not launch and fly from an approved air field, IIRC.

Reply to
John S

Picture an updated version of "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie says he wants "an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model" drone!

Getting hit in the eye is not an *obvious* danger of drones?

Sounds nearly as dangerous as a bullet.

In your backyard?

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman

Sounds like the police SWAT model :(

Apparently not, sigh.

Nobody would mind so much if it was his own eye.

I wouldn't have minded seeing it take off (if it ever did), provided (was several hundreds of yards away and sheltering under a stout tree!

No :) I did fantasise about commuting by microlight, but that would have meant using controlled airspace.

But I do fly close (10s of yards) to several other aircraft. On one occasion I kept my distance from the other aircraft by looking /upwards/ and watching the /top/ of their head. We we both doing about 70kt at the time and pulling at around 2G for 1-2 minutes.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

The problem is the social implications of the drones are not being addr essed rapidly enough. I know of more then one case of where people are sunb athing on their own property, behind fences or in a otherwise inaccessible location, and pictures have been taken and posted.

If you work all your life to have a fenced in pool, and the drone can ta ke photos of your sunbathing teen daughter without notice, and without cros sing the property line, what is your legal remedy? Right now, in most place s, none exists. Basically the airborne camera strips away any expectation o f privacy, even on fenced land and private property.

One large local corporation now has signs all over the fences of their tire test track, banning photography and drone flights from a public access road. I bet that will be a real can of worms for them. A facility costing in the hundreds of millions and built to have privacy using sculpted hills and fe nces is now rendered less effective if not in-effective. What do you say to their stockholders, drone fanatics?

Steve

Reply to
sroberts6328

Not sure what you are describing here, sounds like a shot from Top Gun.

I have a place on a lake and the other day a helicopter was buzzing the lake. I can't tell how close it was to boats, but it was very low over the water, maybe 30 feet. It had pontoons for landing on water, but I don't see how this could have been touch and goes as it was flying at around 40 mph.

Was this illegal? The lake here is maybe a quarter mile wide so it would be hard for it to have been 500 feet from any boat on the water as they don't run very close to the shore. What are the rules about this?

BTW, I'm not talking about a model helicopter. I mean a full sized craft with people inside.

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Rick C
Reply to
rickman

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