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06/20/12 -
Robot copters that carry people but no pilots
Automation is supposed to make life easier: allowing us to loll around eating doughnuts while the machine does its thing. But when the machine stops working, humans have to throw their half-eaten baked goods to one side and deal with the screw-up. And while that's one thing on a factory production line, it's another when you're 200ft in the air in a miniature helicopter.
A cross-European project investigates the possibility of solving Europe's road congestion by putting commuters in tiny personal helicopters by circa 2050. This time, the boffins are looking at how they can use automation to make the mini-'copters safe. This is the project's brief:
Such Personal Aerial Vehicles should be fully or partially autonomous without requiring ground-based air traffic control. Furthermore, they should operate outside controlled airspace while current air traffic remains unchanged, and should later be integrated into the next generation of controlled airspace.
"Safety is the top concern that people have with the idea of personal helicopters," says Professor Michael Decker, whose work has largely been in robotics and automation, especially within the field of health.
It's not hard to build something flying: It's hard to build something safe that works 200 days a year – that's the minimum we would need.
In planes and helicopters today, the autopilot functions as it does on the factory production line: it keeps things ticking over through the easy bits but as soon as a thunderstorm crops up, or the plane needs to land, the highly trained pilot takes over.
Professor Decker and his team are attempting to reconsider how automation could work and to get a system that would be able to manage the hard bits of the driving, for example, when the wind picks up.
The idea is that automation needs to be an option, if a thunderstorm happens... you can switch to full automatic mode. Early adopters would not accept full automation, they would want to fly and have the experience of flying.
As the MyCopter Mission statement (PDF) says:
...the project will introduce new automation technologies for obstacle avoidance, path planning and formation flying, which also have excellent potential for other aerospace applications. This project is a unique integration of social investigations and technological advancements that are necessary to move public transportation into the third dimension.
Automated driving is not just a tiny helicopter problem, it is a sticking point for travel innovation generally: and core to the problems inherent in Google's big transport idea – the self-driving car.
On the topic of self-driving cars, the stakes are a little lower – you're unlikely to fall from the sky to your death (and be crushed to death by the heap of burning metal if you're not already toast) – but the question of how an automated system can deal with an "upsetting/unexpected event" remains. Decker says:
We have the same problem: how we get all the different things into the system. It's not just about the cars; it's about people walking around, motorcycling, about all these children walking around. In the air that's not a problem. That's why they are thinking about sticking GPS locators in children's school bags so that the cars know where they are.
It is also an insurance problem if the car thinks you want to do an emergency brake but you [don't]... and something happens: was it you, was it the car?
Don't expect the personal helicopter institute to come up with any cute models. They're thinking about how to make the robots better than us... at least at driving.
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DVD - the Physics of Crystals, Pyramids and Tetrahedrons
 This is a wonderful duel DVD set lasting 2 hours and which presents one man's lifelong study of pyramids, crystals and their effects. Several of his original and very creative experiments are explained and diagramed out for experimenters. These experiments include;
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High Voltage & Free Energy Devices Handbook
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KeelyNet BBS Files w/bonus PDF of 'Keely and his Discoveries'
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'The Evolution of Matter' and 'The Evolution of Forces' on CD
Years ago, I had been told by several people, that the US government frequently removes books they deem dangerous or 'sensitive' from libraries. Some are replaced with sections removed or rewritten so as to 'contain' information that should not be available to the public despite the authors intent. A key example was during the Manhattan Project when the US was trying to finalize research into atomic bombs. They removed any books that dealt with the subject and two of them were by Dr. Gustave Le Bon since they dealt with both energy and matter including radioactivity. I had been looking for these two books for many years and fortunately stumbled across two copies for which I paid about $40.00 each. I couldn't put down the books once I started reading them. Such a wealth of original discoveries, many not known or remembered today. / Page 88 - Without the ether there could be neither gravity, nor light, nor electricity, nor heat, nor anything, in a word, of which we have knowledge. The universe would be silent and dead, or would reveal itself in a form which we cannot even foresee. If one could construct a glass chamber from which the ether were to be entirely eliminated, heat and light could not pass through it. It would be absolutely dark, and probably gravitation would no longer act on the bodies within it. They would then have lost their weight. / Page 96-97 - A material vortex may be formed by any fluid, liquid or gaseous, turning round an axis, and by the fact of its rotation it describes spirals. The study of these vortices has been the object of important researches by different scholars, notably by Bjerkness and Weyher. They have shown that by them can be produced all the attractions and repulsions recognized in electricity, the deviations of the magnetic needle by currents, etc. These vortices are produced by the rapid rotation of a central rod furnished with pallets, or, more simply, of a sphere. Round this sphere gaseous currents are established, dissymetrical with regard to its equatorial plane, and the result is the attraction or repulsion of bodies brought near to it, according to the position given to them. It is even possible, as Weyher has proved, to compel these bodies to turn round the sphere as do the satellites of a planet without touching it. / Page 149 - "The problem of sending a pencil of parallel Hertzian waves to a distance possesses more than a theoretical interest. It is allowable to say that its solution would change the course of our civilization by rendering war impossible. The first physicist who realizes this discovery will be able to avail himself of the presence of an enemy's ironclads gathered together in a harbour to blow them up in a few minutes, from a distance of several kilometres, simply by directing on them a sheaf of electric radiations. On reaching the metal wires with which these vessels are nowadays honeycombed, this will excite an atmosphere of sparks which will at once explode the shells and torpedoes stored in their holds. With the same reflector, giving a pencil of parallel radiations, it would not be much more difficult to cause the explosion of the stores of powder and shells contained in a fortress, or in the artillery sparks of an army corps, and finally the metal cartridges of the soldiers. Science, which at first rendered wars so deadly, would then at length have rendered them impossible, and the relations between nations would have to be established on new bases."
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Hypnosis CD - 3 eBooks with How To Techniques and Many Cases
If you have a few minutes, you might want to read my page on hypnosis and all the amazing things associated with its application. Included is an experience I had when I hypnotized a neighbor kid when I was about 14. As well the hypnotic gaze of snakes, the discovery of 'eyebeams' which can be detected electronically, the Italian Hypnotist Robber who was caught on tape with his eyes glowing as cashiers handed over their money and remembered nothing, glamour and clouding the mind of others, several methods of trance induction and many odd cases, animal catatonia, healing, psychic phenomena, party/stage stunts, including my favorite of negative hallucination where you make your subject NOT see something...much more...if nothing else, its might be a hoot to read.
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14 Ways to Save Money on Fuel Costs
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The Physics of the Primary State of Matter
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$5 Alt Science MP3s to listen while working/driving/jogging
 No time to sit back and watch videos? Here are 15 interesting presentations you can download for just $5 each and listen to while driving, working, jogging, etc. An easy way to learn some fascinating new things that you will find of use. Easy, cheap and simple, better than eBooks or Videos. Roughly 50MB per MP3.
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15 New Alternative Science DVDs & 15 MP3s
An assortment of alternative science videos that provide many insights and inside information from various experimenters. Also MP3s extracted from these DVDs that you can listen to while working or driving. Reference links for these lectures and workshops by Bill Beaty of Amateur Science on the Dark Side of Amateur Science, Peter Lindemann on the World of Free Energy, Norman Wootan on the History of the EV Gray motor, Dan Davidson on Shape Power and Gravity Wave Phenomena, Lee Crock on a Method for Stimulating Energy, Doug Konzen on the Konzen Pulse Motor, George Wiseman on the Water Torch and Jerry Decker on Aether, ZPE and Dielectric Nano Arrays. Your purchase of these products helps support KeelyNet, thanks!
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