AUVSI: HALO MAV Designed To Be Affordable For You, Expendable For Military
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 17 of August , 2009 at 3:41 am
Most of the UAVs we saw at AUVSI last week were expensive. Really expensive. Like, if you have to ask, don’t ask. This sucks, because UAVs aren’t just useful for people with a defense budget… There’s a sizable civilian market as well, for everything from security to aerial photography to flying around and freaking people out with a little round robot.
The HALO micro air vehicle promises to be simple, reliable, and above all, inexpensive. If it makes it into production in volume, by 2011 you (yes, you) could go by one for somewhere around $2k, which is practically disposable as far as the military is concerned… But let’s call it “expendable” instead. For that, you get a 10 inch diameter UAV that weighs less than a pound, but includes a real-time video surveillance package and autonomous capability. The ducted fan design is something we’ve seen before (on the GoldenEye 80 and the Honeywell MAV, for example), and it means that the HALO is capable of vertical take-offs and landings, stable hovers, and it can operate in enclosed spaces and (hypothetically) bounce right off anything it might accidentally run into.
The advantages of a low-cost UAV can’t be underestimated… It’s not just the fact that one HALO is cheap, but it’s that a bunch of HALOs are also cheap, meaning that you can use a lot of HALOs for the same cost as using a single, more expensive UAV. For example, one scenario that was mentioned to me involved tossing a couple hundred (!) HALOs out of an airplane to form a flexible swarm network providing autonomous, adaptive, real-time surveillance. ‘Course, their batteries only last about 15 minutes a pop, meaning that sooner or later you’ll have a couple hundred HALOs falling out of the sky, but I imagine that a rain of little round UAVs is a highly effective method of confusing the crap out of the enemy.
[ CRG HALO ]
Comments (3)
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Comment by Joe Deeley
Made Tuesday, 18 of August , 2009 at 1:52 am
A bit of paint and I can finally have a V.I.N.Cent robot that really flies! Walt Disney’s film The Black Hole is only enjoyable due to the great little bot who saves the day, and a few months ago I had the idea to try and build a version with a ducted fan inside it. Now I can just sit back and wait for this little beauty! NEATO! :-D
Comment by Del
Made Tuesday, 18 of August , 2009 at 1:09 pm
15 minute batteries, disposable UAVs falling like rain from the skies…
So if/when “they” start using them for civilian surveillance, all the geeks (“we”) will get our hands on $2k UAVs for nothing! Then it’ll only be a matter of time before some enterprising individual knocks out some GPL code to use it.
Comment by Josh Jacob
Made Wednesday, 19 of August , 2009 at 9:48 pm
ya know if im payn 2K for this thing I want the battery life to last longer than 15 mins, thats no better than a cheap rc toy..why don’t they have solar panels on it that can continuously charge the battery??