Nano-Built UAV Developed

A remote-controlled kilogram-scale flying system has been assembled. It includes an immensely powerful supercomputer with image processing capability. It can be made to fly right, left, up, and down. It will probably be able to fly 50 MPH for 12 hours without refueling. Most of the components were built by directed molecular assembly (biopolymers) in a very complex process.

Here is the story. And more on the performance of similar systems.

Unfortunately, we cannot claim this as a success for molecular manufacturing, because the only part designed by humans was the crude high-level control system. I say "crude"--it's impressive, and a bit scary, that it works at all. And it will likely get a lot more sophisticated. Although the embedded nanocomputer's computations are not presently accessible to the researchers, unrelated research from 1999 suggests that vision-processing information can be extracted.

The article did not suggest whether the system might be weaponized. But similar systems have been used for hundreds of years to transport small payloads such as messages. And somewhat related systems were proposed and even tested as weapons delivery mechanisms.

I am normally skeptical of the high expectations placed on biomimetics. After all, airplanes don't have feathers. And attempts to integrate natural biotech with engineered nanotech are likely to suffer the limitations of both fields. But this story makes me think that some "found technology" may actually be useful when properly integrated with micro- and nanotech.

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Brian Wang]

The fastest bird. Peregrin falcon 124mph (up to 164mph in a dive)

http://www.victorialodging.com/birding/small_big_fast_slow.htm

The longest migration 20000-25000 miles
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/birds/Birdextremes.shtml

or is it 40000 miles per year
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060808-bird-migration.html

Plus this is before gene therapy, RNAi, RNA activation and genetic engineering

Birds of prey can fly carrying rodents.

[NanoEnthusiast]

http://www.style.org/unladenswallow/

:-)

[mgb]

Sounds like a pretty crude form of control, but maybe you could wire in a gps device and have a guided pidgiebot. Instead of extracting visual info directly from birdbrain, a small camera could perhaps be attached or implanted. This might be more practical in the nearterm than some of the DARPA uUAVs, but the cost for both is too high to compare with the transformative potential of MM-based mega-surveillance systems.