Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first • Hacker News Board

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#61

Post by snewman » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 9:55 PM UTC

A few questions / thoughts:

1. I didn't see it stated explicitly, but I presume the neural net is on the far end of a radio link somewhere, not running on hardware physically mounted on the drone?

2. After viewing the FPV video on the linked page: how the hell do human pilots even come close to this pace? Insane (even assuming that the video they're seeing is higher quality than what's shown on YouTube – is it?)

3. The control software has access to an IMU. This seems to represent some degree of unfair advantage? I presume the human pilots don't have that – unless the IMU data is somehow overlaid onto their FPV view (but even then, I can't imagine how much practice would be needed to learn to make use of that in realtime).

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#62

Post by itishappy » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

snewman wrote: post #61

A few questions / thoughts: 1. I didn't see it stated explicitly, but I presume the neural net is on the far end of a radio link somewhere, not running on hardware physically mounted on the drone? 2. After viewing the FPV video on the linked page: how the hell do human pilots even come close to this pace? Insane (even assuming that the video they're seeing is higher quality than what's shown on YouTube – is it?) 3. T…

1. It's entirely onboard.

2. The video they're seeing is worse. Spectators typically see the frames saved directly from the camera, but the pilot will be seeing them compressed and beamed over the air to their headset. See vid.

3. The human pilots do actually have access to it. Not directly, but the flight controller translates their inputs and makes use of the IMU to do so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMGRLGkm0QE

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#63

Post by bri3d » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC

snewman wrote: post #61

A few questions / thoughts: 1. I didn't see it stated explicitly, but I presume the neural net is on the far end of a radio link somewhere, not running on hardware physically mounted on the drone? 2. After viewing the FPV video on the linked page: how the hell do human pilots even come close to this pace? Insane (even assuming that the video they're seeing is higher quality than what's shown on YouTube – is it?) 3. T…

1) No, this is interesting specifically because it was all onboard, the drone has Jetson Orin NX on it.

2) No, the video the pilot sees is usually quite bad. Racing pilots usually use either HDZero (mid resolution video with weird pixel artifacts sometimes) or analog video (looks like a broken 1980s VCR). It’s amazing what they can fly through. These DCP spec drones are also slow by racing standards. Look up MultiGP racing, it’s even faster.

3) It can be overlaid but it’s useless. The human pilot is using the control sticks as the input to an outer rate regulation loop which contains the gyro as input to an inner stabilization loop though, so the IMU is still in the mix for human control.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#64

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:04 PM UTC

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #12

CamperBob2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only question is whether motors or propellers will be banned for private sale first. (After drones themselves, of course.)

I kind of prefer this, even without bombs i dont want unregulated idiots dropping a drone on my head in an urban space.

That's OK. There's probably something you like that I'd like to ban, too.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#65

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:04 PM UTC

snewman wrote: post #61

A few questions / thoughts: 1. I didn't see it stated explicitly, but I presume the neural net is on the far end of a radio link somewhere, not running on hardware physically mounted on the drone? 2. After viewing the FPV video on the linked page: how the hell do human pilots even come close to this pace? Insane (even assuming that the video they're seeing is higher quality than what's shown on YouTube – is it?) 3. T…

[deleted]

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#66

Post by itishappy » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

AlienRobot wrote: post #52

atonse wrote: post #5

Oh man, can anyone imagine a non-Terminator scenario for this? Update: I'm not saying people shouldn't develop this, we're never going to squash human curiosity. But when I see this kind of stuff, I'm deeply troubled by how bad actors (state and non-state) will use this. I hope our security services are working hard on countering these potential threats.

Drones flying through your windows to deliver things faster. Cons: massive invasion of privacy and probably illegal. Pros: looks cool.

I've always thought a user-installable drone-pad in the style of a window AC unit would be the ideal.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#67

Post by NegativeLatency » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:24 PM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #26

This is quite cool since past efforts in this direction have usually relied on crutches like outside-in imaging and positioning. A few details I picked up: * The drones are a spec drone across the league. It's a fairly large-footprint FPV racing drone (it's a 5" propped drone, but it's very stretched out and quite heavy) with both a Betaflight flight controller and a Jetson Orin NX onboard. Teams were only allowed an…

I imagine the slower speed is a closer fit to combat drones (which have a payload and sometimes a fiber optic cable)? Also watching MultiGP they sorta move/accelerate too fast for me to fully appreciate the maneuvering.

Feels kinda similar to the innovation around manned aircraft about 100 years ago when we went from toy/observation platform to killing machine in only a couple of decades. With the ardupilot news today, it was hard to not watch this and imagine the applications to a combat environment.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#68

Post by itishappy » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:25 PM UTC

leeoniya wrote: post #48

ELI5? so, presumably if you put this thing in front of any starting gate it can navigate any course of similar gates? or was it overfitted to this specific course?

They had no prior knowledge of the course.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#69

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:26 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #4

This is only a few days after the massive drone attack in Russia. Only a matter of time until we have drones smart enough to dodge bullets (or at least dodge out of where guns are pointing) while flying at breakneck speeds being controlled by AIs we don't fully understand. The tech industry is working hard to bring about the Terminator future.

[deleted]

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#70

Post by trhway » Wed, Jun 04, 2025, 10:29 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #34

jandrese wrote: post #4

This is only a few days after the massive drone attack in Russia. Only a matter of time until we have drones smart enough to dodge bullets (or at least dodge out of where guns are pointing) while flying at breakneck speeds being controlled by AIs we don't fully understand. The tech industry is working hard to bring about the Terminator future.

Some of this stuff is getting to the point where we will seriously need to have a global talk on whether we should put a pin in this tech or not

There wouldn't be any pin in it. Drones - automated weapons in the wide sense - will be the new MAD/equalizer weapon accessible to smaller countries who have no chances of getting into the nuclear club. Without such a weapon in the coming new world order - marked specifically by the USA's withdrawal from enforcing international law - they will be an easy prey to the bigger countries. Ukraine is just a preview of that equalizing power.