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Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

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Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#161

Post by sorenjan »

bri3d wrote: post #33
generalizations wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From near the bottom: > One of the core new elements of the drone’s AI is the use of a deep neural network that doesn’t send control commands to a traditional human controller, but directly to the motors.

I saw that too - I'm assuming it means they're indeed using the DNN for stabilization. This has been done several times over the years, but generally with results which only rival PID and don't surpass it, so that's quite interesting. What's odd is that the physical architecture of the drone doesn't really make sense for this, so there must be some tweaks beyond the "spec" model. Hopefully some papers come soon inste…

They reference ESA's research in "Guidance and Control Nets", and when looking at ESA's page for their "Advanced Concepts Team" [0] they in turn reference ETH Zürich's research in RL for drone control. Specifically [1] this paper from 2023: "Champion-level drone racing using deep reinforcement learning" [2]. They use a 2x128 MLP for the control policy.

[0] https://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/

[1] https://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/projects/rl_vs_imitation_learnin...

[2] https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/257405/

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#162

Post by stackedinserter »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #37
stackedinserter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH there's no mass adoption of autonomous drones after 3+ years of real active war between two technologically advanced nations.

Are you sure? One of the theories for why there were tires on top of the russian planes that were bombed is that it confuses automatic targeting systems by breaking up the profile of the airplane used in automatic target recognition systems. Hell, even hobbyist level DIY drone stuff can be easily programmed to run an autonomous route with or without a radio link connection. This is a huge reason that GPS is just cons…

Sigh. The tires on the planes thing is very clear to anyone who served in russian/soviet army.

> Hell, even hobbyist level DIY drone stuff can be easily programmed

Lock on a moving target and hit it is not the same as put waypoints in INAV. My point was that there's still no mass adoption of target locking or self-aiming drones, overwhelming majority of hits, on both sides, are done with regular FPV drones with very standard school hardware that's barely modified for combat use (namely: custom frequencies for VTX and ERLS).

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#163

Post by stackedinserter »

jandrese wrote: post #20
stackedinserter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH there's no mass adoption of autonomous drones after 3+ years of real active war between two technologically advanced nations.

There is already mass adoption of drones, the AI stuff is only lagging behind slightly.

Please read before responding.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#164

Post by stackedinserter »

arcticfox wrote: post #101
stackedinserter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH there's no mass adoption of autonomous drones after 3+ years of real active war between two technologically advanced nations.

Remember when TB-2s and grenade bombers were the peak of drone technology in Ukraine? That was like 2 years ago, now the frontlines are draped in equal parts anti-drone netting and fiberoptic threads.

Do you follow this war closely? Show me which drone units adopted anything autonomous, just name it. There are cases when they are used but there's no mass adoption, they all use regular FPV and FO drones.

Anti-anti-drone avoidance systems on Russian zala's is the only example of autonomous action that I can remember.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#165

Post by stackedinserter »

dji4321234 wrote: post #40
stackedinserter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH there's no mass adoption of autonomous drones after 3+ years of real active war between two technologically advanced nations.

There's enormous adoption of autonomous drones. A large number of front-line FPV drones are equipped with automated last-second targeting systems like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coUwYOyIoAU , based on Chinese NPU IP / CCTV systems and readily available as full solutions on Aliexpress. The basic idea is that if the drone loses control or video link due to EW countermeasures, it can continue to the last target. Lo…

You have no idea what you're talking about and your video is just a demo from some chinese account. There are tons of footage from drone units, from both sides, and they are all old school analog FPV until the very last moment.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#166

Post by fsloth »

allturtles wrote: post #91
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.

“What hope can there be for mankind,” I thought, “when there are such men as Felix Hoenikker to give such playthings as ice-nine to such short-sighted children as almost all men and women are?” And I remembered The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon, which I had read in its entirety the night before. The Fourteenth Book is entitled, “What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Millio…

Vonnegut’s bleakness is not theoretical which gives it a specific bite. As POV Vonnegut cleaned up the shriveled remains of civilian victims of firebombing.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#167

Post by wongarsu »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #158
energy123 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All hard countered by a laser like the Iron Beam, no? Unless there's a hard counter to the hard counter?

Yeah, an artillery strike, a smoke screen, or fog. I'm also reading the target needs to be stationary or its movements predictable; unpredictable evasive maneuvers should be easy enough to implement (at the cost of speed/range). Plus there's the cost of the device itself, while it says it costs $3 per shot, it's still an (up to) 100 kw device + sensors + power supply setup. It doesn't say how much the system itself c…

Or attack while it rains. Sure, a laser is great for defending Southern California or a place in the Middle East, but not so great for defending Great Britain

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#168

Post by jajko »

randomtoast wrote: post #141
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.

And Great Britain just announced plans to deliver 100,000 of them to Ukraine. Ukraine lacks the manpower compared to Russia. It seems logical to strengthen their forces by deploying these flying mini terminators. I believe we are not far from large-scale drone warfare. In World War II, we had epic tank and aircraft battles; now, the time has come for autonomous drone battlefields.

[flagged]

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#169

Post by arrowsmith »

energy123 wrote: post #117
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.

All hard countered by a laser like the Iron Beam, no? Unless there's a hard counter to the hard counter?

The problem is the asymmetry. Drones are cheap, can be produced in huge numbers, and can be deployed anywhere by anyone. You can't put laser defences on every target, and the best laser defence could still be overwhelmed by a sufficient number of drones.

I am fucking terrified of drones.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#170

Post by arrowsmith »

optomas wrote: post #110
bamboozled wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lunatic will be able to wipe out school children playing outside and have little chance of getting caught, for example. Nice.

Generally, if you are smart enough to fashion this without being caught, you are too smart to do something like that. Plus, you got a cool and potentially lucrative hobby, designing exterminator machines. Why bother with children at that point? There are much, much better targets to be had. Your point on the dwindling barrier to implementation stands.

"Most people don't want to murder innocents" isn't reassuring. It only takes one lunatic. And there's a lot of lunatics out there.
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