Flying surveillance robots coming soon from Aeryon

Your local police may soon be packing flying surveillance bots. At the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit, Aeryon Labs President Dave Kroetsch gave a compelling pitch on his company, which makes a two-pound robot helicopter that has enough on-board intelligence and stability control to allow it to be flown by people who just point to locations on a Google Map-based interface.

The whole kit, including a table-based control module, fits in a suitcase-sized crate and can be quickly assembled in the field. After the user snaps the flying bot together, he or she just tells it where to go by pointing to a spot on a map. The device has a motion-compensated camera that can take 5-megapixel stills and stream video back to the operator's tablet.

The Aeryon Scout and its tablet-based control computer.

(Credit: Aeryon)

More specs: Kroetsch says the Aeryon Scout can fly in up to 30 mph winds for up to 20 minutes. It is limited to 500 feet in altitude (to fly under FAA restrictions). One kit costs $50,000.

Aeryon plans to sell to private security forces, and eventually police departments. Kroetsch is doing things in this order because it's easier to get a contract from a private firm than from a cash-strapped police department or grant-funded program at one.

Obvious other markets include construction (for site surveys), other public safety applications, and of course military.

The company is headquartered in Canada and hopes to have United States FAA approval for its flying robot within six months. Sadly, until that approval comes, the Scout is grounded Stateside. And that means no demos for reporters or buyers unless they head up to Canada.

Scout CEO Dave Kroetsch talks about his grounded spybot.

(Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET)

[gerrrg]

I'm still waiting for the robotic cockroach.

[zaxxon1999]

Why not build automatic charging stations and sell 1 000 pcs to Google for real time gmaps !!!!

[hawkeyeaz1]

Interesting idea, maybe they will take it up?

[Vrmithrax]

Limited range, limited functional time, 500' ceiling... So many reasons why it wouldn't do anything for gmaps ;-)

[zaxxon1999]

from wired:

The biggest draw of RP?s UAVs is that they are unclassified, allowing the images from them to be easily accessed by all. Aerial vehicles from NASA or most governmental agencies are classified as ?dual-use technology,? marking them suitable for military and civilian use. But it also limits how the technology or information derived from it can be used. ?If a dual-use airplane takes pictures, those are considered classified and have to be declassified before anyone can take a look at it,? says Robinson, a process that could sometime take days. ?With us the data is available for immediate distribution.?

[ecotopian--2008]

These ought to make great target practice.

[SactoGuy018]

Until people realize that these little UAV's can carry special sensors that can compute where the gunfire came from before the UAV falls out of the sky. This makes counterfire REAL easy to do.

[rafe]

At 500 feet, a bobbing, 2-foot wide flying object is pretty tough to hit.

[Mes2190]

I don't know, not much smaller than a womp rat...

[monkeyfun14]

At 50k a piece I doubt many police forces are adopting these when they could probably get 2 brand new police cruisers for that much...

[GO ILLINI]

Well that's why they are going with private firms first. Private firms have money to buy them. Possibly in the future the price could go down (with actual sales and new development), then police could buy them.

[BogusBasin]

Maybe Microsoft should make one that doesn't work half as well but sell it for really really cheap so all the sheeple could get one.

Amen

[biffhenerson]

50k too expensive for the government? They always find money for new toys. Besides, you can always lease it for a low low monthy payment. Over 5 years you will end up paying 80k though.

[beemrdon]

BIG BROTHER IS COMING FROM EVERY DIRECTION!!!!!!!!!!!! ORWELL WOULD UNDERSTAND.

[SLorraine]

The first thing to come to my mind when I read about this, was Search and Rescue. Security is not the only reason this could be used for. Think of places that are hard to access when looking for a lost of missing person. I would think this would greatly aid in searching those places and cut down on wasted valuable time if the person was not in the place being searched.

[NoVista]

Anyone remember Robert Sheckley's "Watchbird"?

Hmmm, didn't I see something like this in "Dark Angel"? Heh.

[vgraybeard]

At 500 feet, they are in my air space. are they good to eat ?

[Vrmithrax]

A little chewy... You may have to floss after ingestion, to get chunks of PCBs out...

But they taste like chicken.