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Diminutive Device to Detect Drones Hovering Overhead


Monroe

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Just now read an interesting article about this Drone detector ... I have seen pictures of tiny bug like drones that look like dragon flies and mosquitoes, but I don't think they are flying yet to be looking in our windows and such. Just posted for thoughts from others. I'm not familiar with that $25 computer but reading more on it now.

Tiny Device Will Detect Domestic Drones

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/05/01/tiny-device-will-detect-domestic-drones

A Washington, D.C.-based engineer is working on the "Drone Shield," a small, Wi-Fi-connected device that uses a microphone to detect a drone's "acoustic signatures" (sound frequency and spectrum) when it's within range.

The company's founder, John Franklin, who has been working in aerospace engineering for seven years, says he hopes to start selling the device sometime this year. He is using the Kickstarter-like IndieGoGo to finance the project.

The device will cost $69 and will be about the size of a USB thumb drive. It will use Raspberry Pi – a tiny, $25 computer – and commercially available microphones to detect drones. He says he imagines that people will attach the Drone Shield to their fences or roofs to protect their home from surveillance.

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Insect Spy Drone

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/insectdrone.asp

I stand corrected ... this mosquito drone must be in production ... it not only takes pictures but can land on you and get a DNA sample.

... where are the "olden days" ?

Edited by duffy98
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Insect Spy Drone

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/insectdrone.asp'>http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/insectdrone.asp

I stand corrected ... this mosquito drone must be in production ... it not only takes pictures but can land on you and get a DNA sample.

... where are the "olden days" ?

Oww, come off it.

Snopes,com is a place where URBAN LEGENDS are collected (and usually debunked):

http://www.snopes.com/

Welcome to snopes.com, the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. Use the search box above to locate your item of interest, or click one of the icons below to browse the site by category.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/insectdrone.asp'>http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/insectdrone.asp

The specific mosquito-like object pictured above is, however, just a conceptual mock-up of a design for a MAV, not a photograph of an actual working device "already in production." And although taking DNA samples or inserting micro-RFID tracking devices under the skin of people are MAV applications that may some day be possible, such possibilities currently appear to be speculative fiction rather than reality.

In any case from the page of the project:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/droneshield/

DroneShield is a device that detects the presence of nearby drones (including RC helicopters, quadrotors, etc) and issues alerts via email, sms, and/or a flashing light. The goal is to help preserve your privacy from low-cost remote-control air vehicles with video cameras.

By definition *anything* used by the US Government is NOT low cost (except maybe a number of their employees) ;).

One of the best urban myths around is about the awful amount of money that NASA supposedly spent for developing the "space pen":

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

Like most Urban Myths it has however some grounds, the 34 pencils costed $128.84 apiece :w00t:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/613/1

Earlier in the month, several newspapers reported that the mission would carry two pencils that cost $128.84 apiece. NASA had spent $4,382.50 to purchase 34 of the pencils.

jaclaz

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So the drone mosquito is still a myth ... that's what I had read last year, just an idea ... but the article seem to be updated from a year ago. I added that site to my Favorites.

However, this article has since come out since I posted earlier today ... not as real looking as the mosquito drone but they are "flying".

Flight of the RoboBee

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0502/Flight-of-the-RoboBee-Tiny-hovering-robot-creates-buzz

May 02, 2013

The successful controlled flight of the tiny RoboBee – designed by a team at Harvard – represents a key step in the development of insect-size drones with a range of potential uses.

A robotic fly with a body not much taller than a penny standing on edge has taken to the air, passing its tests with flying colors. The Robobee, as it's called, is the smallest artificial insect yet flown, according to the team that built it.

...

Edited by duffy98
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Wow! RoboBee, indeed... It exists, weighs about 80 mg, takes off and flies controlledly (for a time) then crash-lands, at present. However, it's still tethered because power source and computer-flight-control are not onboard. It weighs 80 mg! The reference is: Ma et al., Controlled Flight of a Biologically Inspired, Insect-Scale Robot, Science 340, 603-607 (3 May 2013); DOI: 10.1126/science.1231806

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Yeah, sure :).

Please, do wake me up when those things will have some decent fying time/range, a camera, remote image transmission (or recording capabilities) and become low-cost.

Sincerely yours,

Rip Van Winkle ;)

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The Bionicopter dragonfly is a really nice project/thingie, still even without the senseless "Drone Shield" I presume I can detect (even without my glasses on) a 44 cm long (63 cm wingspan) dragonfly hovering near my window....

jaclaz

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Very funny ... I will admit I also haven't seen any dragonflies that large in the wild ... at this time I don't happen to live near a nuclear plant, so I can't be absolutely sure what could be "hovering" around there!

...

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I will admit I also haven't seen any dragonflies that large in the wild ...

...or more likely you need better glasses or a "Dragonfly Shield" device.....

More seriously, you might have heard either hunters or fishers claiming ;) to have catched one, once.....

jaclaz

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  • 2 weeks later...

Non-tripulated flying devices, capable of stationary flight are there for a long time already... here's a Brazilian one, used mainly in agriculture: VANT. I see no big deal in them, they make a real loud sound while hovering or flying, one cannot really overlook them.

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Interesting photo ... I really didn't pay too much attention to drones till about 8 months ago ... the only drones I was actually aware of were what the US military was using and some other governments in various parts of the world. In the last 8 months the use of drones has exploded in the US with different police departments and the government using them for everything ... in my opinion (only) I can see them as a real benefit in fighting crime but I can also see them being used by criminals to check an estate out to be robbed or a peeping tom looking in windows or someone in the backyard sunbathing ... thinking they are very private. As I said, this is all very new as these things begin to get into the hands of people that shouldn't have them ... a little like hidden cameras in motel / hotel rooms or restrooms, maybe drones are a little worse, since they can quickly move away and disappear but someone has to take a chance and go back into a restroom or motel room and get rid of the "evidence" ... just my opinion on this new form of spying ... I can see a private detective really having use for one of these "spy drones". I don't watch many detective shows these days but I'll bet we will start seeing episodes with drones being used to spy or check some "bad guys" out ... I just can't say that small drones haven't already been in an episode of a private detective or police show. It's a whole new thing.

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"Drone", in that sense, was a relatively rarely used word in English, outside comics, for a long time until the news about military uses and police uses began to hit the net, perhaps starting as far as two years ago. In that sense, a "drone" usually meant a fairily big and expensive unmanned plane-like machine, capable of taking great pictures from high altitude, or to hit some target literaly "out of the blue", in which case there uses to be an explosive payload, instead of just cam hardware. This much comes mostly from my watching and reading mainly CNN International (but also Fox News sometimes).

Now, the possibility of snooping -- as you painted it -- was there from much before that, because miniature autonomous recording cams (aka "spy cams") are inexpensive and available all over the internet for more than 5 years, and remote controlled plane and helicopter aeromodels to transport and host them are around for far longer than 20 years already and are very inconspicuous, however loud, because they're usually seen as harmless toys. It's just a matter of putting one of each together, and there you got your own personal snooper drone. I'm really surprised, now you made me think of it, that I've never heard of it having been done... then again, this doesn't mean it really hasn't, since it may simply really go unnoticed most of the time, and forgotten about the rest of it.

BTW, look here, for instance.

*B*U*T* --- there's a *real* long way between all this and a picture-taking, working, mechatronic mosquito.

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"Drone", in that sense, was a relatively rarely used word in English, outside comics, for a long time until the news about military uses and police uses began to hit the net, perhaps starting as far as two years ago. In that sense, a "drone" usually meant a fairily big and expensive unmanned plane-like machine

Maybe times are changing, but I still think of bees and ants when I hear or read the word "drone" as well as the song by Fear Factory.

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For sure "times are changing" ... Perhaps tiny small spy drones don't exist yet ... the size of a mosquito but perhaps one day. Just found this larger drone that runs on batteries and not gasoline ... it's the "spying" part that I think is a real threat to all of us ... whether in the hands of the "good boys" or the "bad guys".

Men Build Small Flying Spy Drone that Cracks Wi-Fi and Cell Data - Digital Trends

http://mstanley2265.newsvine.com/_news/2013/04/06/17633362-men-build-small-flying-spy-drone-that-cracks-wi-fi-and-cell-data-digital-trends

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/men-build-small-flying-spy-drone-that-cracks-wi-fi-and-cell-data/

Built by Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins, the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform (otherwise known as the WASP) is a flying drone that has a 6-foot wingspan, a 6-foot length and weighs in at 14 pounds. The small form factor of the unmanned aerial vehicle allows it to drop under radar and is often mistaken for a large bird. It was built from an Army target drone and converted to run on electric batteries rather than gasoline. It can also be loaded with GPS information and fly a predetermined course without need for an operator. Taking off and landing have to be done manually with the help of a mounted HD camera, though. However, the most interesting aspect of the drone is that it can crack Wi-Fi networks and GSM networks as well as collect the data from them.

It can accomplish this feat with a Linux computer on-board that’s no bigger than a deck of cards. The computer accesses 32GB of storage to house all that stolen data. It uses a variety of networking hacking tools including the BackTrack toolset, as well as a 340-million-word dictionary to guess passwords. In order to access cell phone data, the WASP impersonates AT&T and T-Mobile cell phone towers and fools phones into connecting to one of the eleven antennas on-board. The drone can then record conversations to the storage card, and avoids dropping the call due to the 4G T-mobile card routing communications through VoIP.

also ...

America's Smallest Military Spy Drone Can Land on Your Window Sill

http://voices.yahoo.com/americas-smallest-military-spy-drone-land-your-7895750.html

The Nano Hummingbird looks and flies like a real hummingbird. In fact, though, it is a tiny spy drone, capable of flying onto your window sill, recording data, and then flying back to its military handlers. With tiny spy technology like the Nano Hummingbird available, no government's secrets are safe.

Imagine how easy it would be to use the Nano Hummingbird to spy on foreign diplomats. It would simply have to land on their window sill and record audio and video. But while the Nano is a hummingbird now, we have to believe that someday it will be a bumble bee, or a gnat. In other words, someday it will be unnoticeably small, capable of flying stealthily through the interior of a building, recording and transmitting information, without being detected.

also ...

I posted about this dragon fly drone earlier but this is a different web site with more info

This tiny robotic dragonfly drone only costs $119

http://www.geek.com/news/this-tiny-robotic-dragonfly-drone-only-costs-119-1533241/

I can see stealth drones all the rage one day ... they are probably in the works now or maybe quietly flying already. Too expensive for "ordinary folks" but tiny little spy drones don't seem to be out of the reach of ordinary people.

...

Edited by duffy98
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