CONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENThttp://www.aero-botics.com/[2014/12/2811:23:49]Aero-boticsAmateurModelRCHobbyist'sprojecta-UAVWebsite: Have you ever heard of a family of birds called the Swifts? The Swift is an extraordinary little bird: a.The Swifts are of the scientific family, Apodidae, which comes from the ancient greek word , apous, meaning "withoutfeet", since swifts have very short legs and rarely ever settle voluntarily on the ground, clinging instead to vertical surfaces when they must land. [see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift and http://www.arkive.org/common-swift/apus-apus]b. Swifts spend their entire lives in the air, hunting insects and never landing, except to raise young. And in a single year the CommonSwift can cover at least 200,000kmc.Swifts eat, drink, bathe, mate, and even sleep, on the wing while flying through the air. And for the first couple of years of their life, after leaving the nest, they never land until they mate. The Aero-Botics Amateur Model RC Hobbyist's a-UAV project has taken some of its inspiration from the abilities of the common Swift. We have designed a TOTALLY new kind of completely autonomous Robot-in-the-Sky called an Aero-bot which has the following REMARKABLE features: 1. Extremely Long-Duration: With continuous flight times of more than 2 years plus!2. Very Agile:Outstanding Aerobatics, it can quickly hover, dodge and dart.3. Fully Autonomous:Simply launch and forget, self-organizing, and very reliable!4. Outstanding Safety Profile:These Aero-bots are agile enough, and small enough, and smart enough, that they BOTH cant, and wont, hurt anything!5. Very Inexpensive:The Aero-bot is very cost-effective, at costs accessible to average budgets! How did we do that? [AtechnicaloutlineFAQ]1. Well, first, we had to design a totally new kind of air-frame; and then, we had to completely re-think its avionics, flight-control, and to a lesser degree, its power systems. 2. Of course, we arent going to tell you all of the details on how we did it until our provisional, patent-pending designs are approved by the USPTO, and then we intend to fully open-source license the entire system, with only a small royalty for large manufacturers, and royalty-free access for everyone else. But in simple terms, we might have done something new, which at minimum doesnt appear to have been done very often before. We decided to think-outside-of-the-box, and setup our initial design parameters, and equations, to solve for the best case evolutionary optimizations driven against three nearly equally balanced primary indices: surface-area, glide-ratio, and lift-to-drag ratio. Air-frame designers do not often use these three independent variables together, as the primary indices, weighted in that order. And it turns out that if you do that in a well-balanced way, hundreds of odd and strangely shaped, but very viable new air-frame designs arise, with remarkable characteristics. For example, in one of our preferredembodiments, the Aero-bot has: a.Over 165 linear feet of lift-generating-wing surface, in a 6ft. wing-spanb. An extremely compact footprint, which ranges from as little as 2ft., up to 12ft. c.And in the 6ft. wing-span size, it has over 190 sq. ft. of solar collection area, generating over 1700W+ of continuous power, and up to 3500W+ of power on the 12ft. wing-span sized. A much better than a 25-to-1 glide ratio, with a total wing-loading of well under 20g/sq.ft.e. Made of a completely unique and very light, high-strength, all carbon-fiber, patent-pending, modular-unibody airframe that snaps together in just seconds. And because Aero-bots are made of all carbon-fiber, they are not only very light, but they are also very, very strong.f. The Aero-bot designs have total weights that range from under 3 lbs. on the 2ft. size, to 15 lbs. on the 6ft. size, and up to 45 lbs. on the 12ft. size.g.Because an Aero-bot has lots, and lots of lift, and it is very light and strong; the Aero-bot has a very low stall-CONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENThttp://www.aero-botics.com/[2014/12/2811:23:49]speed of less than 7mph. 3. And because an Aero-bot has so much wing and surface area, it can easily handle many small, intelligently designed, and well placed motors with very little excess drag. Thus, for about 1-2 lbs. in total extra weight costs, in the 6ft. size,we have been able to design in FULLY functional quad-rotor-like capabilities into the Aero-bot. a.So for moderate durations, the Aero-bot is very agile; and it is able to hover, dodge and dart very effectively, just like any ordinary quad-rotor can do.b. While flying, this allows the Aero-bot to do things that few other fixed-wing aircraft can currently do; like: i.Displace the planes location, and direction vector, in any cardinal direction by more than 10ft., in less than 20ms. ii.Displace the planes location, and direction vector, in any cardinal direction by more than 100ft., in less than 300ms.iii.Hover in place, nearly perfectly, for observations or actions. iv.Take-off, land, or deliver a package anywhere the wing-span will fit, plus a few inches. v.Perform spectacular aerobatics, and extraordinarily sophisticated maneuvers, while also having all the advantages of an extremely long duration fixed wing craft. 4. And then we chose to make another major design difference: the Aero-bot operates TOTALLY autonomously! Yes; unlike nearly every other UAV, there is NO man-in-the-middle flying an Aero-bot. None! In case you missed that? None! And it WORKS; even better than a typical pilot could manually fly an Aero-bot! a.So how does someone use or control an Aero-bot? In terms of the actual logistics of flying, you dont. You just tell it the kinds of high-level things you want it to do. Practically, this is done by using secure and verified commands from your cell-phone, or your computer, or through a secure encrypted private channel. A sample of these self-explanatory commands include examples like: goto [location] , find [object/trigger/image], search [area], follow [object/trigger/image], comeback, avoidthiskind [object/trigger/image], patrol [path/area], watchfor [object/trigger/image], ondetectionof [object/trigger/image], do [command], and over 30 other kinds commands we have designed into the Aero-bot.b. Does the Aero-bots autonomous avionics and control system really work? Yes, it does! Consider this: Once the staying-up part of the problem is solved; which it is in the Aero-bots design, it turns out that safely and effectively navigating air-space is pretty easy, compared to nearly everywhere else. There isnt very much else in the air around it, and if there is, the choices are easy. Avoid it! Period! Get out of the way, and away from whatever else it detects.c.It also turns out that, with an intelligent and deeply redundant design, in depth, the sensors and processors are available on the open market, often from the Model RC industry, that are more than adequate to the task of very safely operating the Aero-bots as fully autonomous units that can precisely see, hear, and sense in many other spectra, out to about 20+ miles, without any blind-spots, in nearly all conditions, and navigate within centimeter tolerances.d. And finally, because this behaviors design is well thought-out; and intelligently automated, all the safety features of the Aero-bot are always at the highest priority, and reflexive, far faster than any human could even begin to perceive them. Even the most sophisticated recognition behaviors and actions, which we call instincts are calculated and completed in under 15ms. 5. So, because we are very agile, totally autonomous with extremely strong and fast avoidance instincts, have excellent deep-sensor coverage, and are extremely light, with a very large surface area, we REALLYARE extremely SAFE! a.In fact, we claim that the Aero-bot is so instinctively smart regarding avoidance, and so agile, that no standard fixed-wing plane can hit us, no matter how hard they would try REALLY. Reliable calculations and modeling show that the Aero-bot could even physically dodge most common missiles, excluding the consideration of the effects of area-bursts, of course.b. We have planned, and implemented designs, for regular independent adversarial tests, where we invited as many other Model RC Hobbyists as are interested in trying to actively hit the Aero-bot in flight, for a substantial reward, and bragging-rights upon success. A number have been interested in trying. None have yet succeeded; nor will they likely succeed in the future.c.So when everything is working right, we ARE nearly un-collision-able! But what about when something, or everything, on-board fails?When failures happen, we are still pretty-darned safe! Why? i.Because the Aero-bot is relatively small, and not very dense, with a very, very large surface area, not very much damage can be done even in a full-speed impact. The Aero-bot is less than 0.27oz. per square inch inCONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENThttp://www.aero-botics.com/[2014/12/2811:23:49] the smallest (worst case) impact aspect ratio. ii.And because of our complex geometries, while the Aero-bot is very efficient at low speeds, at higher speeds, the drag becomes very large very quickly. So the Aero-bots unpowered terminal velocity is less than 50mph, at sea-level. iii.So even at terminal-velocity, in a fundamental free-fall state, the total impact force on the smallest likely aspect ratio of impact would be less than 9oz. per square foot. Certainly under a pound or two per square foot, in the worst imaginable case. So it might scare-the-heck out of someone. And it might cause a bruise, or even a small laceration. It might even knock someone off-balance, and knock them down.But it wouldnt kill someone, or do serious injury, and it wouldnt even break a cars window! It would also just lightly bounce-off another plane. So yes, even in a complete failure, the Aero-bot is pretty-darned safe! 6. Oh, and did we happen to mention just how inexpensive these Aero-bots are to make and operate? Lets consider the costs of the three reference sizes that we have designed the Aero-bot in. They are the 2ft. size; the 6ft. size; and, the 12ft. size: a.The most important parameters for expense in an Aero-bot are: Size and Solar. i.Because of the complex geometries, the Aero-bot can, in essence, be roughly thought of as a cube, for cost estimation purposes. And as a cube, volume is a cubic function (X3rd). Thus, to give an example, a 2ft. Wing-span can be thought of, in terms of volumetric-unit-cost, as 2-to-the-3rd or 8. While a 6ft. Wing-span can be thought of as 6-to-the-3rd or 216. And a 12ft. Wing-span can be thought of as 12-to-the-3rd or 1,728. So while an Aero-bots build cost is NOT exactly a cubic function, but its a close enough rule-of-thumb approximation to illustrate the basic idea of an Aero-bots cost in relation to its wing-span size. ii.Additionally, Solar is by far, the most expensive part. Current, costs on the better 23% efficient solar strata is about $70 per watt, although these should drop to less than $10 per watt by early next year. Thus, the rough cost for each wing-span size is listed below:b. The Aero-bot has two basic configurations: Without-Solar, and With-Solar. For each size we have roughly estimated the approximate parts to build cost, abbreviated as APTBC. i.On a 2ft. wingspan, the APTBC Without-Solar would be about: $5,000 ii.And on a 2ft. wingspan, the APTBC With-Solar would be about: $18,000iii.On a 6ft. wingspan, the APTBC Without-Solar would be about: $15,000 iv.And on a 6ft. wingspan, the APTBC With-Solar would be about: $60,000 v.On a 12ft. wingspan, the APTBC Without-Solar would be about: $45,000 vi.And on a 12ft. wingspan, the APTBC With-Solar would be about: $250,000c.Given everything else in the UAV market, this is extremely inexpensive! Consider some of the primary defense and commercial UAVs currently available, and on the market: i.Long Duration:1.Boeing [SolarEagle]: Solar, Years, $110M ea., 200kg. payload2.Qinetiq [Zephyr]: Solar, Months, $1.5M ea., 20kg. payload3.10+ others [mid-size]: Solar, Months, $1-15M ea., 5-?kg. payload ii.Limited Duration:1.Northrup [GlobalHawk,FireScout]: 120 hrs., $70M+ ea., 100s kg.2.GA [MQ9 Reaper]: 96 hrs., $50M+ per squad, 150kg. payload3.Lockheed [Sentinel]: 72+ hrs., $60M+ ea., 500kg. payloads4.AeroVironment [Raven,DragonEye,Switchblade]: 2 hrs., $250k+5.40+ others [all-sizes]: Days, $1-150M ea., 5-400kg. payloadsiii.And none of these other AUV costs include the additional operations costs these platforms require. The Aero-bot has no additional operational costs. Because an Aero-bot is totally autonomous, theres no flight crew, and no ground crew needed ever! So Aero-bots are very, very inexpensive! And that is exactly the point.d. Because Aero-bots are relatively inexpensive and cost-effective to operate; when considered in the 2ft. wing-span, they are within the imaginable budget range of the average person! Consider that a With-Solar Aero-bot with a 2+ year persistence in a 2ft. wing-span is about the cost of a sub-compact car. And by sometime in 2014, when the costs of the solar elements are anticipated to drop to 1/7th of their current costs, the total APTBC costs should be well under $10.000 apiece. 7. This means that the Aero-bot really can do some things as a weak imitator in the shadow of the CommonSwift. Specifically, the Aero-bot has the following additional features : a.Reliable Long Durationflightplatform:(2 years +), at very inexpensive price points.b. Extremely Safe: Unique low-impact crash design, even at terminal velocity an Aero-bot CANT break a carCONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENThttp://www.aero-botics.com/[2014/12/2811:23:49] window, or cause serious harm.c.Extremely Agileshort-durationflightperformance:Capable of Quad-Rotor performance, able to effectively hover, dodge and dart.d. Payload: Maintain a 1 lb. (1/2kg.) on the 2ft. size, and up to 15 lb. (7kg.) payloads on the 12ft. size, on-station, uninterrupted, and fully powered.e. A Nominal Operating Range of 5ft. to 35,000ft. (Maximum operating ceiling 60,000+).f. Resistant to Adverse Weather Conditions: Can remain on station and operational in most weather conditions, including in hurricane-force winds.g.Autonomous Global Reach:Can go almost anywhere around the globe, in nearly any airspace, safely, and with NO traffic impact.h. Autonomous Controls: Completely autonomous, sophisticated, robust, avionics control.i.Autonomous Threat Avoidance:Can both See and Avoid threats in nearly all operating conditions.j. Autonomous Target Tracking:Can Detect, Recognize, and Followtargets in nearly all conditions.k.Autonomous Cooperative Operations:Can operate as stand-alone units, or cooperatively in flocks of any size.l.Autonomous Command Control:Units can securely accept additional direction by command from approved, or single-use-key, or encrypted and secured sources.m. Integrated Communications Relays:In flocks, units can provide their own ad-hocmesh relay communications networks, or through available WiFi, or cellular-networks, or SATCOM.n. Built-in Secure Global Communications: With world-wide SATCOM, can be setup to provide secure video-streaming, using for-pay links from established providers.o. Low Build Costs: Unique design uses existing COTS and Model RC technologies and non-proprietary parts with high availability and low costs.p. Low Operational Costs: No Man-in-the-Middleor Flight/Ground-Crew operating requirements. 8. So what do we think can be done with these, right away? Here is a list of some of the immediate uses that the Aero-botics Amateur Model RC Hobbyist's a-UAV project team thinksthese Aero-bots would be good for; outside of the obvious, and the more subtle, military/defense applications, which we are sincerely hoping to avoid, at least initially: a.At night, in flocks, Aero-bots can perform continuous and sophisticated performance art exhibitions, and bring these displays directly to the public in a safe and interesting way. [ComingSoon!]b. One of our favorites is helping endangered species! How? By providing inexpensive but effective continuous observation of endangered species which allows scientific observation and discovery, and even direct protection, for endangered species like: whales and whale pods, gorillas and primate troops, elephants, big cats, wolves, bears. Aero-bots even work for birds and world-wide migrations.c.For fast, accurate and continuously verifiable local delivery of small packages, very cost-effectively. Do you have a delivery problem that needs an inexpensive, fast, and reliable solution, which also provides an unmatched level of continuous chain-of-custody for certainty of delivery?Aero-bots can!d. As inexpensive, independent ad-hoc communications relay networks, for both WiFi/data and cellular-towers.e. As continuous observation of fixed assets, like: business, homes, properties, and thoroughfares.f. As continuous observation of mobile things, like: vehicles, ships, people, children and pets.g.Inexpensive and effective monitoring of roads, agricultural areas, remote & wilderness areas.h. In emergencies: personally, staying in touch with loved ones, and providing emergency supply delivery. And in the local community: conducting initial reconnoitering surveys, finding missing people, supplemental assessment, supplemental supply distribution, and supplemental ad-hoc communications relay networks.i.And of course, for use by people, and even local civil agencies, for activities that range from area and perimeter surveillance, to advanced but relatively inexpensive hyperspectral sensing assessments of natural resources. 9. Why do we think the Aero-botics project is worth pursuing? Besides its practical applications; this project is also motivated by a little bit deeper moral purpose. This isn't just cool technology, with some practical uses. It is also about moving forward toward the reliable and consistent commodification of persistent observation platform technologies, which will make these technologies cheaper and more accessible to everyone. That process winds up becoming the democratization of the technology, for everyone. Right now, governments want exclusive access to persistent observation platforms, and are very scared of everyone else [or anyone else] having them. Just like in a previous period, when the early internet first came out, elements of our government were concerned about having the newly budding technology available to everyday folks. And which some governments; like China, are still scared of today.But as a whole, most of us believe that we are all better off with abundant, democratized access to the internet. We are suggesting that we all would also be better off with broad, democratized distribution of, and access to, persistent observation technologies. Of course some elements of our government and society today areCONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENThttp://www.aero-botics.com/[2014/12/2811:23:49] extraordinarily discomforted by this idea. But we think that in the end, the extensive and public distribution of persistent observation platform technologies will bring us back into becoming something like a really big village. Because in a village, everyone is so close to everyone else, that everyone knows everyone else's' business. And cheap a-UAVs like the Aero-bot will help bring about that kind of village knowledge. That may sound scary; but, it is already true. The government already has this technology on a huge scale; and it is a completely one-side arrangement. Perhaps that fact is even scarier? On the whole, commodification and wide distribution to a wide range of citizens might actually be better for us. Thus, we think that: a.Because Aero-bots are inexpensive, and are likely to become accessible to a wide range of citizens; over time, there are likely to be many Aero-bots, hanging around in the sky. This will bring multiple points of view and observations for any particular event accessible to more people, by multiple sources, each with different agendas. (One of the basic fundamental mechanisms of a Democracy.)b. This kind of free-market commodification of the Aero-bots will likely help to facilitate the democratization of this kind of persistent observation technology, making these resources more accessible to most citizens. Just like PCs and Cell-phones made the power of computing, and the internet, available to everyone, and democratized the information-age for everyone around the world.c.Aero-bots builders hold the opinion that when persistent observation technologies are deployed in everyones hands, this simply brings things back into a small village, on a large scale. Keeping things more transparent and honest for everyone. Because persistent observation technology is most dangerous when it is one-sided, giving power to the observer, at the expense of the observed. If everyone has access to being an observer, then the situation loses much of its advantage and the whole thing becomes, just a small village, again.d. We consider this effect, the democratization of the technology, and far, far healthier in the long run, for the life of the republic.e. Additionally, when a fair number of these Aero-bots are airborne, they will actually be one of the first instances of truly autonomous robots, in the wild, and outside of closed toy environments, for significant durations. That is a notable historical milestone; in our opinion, and it might even be important that Aero-bots can automatically cooperate and collaborate. That's pretty cool too! 10. Of course, since we are an Amateur Model RC Hobbyist a-UAV team, we are funding everything out of our own very meager pockets, and we are all also very busy in our unrelated daytime engineering jobs. We have been approached by some other countries, willing to provide substantial funding, but we have refused ALL of these offers we really do ultimately want this to be an open-source project. And each of these entities was far too greedy, and did not wish to see a democratization of the technology so they would have been very poor partners! In the near future, we will be seeking crowd-sourcing by posting some interesting Kick-Starter projects for Aero-bots! But if you are particularly inspired by our project, and you would like to help before those Kick-Starter projects become available, by contributing, please feel free to contact us directly, by e-mail, at: aero.robot s@gmail.com And of course, Thank-you for your time!