Can’t Be Held Back: Drones and Robotics Poised to Change Lives
Photo: Robb Cohen.
Drones and robotics have endless potential, and in the future, society could leverage these technologies to transform how we live, according to the general session speakers today at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems 2015.
Rep. Frank LoBiondo, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Aviation, expressed the drone market’s robustness even with a lack of formal regulations.
“It’s been very frustrating to see the delays to get even the most basic applications approved for testing,” he said. “It’s nowhere near where it should be. It’s nowhere near where it can be.”
LoBiondo blamed the Federal Aviation Administration’s slow pace to integrate unmanned aircraft into the national airspace, which he said is responsible for pushing companies overseas to do work in friendlier skies.
“There’s one word to describe that in my book, and that’s insanity,” he said.
LoBiondo discussed September’s impending deadline to reauthorize the FAA, which encompasses all the agency’s activities, not just unmanned aircraft. While he said he couldn’t predict the contents of the bill related to drones, he said the test sites are being underused and the FAA could green-light even more commercial small UAS operations approvals.
He urged the audience to contact their members of congress and tell them both the good and the bad stories — what promise their technology holds and what circumstances have stymied them.
“If they can understand that and understand your commitment to safety, we have a real opportunity to convince them when these issues come up that this isn’t just some other issue,” he said.
Unmanned systems have the ability to change everyone’s lives, and that will only happen if the industry is allowed to move in a positive direction, he said. And it is up to everyone present at the conference to take action, because no one is going to do it for them, he said.
“Where is there a greater degree of potential than right here in this room … to be able to move things forward in a way that none of us have seen or expected before?”
Keynote speaker Prof. Hugh Herr discussed his work on melding biological and mechanical research in his new lab at MIT. If work like his prevails, he says one day there will be no more disabilities and — beyond that — people could one day have bionic abilities.
For Herr, the mission is personal. In 1982, he lost his legs to frostbite on a climbing mission gone awry. When Herr’s doctor at the time asked what activities he’d like to do, Herr was disheartened to hear him say things like driving a car and climbing would be out of his reach.
“I’m so happy to report that he was dead wrong,” he said.
Herr’s work focuses on integrating human tissue, cells and electrical impulses with synthetics that can be used to create prosthetics, but the field of biomechatronics can provide sight to those with vision loss and could lead to cures for diseases like ALS or conditions like depression, he said.
“We understand more about synthetics than we do about the cells and tissues that make up our bodies, … but in the future we will understand biologics as well as we understand synthetics today,” he said.
The legs Herr has fashioned for himself react very similarly to human legs. The one-degree-freedom ankle joint acts like a spring when walking and jumping, but comes to a dead stop instead of recoiling when he goes from running to a full stop, for instance.
Herr addressed cultural issues, with some people likening his work to “The Terminator.” But without his legs, Herr admits he is “crippled … but with technology I am free.”
His climbing legs, which are lighter and longer than biological legs, are so adept at scaling cliff faces, his friends have jokingly told Herr they’d like to cut off their own legs, he said.
In the future, this same kind of technology could make people bionic, he said, where exoskeletons would enable people to walk faster but using the same metabolic rate.
“It will be common to see people wearing robots,” he said.
