[chbot] Automation

[Charles Manning]

On Sunday 26 June 2011 14:23:11 Josh Harris wrote:
> Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster.
>
> I work for a company operating in the cordon.
>
> Today I was discussing the possibility of using a UAV to remotely recon EQ
> damaged buildings with my boss, he was very interested in this, and
> suggested possibly automating some of his equipment to operate remotely.
>
> Unfortunately I don't have enough knowledge / experience to achieve
> something like this.
>
> I'm wondering if there is somebody who would be able to talk to my boss
> about this.
>

Hello Josh

I, and I am sure a few others on this list, work with automation.

The biggest issue is to understand that there is a huge difference between 
what is possible and engineering a safe and reliable system that won't get 
you in court for hurting someone.

Most hobby robotics is designed on the basis that if anything goes wrong you 
can grab the robot and put it back on track. The same is not true of, say, an 
excavator.

That need for reliability is why these systems take a long time and lots of 
money to develop. Look at Therac (a classic case story of embedded software 
gone bad); it saved thousands of lives but killed three. It gets remembered 
for killing the three.

I would suggest that in the shorter time frame there are a potentially many 
things you could do to give some of the benefits without incurring the danger 
and costs.

For example there are many excellent and easy to control UAVs which can give 
you a good look at something without exposing a human to danger. 

Someone brought one of these: http://ardrone.parrot.com/ to a club meeting. 
Many people gave it a play and everyone managed to control it intuitively 
from an ipad. Very, very stable. Range is limited to approx 50 m and 12 
minutes of flight time.

One of those was used to check out the catholic cathedral.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/16/parrot-ar-drone-floats-into-damaged-new-zealand-cathedral-retur/

-- Charles