Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Eagles Vs. Drones

Eagles are undergoing training to take down drones; the program was put in place by Dutch police. Meanwhile in Japan, Tokyo police are using drones to catch drones.


(Dutch-trained eagles versus drones)

The Dutch police have partnered with Guard From Above, a raptor training company based in The Hague, to determine whether eagles could be used as intelligent, adaptive anti-drone weapon systems. The eagles are specially trained to identify and capture drones, although from the way most birds of prey react to drones, my guess is that not a lot of training was necessary. After snatching the drone out of the sky, the eagles instinctively find a safe area away from people to land and try take a couple confused bites out of their mechanical prey before their handlers can reward them with something a little less plastic-y. The advantage here is that with the eagles, you don’t have to worry about the drone taking off out of control or falling on people, since the birds are very good at mid-air intercepts as well as bringing the drone to the ground without endangering anyone.

I don't count this as a "prediction" but as sometimes happens, I really think that I've read about this idea of using flying animals to take out mechanical drones. This excerpt is from the wonderful novel Changeling by the Hugo Award-winning author Roger Zelazny. In the novel, the wizard Pol Detson uses his flying dragon to take out mechanical surveillance drones like the tracer bird:

Now. Up high. Look! The massive head turned. Pol followed the direction of its gaze. He saw the small, blue-bellied, gray-backed thing upon the sill overhead. It was turned as if watching them. A portion of its front end caught the sunlight and cast it down toward them.

[Pol] What is it?

[Moonbird] Something I do not know. See how it watches?

[Pol] It must be something of his. I wonder how much of my plans it has learned?

[Moonbird] Shall I upchuck firestuff upon it?

[Pol] No. Pretend that it is not there. Do not look at it.

Moonbird's view of the west was partly blocked by the pyramid, so that he did not see the bird-things dark against the brilliant sky until their van was near. Several began to dive as he raised his head, but they pulled up sharply and continued on. Then he saw the falling object, and superimposed upon it came the image out of his dream. He spread his wings immediately to take to the air.

By the time the bombs struck, he was fifteen meters above them and climbing. He felt the heat building within his stomachs. Above him, he counted eight of the fliers. Good, he acknowledged. He had been waiting for an opportunity to meet them when he was unencumbered with passengers...

Pol turned his attention to the final flier, which suddenly seemed bent upon a suicide attack on the lazily turning skybeast. He knew that no time remained for the slow knottings of another spell, and he doubted that from this distance he could release an effective blast such as that which had felled the guardian in the pyramid. And even as he raised the rod for the attempt, he saw the small white puff and moments later heard the report.

Moonbird showed no sign of having been hit, however, and as the bird-thing plunged toward him, he moved to meet it, twisting in a serpentine fashion, acquiring more speed than the moment seemed to offer. As they met, he clasped the flier to him and began his descent.

Nora and Pol watched him spiral downward in a leisurely fashion, coming to rest near the rim of a nearby crater, turning so as to land directly atop the captive flier with a series of crunching noises which ceased only when he moved away from the broken device, which a final nudge sent toppling and sliding into the hole.

Via IEEE Spectrum.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/28/2016)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Surveillance ")

Chameleon Personalized Privacy Protection Mask
'...the Virtual Epiphantic Identity Lustre.' - Neal Stephenson, 2019.

Spherical Police Robot Rolls In China
'Rand could effectively be in several places at once...' - Niven and Pournelle, 1981.

Vietnam To Have Full Biometric Transparency
'inscriptions too small to be seen with the naked eye; microscopic data...' - Eric Frank Russell, 1939.

Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.' - Neal Stephenson, 2019.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'

Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'

TRANSFORM Dynamic Furniture Concept Becomes What You Need
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'

Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'

SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.

Dino From Magical Toys An AI Companion To Children
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'

Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''

Darpa 'Defiant' Unmanned Autonomous Ship
'There was no wheel, and no steersman!'

What's The Best Way To Ship And Unpack Humanoid Robots?
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'

DNA Printed Book By Isaac Asimov Now Available
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'

AI Computer Chip Designs Passeth Human Understanding
'It seems that at one time computers were designed directly by human beings.'

Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now
'...the spot was a lonely one in an uncharted region, far from the normal lanes of space traffic.'

Fine-Tune Your Infinite Book The Way You Want It
'I squatted down beside the roller and tried to make some sense out of the knobs. There were thirty-nine of them...'

SpiRobs Soft Spiral Robotic Arm
'Beware the long, flexible, glittering tentacles...'

Holland Factory 3D Printing 500 Tons Of Steak Per Month
'...I don’t understand technical things — tell me, does it ever feel anything?"

Stratospheric Solar Geoengineering From Harvard
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.