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
 |
Ionocraft Drone Powered By Electrohydrodynamic Thrust
Everybody loves teeny, tiny drones, but most of them are either of the biomimic sort that utilize flapping wings. or buzzy quadcopters. There is another way!
Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) thrusters, sometimes called ion thrusters,* use a high strength electric field to generate a plasma of ionized air. The ions (mostly positively charged nitrogen molecules) are drawn toward a negatively charged grid, and along the way, they smack into neutral air molecules and impart momentum to them, which is where the EHD thrust comes from.This is the ionocraft, currently under development at UC Berkeley. It’s tiny— just 2 cm x 2 cm, weighing 30 mg, plus a 37-mg IMU (although power is supplied through a tether). At small scales, the lack of moving parts becomes a real asset, because you don’t have to worry about figuring out how to scale mechanical things like transmissions down beyond a point where it will be really frustrating at best and impossible at worst. Including its IMU payload, the ionocraft was able to take off and hover with an input of 2,000 volts at just under 0.35 mA.
Science fiction fans may recall the tiny aerostat monitors from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, almond-sized drones that hung in the air.
Read about an assortment of similar devices performing in unison:
- COTS Scout: Team Building Robot
- Nano Quadrotors Form Stephenson's Dog Pod Grid
- Autonomous UAV Surveillance Swarm
- Flyfire Micro-Helicopter Display
- Improve MAVs By Studying Bees In Flight
- Largest Micro-Drone Swarm Release Successful
- Drone Catches Drone! In Japan
- Biggest Drone Swarm Sets World Record
- Drone 100, Coordinated Drone Performance Team
- China's Drone Fleet Flies In Formation
- Crazyflie Drone Swarm Technology
- Slaughterbot AI KIller Quadcopter Drones
- Poland Starts With 1000 Warmate 'Suicide Drones'
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/5/2019)
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 ")
Goodness Gracious Me! Google Tries Face Recognition Security
'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931.
Live Stream With Meta-Ban Multimodal Smart Glasses
'...the bug-eyed, opaque gape of her True-Vu lenses.' - David Brin, 1990.
Brin's 1990 Novel Earth Still Full Of Predictions
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.' - David Brin, 1990.
Amazon One Is Frank Herbert's Palm Lock
'A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm lines.' - Frank Herbert, 1965.
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
Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car
'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
Space Exporers! Now, You Can Drink Your Own Urine
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
SpaceX EVA Spacesuit Tested By Polaris Dawn Crew
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
Shanghai Guidelines For Humanoid Robots
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
Desktop TARS Robot From Interstellar
What's YOUR sarcasm setting?
Robots Can Now Have Smiling Faces With Human Skin
'I am a cybernetic organism...'
Virtual Rat Predicts Actual Rat Neural Activity
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
GoSun EV Solar Charger Drapes Onto Your Car
'...six square yards of sunpower screens.'
Rizon 4 Ironing Robot
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
Cognify - A Prison Of The Mind We've Seen Before In SF
'So I serve a hundred years in one day...'
Robot With Human Brain Organoid - 'A Thrilling Story Of Mechanistic Progress'
'A human brain snugly encased in a transparent skull-shaped receptacle.'
Goodness Gracious Me! Google Tries Face Recognition Security
'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...'
With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need
'The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.'
Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier?
'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
WiFi and AI Team Up To See Through Walls
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
