{"id":8202,"date":"2017-02-20T14:17:07","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T20:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=8202"},"modified":"2017-02-20T14:17:07","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T20:17:07","slug":"dissolves-on-contact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/02\/20\/dissolves-on-contact\/","title":{"rendered":"Dissolves On Contact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Otherlab<\/strong><\/em> has solved the problem of dead-heading in a slightly different way<\/a>, as noted by Seeker<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

Otherlab’s team, led by Mikell Taylor, made the drone<\/a> in response to a DARPA call for disappearing unmanned systems as part of the agency’s Inbound, Controlled, Air-Releasable, Unrecoverable Systems (ICARUS) program. It’s designed to land within about a 33-foot (10-meter) radius of a pre-programmed GPS spot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ICARUS<\/strong><\/em>: great spot of humor there. Continujng:<\/p>\n

Currently, dropping emergency supplies like blood and vaccines from the air is messy and inefficient with plenty of loss, Taylor explained. Sending regular drones is expensive because they have a bad habit of crashing and turning into trash. Airdropped cargo attached to a parachute can break apart in mid-air, land in a pond or end up in the wrong hands.<\/p>\n

“DARPA was interested specifically in something that could degrade fairly quickly so when you deliver your supplies with a hundred of these, you don’t have drones littering the ground for the next 20 years,” Taylor said. To that end, her team constructed the body from flexible cellulose-based material. Inside were off-the-shelf electronics, although DARPA has a separate program for electronics that dissolve on impact.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If we add a self-aware AI to the drone, then we’d have a scenario reminiscent of Blade Runner<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (I never read the P. K. Dick story Bladerunners originated from), in which an artificially sentient organism has a very short lifespan. And there might be a temptation to add that capability, if ever developed, since that would give the drone more flexibility.<\/p>\n

There’s a short story in there somewhere.<\/p>\n

But at the moment you have to like the idea a lot, once the dissolving electronics are “perfected.” And it occurs to me – dissolution does not mean traceless dissolution. What if, say, the jungle floor was discolored where a drone crashed and dissolved? Would this amount to art? Perhaps if done purposefully by an artist?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Otherlab has solved the problem of dead-heading in a slightly different way, as noted by Seeker: Otherlab’s team, led by Mikell Taylor, made the drone in response to a DARPA call for disappearing unmanned systems as part of the agency’s Inbound, Controlled, Air-Releasable, Unrecoverable Systems (ICARUS) program. It’s designed to \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8204,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202\/revisions\/8204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}