[HN Gopher] A rigid but foldable indoor airship aerial system fo...
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A rigid but foldable indoor airship aerial system for cave
exploration
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 59 points
Date : 2024-09-20 05:41 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
| progbits wrote:
| Getting closer to the cave scanning drones from Prometheus.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We've basically got those now.
| https://www.core77.com/posts/133629/A-Throwable-Panoramic-Th...
| finnh wrote:
| this seems to come up often on HN!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41547946
| gertrunde wrote:
| I'm not normally a big fan of facebook etc... but there are a
| selection of photographs of this device here:
|
| https://www.facebook.com/nxigestatio/
| fractallyte wrote:
| Whyyyy Facebook?? [facepalm]
|
| If they really want visibility, use an open platform!
| cuSetanta wrote:
| Their website has a good few images:
| https://cavernautes.nxigestatio.org/10-aout.html
| redundantly wrote:
| Those images are better than the ones they have on
| Facebook. I don't know why they picked such hazy pictures
| that make it hard to see the machine.
| sgt wrote:
| Aren't you on FB?
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure this article is interesting but only photos of
| this strange device will satisfy me. Thanks.
|
| Edit: concurring with the person complaining about Facebook
| which I cannot access
| ricc wrote:
| I thought it was going to be made of cloth that stiffens when
| current passes through it... :)
| hedora wrote:
| I thought you were going to mention concrete canvas, which
| stiffens into a semipermanent (10 year) structure when wet:
|
| https://www.concretecanvas.com/us/cc-shelters/
|
| Bring your own cave?
| aaron695 wrote:
| The 10 hour Cavernautes video is here -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9LNriDuivA
|
| Moving on, you can fly in a blimp by yourself in a cave here -
| https://www.manawa.com/en-GB/activity/france/uzes/unusual-ac...
| (Tom Scott did this in an aircraft hanger)
| krisoft wrote:
| But like... why? What does an indoor airship get us which we
| couldn't do before "for cave exploration"? It sounds like they
| needed to map out the cave in detail before they could even
| design the airship. So there aren't even any pretence of
| "exploration". The airship is not big enough to carry people, nor
| does it have manipulators to take samples.
|
| That leaves us with the "an artistic manifestation". Which is
| cool. It is a neat art project I guess. But then that is not
| "cave exploration". It is a temporary inflatable art installation
| inside a cave.
|
| Am I missing something here?
| rozab wrote:
| https://www.xkcd.com/2128/
| tamimio wrote:
| That's a good one, and it's true!
| m4rtink wrote:
| Caves are dark, wet, slippery and might not even contain
| breathable atmosphere in some cases & could get flooded in
| minutes, with deadly results.
|
| Having a foldable flying drone you could use to scout for you
| could help a lot when exploring caves.
|
| As for the cave scanning - I think that is mainly so they can
| set their design constraints & later the bot can take over,
| possibly including SLAM[0]. There are already designs like that
| that have been tested in unexplored flooded caves[1].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_...
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEPTHX
| krisoft wrote:
| > Having a foldable flying drone you could use to scout for
| you could help a lot when exploring caves.
|
| I agree with that. But is this the right form for it?
| Airships are bulky. Caves are obstructed. A smaller flying
| drone, like some form of a multicopter would be my choice if
| I want to maximise the chances that it fits the cave.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > Thanks to their long-flight endurance, they are suited
| for long-term missions.
|
| How long can your drone stay in the air?
| Retric wrote:
| They cap out at several hours for gas powered drones or
| ~1h of flying time for batteries.
|
| But it's unlikely for you to actually need endurance
| because you're not getting signal that far through a cave
| without repeaters or a long cable. A bigger deal is being
| able to go underwater or fit through tiny openings.
| ceph_ wrote:
| Running a gas powered drone in a low oxygen environment
| sounds like a great way to get the next cavers killed by
| asphyxiation
| Retric wrote:
| Most gas powered drones don't actually use much fuel and
| thus their oxygen use is limited. At the extreme end a 20
| pound drone might use the same oxygen per minute as ~5
| people and you're not going to stay in the same place for
| that long vs people going through rough terrain. If
| anything adding gas sensors would more than make up for
| such issues.
|
| Personally I'd be more concerned with explosive gas
| mixtures, but that's not an issue in most cave systems.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > But it's unlikely for you to actually need endurance
| because you're not getting signal that far through a cave
| without repeaters or a long cable.
|
| I mean you could let it roam on it's own and report back
| no? But even if you had to be in the same area as it, it
| then lets you go for even longer. Like some people sleep
| in these caves and bag in/out a bunch of supplies so
| needing to carry less batteries would be nice I assume.
|
| > A bigger deal is being able to go underwater or fit
| through tiny openings.
|
| That's in the abstract as well: "Our design strengthens
| the robot while granting the ability to access narrow
| spaces by folding the structure - up to a volume
| expansion ratio of 19.8."
| m4rtink wrote:
| Talked to some local cave explorers once (Czech Republic
| has huge karst cave systems) and they mentioned they
| often hang from a rope on wet cave walls with power tools
| and rubber boots when making new parts of caves
| accessible, so they can press further to new parts.
|
| A floating lightning drone could be useful for that. :)
|
| You could combine this with inflatable light technology &
| the gas bag itself could be a source of illumination.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Particularly the multicopter is mass produced, cheap,
| mature and easy to buy and use.
| zeroping wrote:
| Many caves are not particularly wet , slippery, or prone to
| flooding. Only a few have issues with a lack of airflow. I
| understand the interest in robotic exploration for some
| specifically risky caves, but I don't like this
| generalization that implies all caves are too dangerous for
| humans to enter.
| ballenf wrote:
| > 5 Use case: cave exploration as an artistic manifestation
|
| I guess that's their answer, where calling it art is kind of a
| sophisticated way of saying "because it's cool". Also, the cave
| in question is close to them and somewhat recently discovered.
|
| Since even a moderate breeze would make this uncontrollable in
| open atmosphere, it seems like a cave is one of the only places
| this airship can be used. And even then many caves have strong
| drafts that could totally disrupt use.
| reginald78 wrote:
| I watch a lot of videos of caving and cave diving disasters.
| I've often thought how useful something like this would be for
| rescue operations, especially since a number of the stories
| feature the rescuers dying as well.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| That's a cool idea but I don't think it's er gonna fly. They
| should have gone for a flexible craft with a long, articulated
| body - like a snake. All those long, winding passages. The
| upright balloon can pass through them, but it can't deal with
| long _and_ low passages. A snake-like one could.
| fasa99 wrote:
| So the snak character build is +5 for narrow entries but is
| nerfed when the exit is a hole in the ceiling of a larger
| cavern, an area where the ballon is +8. Ultimately what we need
| is a hybrid build between ballon and snak, an inflatable snak
| ballon if you will, should be +3 on both. The second win is
| that snak motility can be driven by controlled focal
| inflation/deflation cycles.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| See https://www.vinerobots.org/ which work like a Hong Shou
| (tentacle monster, pronounced _shokushu_ ) from an H anime.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Looking at the pictures below, it does look like they need
| something more narrow for realistic cave use, but they probably
| will need greater lift than what they get with their current
| low surface area shape.
| ksymph wrote:
| I asked my friend who is in the cave search and rescue squad
| their thoughts, to paraphrase:
|
| It's cool, but they don't see what problem it solves.
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| Friend of mine is in business of storing natural gas in salt
| caverns (https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/storage/basics/). They
| do scan these by dropping a sonar in a drilled shaft, but this
| approach has limitations. Using a moving scanning airship might
| be helpful.
| idlephysicist wrote:
| Fair play to them, it's a detailed paper. But I'm not sure that
| this would have much practicality in other caves. The terrain
| just changes too quickly (most of the time).
| peppertree wrote:
| The idea is cool but none of the design decisions made sense. Why
| would you need carbon fiber struts. Airship that size doesn't
| have to deal with pressure changes there was no reason to be semi
| rigid. Where do you attach the sensor payload. Anywhere above the
| very bottom is going to be unstable with the vertical design. But
| that's also the worst place for vision & lidar sensors.
| krunck wrote:
| Good idea..for huge caves. I've been caving for 30+ years and I
| can tell you that a skilled and well equipped human will be able
| to explore more than one of these airships. Sometimes passages
| are obstructed by ceiling collapses. ( after water drains from
| the cave due to the lowering of the base level rock will fall off
| the ceiling due to the loss in buoyancy). Sometimes one needs to
| move a few rocks to get by. Sometimes you just need to squeeze
| and contort to get through. Sometimes you need you dig a bit of
| sediment because it fills a passage to the point of preventing
| preventing access.
|
| Having said all that, the one time when this would be helpful is
| when you enter a space with an extremely high ceiling. One can
| bolt up the wall see see what's there. But the better/easier way
| is to use a drone to do recon first.
| frontiersummit wrote:
| My caving experience is less than yours, but I want to echo
| what you say. The average person envisions spacious tourist
| caves, not belly-crawling 800 yards through muddy gravel which
| has been more my experience with wild caves in the American
| Midwest. Gear gets shredded in caves worse than maybe any other
| environment, and slows you down like nothing else.
| mead5432 wrote:
| Arxiv? More like ar-cave... amirite?
|
| Sorry; It doesn't contribute but I couldn't resist.
| ribs wrote:
| Clean out your desk
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(page generated 2024-09-20 23:01 UTC)