两项技术进展或将掀起无人机行业革命

    各式各样的飞行机器人往来穿梭于半空之中，彻底改变了人们与世界的互动方式。这样一个前卫的理念越来越受到未来主义者和企业家的青睐。但人们往往忽视了无人机与生俱来的一个缺陷，即在没有人类控制的情况下，无人机基本上还处在“盲飞”状态。

    无人机在飞行方面基本上已经做得很好了，但它们仍然无法感知到附近空域的其它飞行器。几十架（乃至几百几千架）无人机在同一空域执行任务，同时还能自行躲避飞机和电线等障碍物，目前还是一个无法实现的畅想。所以绝大多数飞行器目前还需要人为操纵，“无人机满天飞”的概念现在看来不仅不现实，还具有相当的危险性。

    不过，拜两项并不算非常新奇，已经悄无声息地获得重大进展的技术所赐，这种情况在今年可能发生根本性变化。它们都不是全新的技术，但在成本和尺寸上却实现了惊人的平价化和小型化。这种新型的雷达和电子系统不仅将促进航空业的转型，同时也为真正的商用无人机革命打开了一扇门。

    第一项技术叫做广播式自动相关监视系统（ADS-B），大多数人一般只是在出现飞机失联事件（比如去年的马航370事件）后，才会在媒体上听到这个术语。

    ADS-B的造价非常昂贵，而且一般比较沉重，该技术不仅能通过卫星确定飞机自身位置，还能定期向外广播它的位置和航向。除了航空管制塔台之外，该空域内的其他飞机也能收到它的广播信号。ADS-B的自动性使它非常适用于无人机，因为它内置的电脑系统具备同时追踪多个飞机的多任务能力。

    各国航空管理部门正在缓慢而明确地推动ADS-B成为一项所有载人航空器必须配置的行业标准。目前并非所有的飞机都要安装ADS-B系统，比如去年失联的马航370就没有配备这项技术，而今年3月4日失事的“德国之翼”9525号航班则搭载了该技术。

    美国联邦航空局正计划为国内所有民航客机配备该技术，以进一步提高美国的航空安全。

    小型化和平价化的ADS-B系统不仅对整个航空业具有深远影响，同时对于无人机导航技术的发展也具有重大意义。如果ADS-B的零部件能够实现小型化和轻量化——当然更重要的是平价化，那么它也可能会成为商用无人机领域的行业标准。

    谷歌公司最近宣布，其工程师团队已经开始着手研发小型化、轻量化的ADS-B模块，而且成本将不超过2000美元。今年3月份，谷歌Wing项目主管戴夫•沃斯在国际民航组织表示：“我们将努力为市场提供真正低成本的ADS-B解决方案。”Wing项目的宗旨就是要打造具有商业可行性的货运无人机。

    有了成本不足2000美元的轻量化ADS-B模块，无人机将具备态势感知能力，从而使它们能够与其他无人机、载人机以及现有的航空管制系统安全地共享同一空域。

    另一方面，位于华盛顿州贝尔维尤市的Echodyne公司正在尝试将战斗机使用的扫描雷达系统安装在普通的四轴飞行器上。该公司已经找到了一种替代笨重的雷达移相器的方法：一款用特殊合成材料（所谓“超材料”）制成的新型设备。

    Echodyne公司已经在一台四轴无人机上展示了它的小型电子扫描雷达。它可以追踪地面上的某个人，或是在飞行中躲避障碍物，不过目前它仍然处于原型阶段。

    Echodyne公司技术总监汤姆•迪瑞斯科表示，他相信他的团队可以将这款雷达的尺寸做到只有一台iPhone 6 Plus大小，重量不超过1磅的设备——这对于目前市场上的大多数商用无人机来说已经够小了。另外，它的价格也远低于复杂的扫描阵雷达。迪瑞斯科对《财富》表示：“我们的雷达解决方案的价格将在几千到几万美元，不过我们认为1000美元以下的系统也是可行的。”

    如果达到这个价位，无论是否同时搭载ADS-B系统，这种360度的空间感知技术都将为无人机提供它们目前亟需的“感知与躲避”能力。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    审校：任文科

    The idea of skies filled with autonomous flying robots that change the way people interact with the world has grown in popularity amongst futurists and entrepreneurs alike. Largely absent from the public conversation is a discussion about the inherent shortcomings in unmanned aerial systems: namely that without a human pilot aerial vehicles are flying blind.

    Autonomous drones can fly extremely well, but they lack perception having zero awareness of other aircraft operating in their immediate vicinity. This makes the idea of dozens (hundreds, or even thousands) of commercial drones navigating the same airspace while avoiding obstacles like planes and power lines unfeasible. Factor in that the majority of aircrafts in the sky these days are manned and it becomes not only unrealistic but also potentially dangerous.

    But, this could be the year that all that change thanks to two decidedly unsexy technologies that are quietly undergoing mini-revolutions of their own. Neither is brand new, but both are falling precipitously in cost and size. These new breeds of radar and electronic systems could transform both the aviation industry and open the door to a genuine commercial drone revolution.

    The first technology, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (or ADS-B), is something most people only hear about after, say, an airliner vanishes like Malaysia Airlines 370 did last year.

    ADS-B is a pricey, and often heavy, on-board aircraft tracking technology that not only determines an aircraft’s own position in space via satellites, but also periodically broadcasts its position and direction. Each broadcast can be picked up not only by air traffic controller towers, but also critically by other aircraft in the area. The automated nature of ADS-B lends itself particularly well to robotic drones since computers are well-suited for the multitasking needed to track multiple aircraft at one time.

    Transportation authorities are slowly but surely moving toward making ADS-B an industry standard for all manned commercial aviation. Currently, ADS-B isn’t required on all aircraft. The still-missing Malaysia Airlines jet was not equipped with the technology, while GermanWings flight 9525 was

    In the U.S. plans are in place to add the technology to all flights as part of the FAA’s NextGen strategy to upgrade national airspace due to the enhanced safety it imparts.

    Small and inexpensive ADS-B units don’t just have major implications for general aviation but for unmanned navigation and guidance as well. If ADS-B components can be made small, lightweight and—most importantly—inexpensive, they could become industry standard for commercial drones as well.

    Enter Google GOOG -1.66% , which recently announced that its engineers have set out to develop small, lightweight ADS-B units that cost less than $2,000. “We think that—and we are going to do this—we will head-down the trajectory of putting into the marketplace really, really low-cost ADS-B solutions,” Dave Vos, the director of Google’s Project Wing, said during the International Civil Aviation Organization in March. Project Wing is Google’s latest initiative aimed at developing viable commercial delivery drones.

    Lightweight, sub-$2,000 ADS-B units would create situational awareness for drones allowing them to fly in shared airspace with both unmanned aviation and manned aviation as well as existing air traffic control systems.

    Similarly, a company out of Bellevue, Wa. called Echodyne is developing a way to incorporate the same kind of sophisticated scanning beam radar used by fighter jets—to scan and track objects—into the average quadrotor. The company has found a way to replace the typically bulky apparatus that directs radio waves—a mechanism known as a phase shifter—and replace it with a novel new device made from highly-tuned synthetic materials known as metamaterials.

    Echodyne has already been able to demonstrate a small electronically scanning radar on a quadrotor drone, one capable of tracking an individual on the ground or avoiding obstacles during flight, but is still prototyping.

    Echodyne’s CTO Tom Driscoll says he is confident that he and his team can get the size down to roughly that of an iPhone6 Plus and the weight down to less than one pound—plenty small for most commercially available drones on the market today. Moreover, the cost will be such that commercial drones could come standard with sophisticated scanning array radar. “Our canned answer is that Echodyne will be providing radar solutions in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars,” Driscoll tells Fortune. “But we can feasibly see a sub-$1,000 system.”

    A 360-degree spatial awareness at that price point could—either alongside ADS-B or independent of it—provide the “sense-and-avoid” capability that drones today sorely lack.