Saturday, August 4, 2012

Dolphin Eye Tracking Experiment Via Robotic VTOL UAV


Not long ago, I wrote an interesting article about putting a dolphin inside of a tubular dirigible UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). The system would be set up where the dolphin could swim inside of the tubular dirigible, dock- up with a harness, and once in place, as soon as the dolphin tilted its body upward that would control the UAV to take off out of the water. Now then, in thinking through this concept a little more, it might be interesting to put a dolphin eye tracking system with in this innovative aircraft. Okay so let's talk shall we?
If the dolphin could fly and once it took off could control a tubular UAV, and if once it took off it could not land back on the water only fly very slow slightly above the water just out of range of the ability of other dolphins to jump on to the craft, then in that case the dolphin pilot would probably communicate with the other dolphins and it would tell them through their own clicking communication language, that it would fly up higher to look to see if they could find any fish schools. Once it got up to a few hundred feet, we could determine how the dolphin used it eyesight to look around and hunt for these fish schools.
There would have to be a misting system on the craft so the dolphin's eyes did not dry out. If the dolphin is fully capable of hunting and operating in this new 3-D environment, which it makes sense they would be because they already live in a 3-D environment, then we might learn quite a bit about how they go about their hunting, and how we might design advanced algorithms to do more business with the dolphins or have more interaction. It has been said and researched that artificially intelligent computer systems become even smarter when they work with the intuitive mind of a human.
The great IBM AI chess champion computer can beat a human no problem, even if they are the best player in the world, but a human + the AI computer can beat the AI computer alone by far and away.
Since the computer scientists have proven these studies work with humans interfacing with artificial intelligence, then certainly we can learn a lot by watching how the intuitive mind of the dolphin finds anomalies in the patterns of the waves, and what it looks for, and when it decides it wishes to focus on a certain area, and when it determines to go after it.
After all a dolphin flying around and controlling a dirigible UAV through its own body movements would spot a fish school, determine the size, and then turn the craft towards the fish school if they thought it were a viable size, worthy of going back and telling the other dolphins about. Do you see my point? Indeed I hope you will please consider this new innovative concept, and think on it.

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