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Russia Launches First Brain-Chipped Bird Drones for Surveillance Over Cities (united24media.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] [S] 2 points 9 months ago (13 children)

Indeed "thousands of km" is far fetched:

some of which are expected to be sent thousands of kilometers away while others remain in Moscow for further trials.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (12 children)

    Well... The electronics are solar powered, so it's not like batteries would run out. I'm not sure there are really limits on the flight range of a pigeon. I have to assume they'd be allowed to eat.

    I don't think they could cross an ocean.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 9 months ago (11 children)

    How would they be controlled though?

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (10 children)

    I have no idea, controlling an animal's brain is obviously the hard part too believe. But I don't see how that affects their range. It's a bird, birds naturally migrate thousands of miles.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (9 children)

    It would effect their range because they would either need heavy equipment, like a fuckin star link dish strapped to their backs, or heavy radio equipment of some kind or something. Even if the "brain chip" is microscopic, you still need it to be able to send and receive a signal I would think, unless they intend to just operate it when it happens to be near a WiFi signal or something I guess?

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (7 children)

    Cruise missiles often use pre-programmed guidance systems, or total automation with just set of GPS waypoints to reach. That's a pretty sensible appropriate because the nature of the device is as a long range weapon that often ventures far into enemy territory. If you needed to stay in constant communication, radio jamming would become a serious liability. I'd imagine this is very similar in its design goals, so they'd likely use a similar approach.

    At any rate, I don't expect the guidance to be the hard part, GPS navigation is not that hard to implement. (or GLONASS, in this particular case)

    Also... If the US were doing this, they actually could use star link. Star link direct to cell phone connectivity is actually in beta right now and it works. If the pigeon could carry a striped down iPhone (it doesn't need a screen, speaker, microphone, etc), then it could actually carry a communications device that could be in constant contact. I wouldn't recommend Russia try that on starlink though, given that it's an American company.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (6 children)

    Or you could I dunno, use a drone? What benefit is there to use a pigeon for any of this? The issue isn't the payload it's the platform.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

    Sure, fine. At no point was I making any argument for or against this technology. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, maybe it's a waste of time, maybe it's the future of aerial surveillance, maybe it's just propaganda.

    The only argument I'm making here is that there's nothing far fetched about a pigeon flying thousands of kilometers, that's totally normal. I'm pretty confident in this because I have first hand evidence that birds are actually really good at flying, and sometimes they fly very long distances.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    So no benefit for using a pigeon.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

    Did you read my comment? My entire point was essentially that I don't care. I'm not weighing in on that.

    Edit: Though, I take that back now, just because you made such a big assertion, I'll play devil's advocate.

    Let's say you were using a drone for surveillance, what kind of range can you get in a drone? Looking around online, it appears that 200 km is considered extreme range for commercial drones, it's hard to find anything greater than that. That said, military drones tend to have much greater range upwards of 1500 km.

    On the other hand, I see no maximum range for a pigeon, at all. There's a maximum distance it can travel per day and a maximum distance between landings that will keep it from crossing oceans. But that's it.

    Secondly, a drone can be shot down. If spotted it will be targeted. So they're vulnerable. The pigeon on the other hand, if spotted, it will be ignored - because it's a pigeon. It's essentially a perfect stealth platform.

    So there are two potential advantages if someone got this to work. There would of course also be drawbacks, and ultimately, who knows if it would turn out to be a viable system. But saying there's "no benefit" is silly.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Happy we agree there's no material benefit to using live animals to do an imperfect job of what cheap drones are already doing.

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