Is that really just a fly? Swarms of cyborg insect drones are the future of military surveillance

By Daily Mail Reporter

The kinds of drones making the headlines daily are the heavily armed CIA and U.S. Army vehicles which routinely strike targets in Pakistan - killing terrorists and innocents alike.

But the real high-tech story of surveillance drones is going on at a much smaller level, as tiny remote controlled vehicles based on insects are already likely being deployed.

Over recent years a range of miniature drones, or micro air vehicles (MAVs), based on the same physics used by flying insects, have been presented to the public.

The fear kicked off in 2007 when reports of bizarre flying objects hovering above anti-war protests sparked accusations that the U.S. government was accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies.

Official denials and suggestions from entomologists that they were actually dragonflies failed to quell speculation, and Tom Ehrhard, a retired Air Force colonel and expert on unmanned aerial craft, told the Daily Telegraph at the time that 'America can be pretty sneaky.'

The following year, the US Air Force unveiled insect-sized spies 'as tiny as bumblebees' that could not be detected and would be able to fly into buildings to 'photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.'

Around the same time the Air Force also unveiled what it called 'lethal mini-drones' based on Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints for his Ornithopter flying machine, and claimed they would be ready for roll out by 2015.

That announcement was five years ago and, since the U.S. military is usually pretty cagey about its technological capabilities, it raises the question as to what it is keeping under wraps.

The University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab recently showed off drones that swarm, a network of 20 nano quadrotors flying in synchronized formations.

The SWARMS goal is to combine swarm technology with bio-inspired drones to operate 'with little or no direct human supervision' in 'dynamic, resource-constrained, adversarial environments.'

However, it is most likely the future of hard-to-detect drone surveillance will mimic nature.

Research suggests that the mechanics of insects can be reverse-engineered to design midget machines to scout battlefields and search for victims trapped in rubble.

Scientists have taken their inspiration from animals which have evolved over millennia to the perfect conditions for flight.

Nano-biomimicry MAV design has long been studied by DARPA, and in 2008 the U.S. government's military research agency conducted a symposium discussing 'bugs, bots, borgs and bio-weapons.'

Researchers have now developed bio-inspired drones with bug eyes, bat ears, bird wings, and even honeybee-like hairs to sense biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

And the U.S. isn't the only country to have poured money into spy drone miniaturisation. France has developed flapping wing bio-inspired microdrones.

The Netherlands BioMAV (Biologically Inspired A.I. for Micro Aerial Vehicles) developed a Parrot AR Drone last year - which is now available in the U.S. as a 'flying video game'.

Not so tiny but a good spy: A ShadowHawk drone with SWAT team members

Zoologist Richard Bomphrey, of Oxford University, has conducted research to generate new insight into how insect wings have evolved over the last 350 million years.

He said last year: 'Nature has solved the problem of how to design miniature flying machines.

'By learning those lessons, our findings will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they are as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings.'

The insect manoeuvrability which allows flies the ability to land precisely and fly off again at speed may one day prove a crucial tactical advantage in wars and could even save lives in disasters.

The military would like to develop tiny robots that can fly inside caves and barricaded rooms to send back real-time intelligence about the people and weapons inside.

Dr Bomphrey said: 'Scary spider robots were featured in Michael Crichton's 1980s film Runaway - but our robots will be much more scaled down and look more like the quidditch ball in the Harry Potter films, because of its ability to hover and flutter.

'The problem for scientists at the moment is that aircrafts can't hover and helicopters can't go fast. And it is impossible to make them very small.

'With insects you get a combination of both these assets in miniature. And when you consider we have been flying for just over a hundred years as opposed to 350 million years, I would say it is they who have got it right, and not us!'

Beware the spy in the sky: After those Street View snoopers, Google and Apple use planes that can film you sunbathing in your back garden

Software giants will use military-grade cameras to take powerful satellite images

By Vanessa Allen

Spy planes able to photograph sunbathers in their back gardens are being deployed by Google and Apple.

The U.S. technology giants are racing to produce aerial maps so detailed they can show up objects just four inches wide.

But campaigners say the technology is a sinister development that brings the surveillance society a step closer.

Google admits it has already sent planes over cities while Apple has acquired a firm using spy-in-the-sky technology that has been tested on at least 20 locations, including London.

Apple’s military-grade cameras are understood to be so powerful they could potentially see into homes through skylights and windows. The technology is similar to that used by intelligence agencies in identifying terrorist targets in Afghanistan.

Google will use its spy planes to help create 3D maps with much more detail than its satellite-derived Google Earth images.

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, warned that privacy risked being sacrificed in a commercial ‘race to the bottom’.

‘The next generation of maps is taking us over the garden fence,’ he warned. ‘You won’t be able to sunbathe in your garden without worrying about an Apple or Google plane buzzing overhead taking pictures.’

He said householders should be asked for their consent before images of their homes go online. Apple is expected to unveil its new mapping applications for its iPhone and other devices today – along with privacy safeguards. Its 3D maps will reportedly show for the first time the sides of tall buildings, such as the Big Ben clock tower.

Google expects by the end of the year to have 3D coverage of towns and cities with a combined population of 300million. It has not revealed any locations so far.

Current 3D mapping technology relies on aerial images taken at a much lower resolution than the technology Apple is thought to be using. This means that when users ‘zoom in’, details tend to be lost because of the poor image quality.

Google ran into trouble when it emerged that its Street View cars, which gathered ground-level panoramic photographs for Google Maps, had also harvested personal data from household wifi networks.

Emails, text messages, photographs and documents were taken from unsecured wifi networks all around Britain.

Google claimed it was a mistake even though a senior manager was warned as early as 2007 that the extra information was being captured. Around one in four home networks is thought to be unsecured because they lack password protection.

Little has been revealed about the technology involved in the spy planes used to capture the aerial images.

But they are thought to be able to photograph around 40 square miles every hour, suggesting they would be flying too quickly and at too great a height to access domestic wifi networks.

Like Google Maps, the resulting images would not be streamed live to computers but would provide a snapshot image of the moment the camera passed by.

Google pixellates faces and car number plates but faced criticism after its service showed one recognisable man leaving a sex shop and another being sick in the street.

Amie Stepanovich, of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre in America, said she believed Apple and Google would be forced to blur out homes in the same way Street View pixellates faces.

She said: ‘With satellite images, privacy is built in because you can’t zoom down into a garden. Homeowners need to be asked to opt in to show their property in high definition – otherwise it should be blurred out.’

Apple has previously used Google for its mapping services but last year it emerged it had bought C3 Technologies, a 3D mapping company that uses technology developed by Saab AB, the aerospace and defence company.

At the time C3 had already mapped 20 cities and it is believed to have added more with Apple’s backing. Its photographs have been shot from 1,600ft and one C3 executive described it as ‘Google on steroids’.

There are already 3D maps available online for most big city centres, but the images are often low resolution, meaning they are of little use for navigation and users cannot zoom in on detail.

Critics have argued that Apple and Google will face a backlash if they offer detailed 3D mapping of residential areas in suburbs and rural locations.

Mass Transit Cameras Spot Bad Guys, No Human Judgment Required

 A new camera system for San Francisco's MUNI system will use algorithms and machine learning to track and monitor commuters. Can computer programs predict bad guys... and what will they be looking for?

By Neal Ungerleider

A new breed of security cameras can supposedly detect terrorism and crime without a human judgment call--and mass transit agencies are shelling out big bucks for the product. San Francisco's Municipal Transit Authority, which oversees the city's MUNI trains, has signed a contract with security firm BRS Labs to deploy cameras to 12 subway stations that use algorithms and machine learning techniques to spot anomalous behavior.

BRS Labs is a security firm that provides behavior recognition software for video surveillance. The company's clients include government, tourist attractions, military bases, and private industry; BRS's software issues real-time text alerts when cameras detect strange behavior. Servers connected to security cameras observe locations for weeks at a time and then establish a baseline of “normal” behavior based on this timespan; anomalous activities afterwards (loitering, abandoned packages, abnormally high/low numbers of passengers) trigger an alert. No tripwires or programming of initial parameters are required.

According to a publicly available product bid, the San Francisco MUNI project will include up to 22 connected cameras at each train station; video monitoring will be conducted by train control, MUNI Metro East facility, and in-station personnel. The video systems will build memories of observed behavior patterns that mature with time; the systems, in the bid's words, “[have] the capability to learn from what [they] observe.”

In an interview with Fast Company, BRS Labs President John Frazzini said that the company's AIsight behavior recognition product relies on 11 patents related to computer vision technology and surveillance imagery. BRS's patents primarily deal with the intersection between computer vision and machine learning; video footage grabbed by MUNI cameras will be automatically translated into code for real-time processing. Clips of anomalous activity are dispatched to MUNI employees automatically; SMS text message alerts are also sent to staffers' mobile phones.

The post-9/11 emphasis on “homeland security” and anti-terrorism efforts has resulted in a gold rush of surveillance contracts from mass transit agencies and public institutions nationwide. While large mass transit agencies such as New York's MTA and Chicago's CTA have been cagey about their counter-terrorism efforts, trade show presentations and chatter in industry publications have given a basic idea of what is happening. Apart from machine learning-based video surveillance, subway security has also taken on wackier (and scarier) aspects: The Homeland Security Department has publicly announced their plans to release bacteria into Boston T tunnels this summer in order to test new biological weapon detectors deployed throughout the subway system.

The same technology that's being deployed in San Francisco's subway is also intended for the global market. BRS, which is based in Houston, has overseas offices in London, Sao Paulo, and Barcelona. BRS Labs' AISight product is primarily intended for use in counter-terrorism efforts. AISight's software algorithm has limited success in detecting in-station muggings or subway perverts, two issues of much more immediate interest to mass transit ridership than terrorist attacks.

Another unique aspect of BRS's product is the fact that it heavily relies on timestamps and time recognition. Behavior and objects are coded according to the times of day or days of the week in which they most frequently occur; the velocity, acceleration, and path of customers passing through a station are analyzed as well. Spatial anomalies and classification anomalies are taken into account as well.

One worrying--or appealing to budget-minded clients--aspect of BRS's product is the fact that their software product sharply reduces the need for human camera maintenance. The algorithms behind AISight compensate for lighting changes, shaky images, and poor bandwidth. Between the automated evaluation of “anomalies” and their software-based maintenance process, the need for human supervision for effective software operation sharply declines.

BRS's promotional literature promises that their software product can accurately detect loitering in unusual places at train stations, abandoned objects, and “tailgating” at entrances.

Verified customers of BRS's system beyond the SFMTA include the City of Houston, Boeing, the Louisiana Port Commission, the City of Birmingham (AL), and security contractors for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Publicly available documents indicate that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is deploying BRS's technology for a pilot project at the World Trade Center as well. Fast Company is based at the World Trade Center complex.