AI and Drones

Guinness World Record holder Peter Burke is integrating AI with drones. He won the Guinness World Record for farthest distance to control a drone when he managed it from halfway around the world at Réunion, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean. Burke talks about how drones are transforming warfare and how we can keep them safe with AI. Burke is a UC Irvine professor of electrical engineering and computer science. [Drone sound: Drone detected, Peter!] NATALIE TSO, HOST: That Peter is the Peter Burke who won the Guinness World Record for farthest distance to control a drone. The drone was at UC Irvine being controlled halfway around the world from Réunion, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean. Peter Burke is an electrical engineering professor at UC Irvine. His lab is now enabling AI to control drones. He tells me when he became fascinated with airplanes. PETER BURKER, UCI PROFESSOR: Probably twelve. TSO: And what did he love about them? BURKE: Everything. It's just a magic that you can go up in the air and stay in the air like a bird. My dad was in the Air Force, and I always grew up with planes flying around over my head, and I always wondered why not have them remote controlled? So I've always wanted to be a pilot. And I was too tall. My eyes weren't good enough. So I became an electrical engineering professor instead. TSO: Burke is six foot two and wears glasses. BURKE: Yeah, there's a height requirement for pilots. You have to fit in the cockpit and they have to have really good vision. So I was doing model airplanes. And then when drones first came out, I started building them in my garage just as a hobby. So that's how I got interested. TSO: And in 2022, he won the Guinness World Record. BURKE: There was a Guinness category, which is longest distance to fly a drone. What I needed was somebody far away that could help me. So I met somebody at a conference off the coast of Africa, which is almost on the other side of the world, and they agreed to help. TSO: What breakthrough enabled it to be controlled from 11,440 miles away? BURKE: It was getting the drone connected to the internet so that it could be controlled over the internet. TSO: Now he's on to the latest technology. BURKE: We're pushing the boundaries of how to integrate the drones with AI. One of the projects that we demonstrated in the recent preprint is to have an interface between the drone and basically a chatbot, where you just speak in plain English what you want the drone to do, and it converts that to commands to the drone to cause it to do what you ask it to do without writing any programs or anything like that. So, for example, take off or fly to the nearest grocery store. So we've demonstrated that integration with all 11 major providers Frontier models, open AI, Claude, Google, Gemini, etc. and a lot of the open source models. TSO: Now what about the talk about AI taking over drones and starting wars? BURKE: Well, I think that's a real risk, not just for drones, but for AI in general. I don't think banning AI is the answer. The short answer, I think, is to have some sort of a kill switch. For example, in our recent work, we have a kill switch. It's literally a button. I press it and the drone falls out of the air. But that will limit probably the capabilities of the positive side of AI if there's always a kill switch. So I don't think that's the long term solution. TSO: What's the next step for drone technology? BURKE: The rule right now is that drones aren't allowed to fly beyond visual line of sight, and that's for safety. So there's a need for technology that will prevent collisions between drones and manned aircraft that doesn't really exist. So my goal would be to try to enable that somehow. TSO: So the first application would be — BURKE: I think probably point-to-point deliveries are very likely to be successful. The civilian drone companies that are doing test drone deliveries in small areas are already flying more missions per week than major US airlines. So, for example, Zipline flies 5000 drone missions a week. Delta Air Lines flies fewer flights a week than that company, and that's one company in one city. I think search and rescue, inspection is also very likely. The big application now is military drones, because it has completely transformed the way wars are fought. TSO: How is it changing how wars are fought? BURKE: Small drones are being used on the battlefield for short range battles. It's become like WWI trench warfare where the soldiers can't leave the trench, In WWI they couldn't leave the trench because they'd be hit by guns. Now they can't leave the trench because they'd be hit by kamikaze drones. So there's a No Man's Land in Ukraine where soldiers don't go. And it's stabilized the lines. In the larger drones, they're used for long range attacks. They're hard to shoot down. And the primary reason is the economy, because they can be built very cheaply whereas to have a person in an airplane go chase them down is much more expensive. TSO: How does Burke think we can keep drones safe? BURKE: The best case scenario is to always have a human in control of any mission critical decision. As far as the Terminator scenario, where AI takes over all the robots and drones and takes over the world, I don't worry about that happening tomorrow. In general, I don't think that's feasible in the near future. [Sound: classroom chatter] TSO: Back in the classroom, students will learn how to build that Guinness Award-winning drone and integrate it with AI. [Burke teaching: Good morning, drone pilots. There's free food outside of the lab...] TSO: Meanwhile, electrical engineering and computer science student Lucas Li, who's a tutor for the course, tells me about how he got into drones. LUCAS LI, UCI STUDENT: So I started like building drones during Covid, and basically it went through like the entirety of my high school. I think at UCI, I joined UAV Forge. It's a senior design project, and we basically build a bigger drone to do autonomous payload drops and mapping. So I mean, it's been really fun. We got first in the US this year and last year, and on the side I do FPV drones. So like I, build and maintain a fleet about like 6 to 8 drones on a regular basis. And I just usually fly around like the back of my house and do like freestyle cinematography or like racing. [Drone : Loiter. Load change to loiter] TSO: And outdoors at the 20ft by 20ft drone cage on campus, they perform test flights. [Burke operating a drone: Now it's ready. Okay, here we go. Drone: Loiter mode. Terrain. Clamping offset. -39 to -30. Drone detected, Peter. Terrain. Clamping offset. -39. Burke: So that's GPS hold mode without any hands on it. It's just holding its position.] TSO: So how does UCI electrical engineering professor [Burke landing drone (Drone: Landing)] like being on the ground as a professor? [Drone: Disarmed.] BURKE: Oh, I love it. Yeah. It's the best job in the world. You get to push the frontiers of human knowledge, interact with young people that are enthusiastic and intelligent. And I wouldn't trade it for any other job. TSO: Thanks for joining me on The Lab Beat. I'm Natalie Tso. The Lab Beat is brought to you by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering.