It's pretty rare that I have an occasion to congratulate Hugo Chavez's government on anything, especially anything related to the War on Terror. But two cheers are in order for Venezuela's capture of the leader of an international terror organization which looks to be responsible for an attack on a U.S. embassy last month.
Teodoro Darnott, aka "Sheidy Daniel," thought he was immune from Hugo's attentions. Darnott, in the remote Zulia section of Venezuela, near the Colombian border, had begun preaching a weird fusion of militant Islam, Marxist theory, and even a sprinkling of Catholic "Liberation Theology" to a group of disaffected Indians. He detested the United States and Israel and called for jihad -- or in Spanish, "yihad," against their interests in Latin America.
Sheidy Daniel called his group "Hezbollah Latin America" -- a dangerous choice given that the "real" Hezbollah operates quietly in Venezuela, though primarily in ventures designed to raise cash for its Middle Eastern operations. Claiming an association with Hezbollah is like claiming membership with a New York crime family in order to get better service in a restaurant: if you do so, the claim ought to be true, or you must really be looking for trouble. Darnott denied receiving funding from Hezbollah's Lebanon HQ, but he was allowed to go about unmolested while using Hezbollah's name in his very successful organizing and bomb-making -- and his less successful bomb-planting.
Not content to rally his tiny section of followers to jihadi mayhem in Venezuela, Darnott took Hezbollah in Latin America to the Internet. Using free web services like Blogspot and MSN Groups, he set up multiple mirrored websites which guaranteed that even if a few of his sites were taken down he would still have a web presence. And he began advertising: he sent an invitation to join his MSN group to people across the globe, including, for some reason, to me.
Darnott's jihadi message attracted followers in several Latin American countries, including (according to his website) Mexico, and his rhetoric became more violent as well. On August 18th he announced his intention to use explosives against American interests in Venezuela. I called the FBI the next day, but heard nothing new about his bomb plans until October 3. (In the meantime I put together a detailed two-part report about the group for HotAir.com, both parts of which you can see here.)
October 3 was the anniversary of the Hezbollah bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, and a student named Jose Miguel Reyes Espinosa allegedly decided to commemorate the event by setting off two pipe bombs in front of the U.S. Embassy. The nervous Reyes sent his taxi driver into a panic, however, and he was arrested. The recovered pipe bombs (or niples in local parlance) were found to include leaflets referring to Hezbollah -- exactly as Hezbollah Latin America's sites had warned. Subsequent postings on the sites removed any doubt in my mind that Darnott was the mastermind behind these attacks.
Then things took a turn for the strange. On November 13th, Darnott posted a short screed claiming that Reyes had been assassinated by the CIA and the Mossad while in DISIP custody. He called for a much more serious and damaging attack in retaliation, and the site now included a picture of a propane-cylinder device that would probably be much more lethal than the pipe bombs used in the failed October 3rd attack. He also posted a picture of U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield with an annotation that he was "worthy of death." Since the failed attempt in October corresponded precisely to prior warnings on the websites, this new threat was worth taking very seriously.
That was the last posting he would make for a while. Now we know why: On November 18th, the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal reported that the DISIP -- Venezuela's FBI -- had detained a Teodoro Rafael "Nardot" (sic) in a suburb of Maracaibo. He was charged in connection with the October 3rd bombing and with violations of Venezuela's "delinquent organizations" law, and remains in DISIP custody -- along with Jose Miguel Reyes Espinosa, the tales of whose martyrdom by the CIA and Mossad were, apparently, greatly exaggerated.
Darnott will have some time to contemplate where he went wrong. It wasn't the terrorist recruiting, per se, that led to his arrest. Chavez is reported to look the other way for another terrorist group, Colombia's FARC, who occasionally find refuge from Colombian troops by lying low in Venezuela. Projecting power throughout Latin America through a proxy terror group might actually appeal to Chavez's ambition.
But terrorists within Venezuela need to keep a low profile. No one wanted a buffoon like Darnott drawing attention to Hezbollah's presence. Chavez is drawing ever closer to Iran, Hezbollah's chief sponsor, and before this story broke reporters had already begun to question the relationship between the Iranian embassy in Venezuela and Hezbollah's activities there. Given a likely Iranian-embassy connection to Hezbollah's 1994 bombing of a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, such scrutiny is quite justified. Darnott's anti-Israel and anti-American activities stirred up resistance among the local synagogues, and attracted attention in the blogosphere and on Fox News.
Also, while Chavez frequently relies on a mythical impending U.S. invasion as an excuse for further tightening his control over his country, the last thing he wants is an actual U.S. invasion. A major strike against an American embassy or ambassador would have invited retaliation from the United States, especially since Darnott was able to recruit terrorists publicly and with impunity all summer long and Chavez had done nothing about him.
El Universal's writeup includes an admission by a DISIP officer that Darnott had been under investigation for three months -- and interestingly, his arrest was almost three months to the day from when I reported the bomb threat to the FBI. I've no way of knowing this, but I like to think that the FBI let the DISIP know they were interested in Darnott -- and thereby made him that much harder for Chavez to ignore.
However this arrest came about, the story is not over, since there still several other Hezbollah in Latin America cells that Darnott set up in different countries that bear watching. And his relationship to the Hezbollah Home Office needs to be clarified. But for now I'm quite pleased that this callow bozo is safely in the calabozo.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Why We Need to Talk to Iran by Walter Isaacson
Iran last week decided to play power broker. It invited Iraq's President to visit Tehran to discuss regional stability, and it sought to bring Syria into the process as well. This was not greeted with glee in Washington. But it should have been. One of America's top strategic interests is to get Iran to behave less like a revolutionary cauldron and more like a traditional nation-state. For the mullahs and their mad President to express a desire for a stable neighborhood is a good first step.
Step two should involve the U.S. talking, directly and seriously, to Iran. Our current conceit, which is that Iran should be denied the honor of our direct discourse until it suspends its nuclear-enrichment programs, hurts us more than it hurts Iran. For 27 years we have relied on unilateral sanctions and diplomatic chilliness to persuade Iran to moderate its behavior and forsake its nuclear ambitions. That hasn't exactly worked.
Direct talks with Iran will not persuade it to abandon its nuclear dreams right away. Even the slightly saner predecessors of President Ahmadinejad surreptitiously proceeded down the nuclear path despite pledges to do otherwise. Given Persia's precarious location and imperial impulses, I dare say that even our late unlamented friend the Shah was and would be doing the same.
When a problem is for the moment unsolvable, then enlarge it. (O.K., this is a Donald Rumsfeld maxim, but that doesn't make it inoperative.) One precedent is the opening to China negotiated by Henry Kissinger, which did not try to settle such intractable issues as the status of Taiwan but instead created a framework for a realistic long-term relationship involving both cooperation and contention.
Talks with Tehran should begin, without preconditions, by discussing such a framework while getting Iran involved in keeping the chaos in Iraq from ripping apart the region, just as Iran helped stabilize Afghanistan after the defeat of our mutual enemy the Taliban. We should then permit commercial deals with Iran's small private sector, which could build a middle-class constituency for stability and greater integration into the world economy. Who knows? Perhaps this could even lead to accession talks with the World Trade Organization. In the process, Iranians will see more clearly the benefits of being treated as a responsible global player. Only then might we have enough leverage to convince the nation's leaders that there's a downside to flouting the world on the nuclear issue.
President Ahmadinejad has the advantage of looking like a poet, sounding like a lunatic and not caring whether the West likes him. But Iran has multiple power centers. There's an election next month, for example, in which a reformist former President is challenging a fundamentalist cleric to join the Assembly of Experts that oversees Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. About 70% of the population is under 30, and there are at least 70,000 active blogs expressing all sorts of aspirations of a diverse people, including ones by the President (ahmadinejad.ir) and Supreme Leader (khamenei.ir).
That is why, in addition to government talks, it's useful to have informal contacts with the Iranian people. I was with President Bush in New Orleans a month ago, and he got to talking about the ravings of Ahmadinejad, but he knows not to personify relations the way he once did with Russia's Vladimir Putin. That is why he has called for, and Congress has funded, citizen exchanges with Iran. A delegation of health experts from Iran, whose AIDS program is one of the best in the region, will soon visit the U.S. under the auspices of the State Department's international visitors program and the Aspen Institute, where I work.
Engagement with Iran should be done in partnership with our allies in the region, namely Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They can help keep the Iranians (and Syrians) in check and look after Sunni interests. That requires one other ingredient: reigniting efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace, if and when the Palestinians form a new government willing to deal with Israel. The Israelis understand this; Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has informally talked to the Saudis about relaunching their Arab peace plan.
Who best to choreograph all this? Jim Baker. The Iraq Study Group, which he chairs with Lee Hamilton, plans to recommend a process along these lines, and his associates say that Baker would be willing to help implement it as a special envoy if the President offers him enough authority. That might be resisted by Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council staffer who coordinates Middle East policy, and Baker would not accept the job unless this is resolved. But Condoleezza Rice, who has pushed for a comprehensive diplomatic approach to the region, might be supportive, even enthusiastic. She knows that the Administration needs to salvage a foreign policy legacy beyond the botched war in Iraq.
Step two should involve the U.S. talking, directly and seriously, to Iran. Our current conceit, which is that Iran should be denied the honor of our direct discourse until it suspends its nuclear-enrichment programs, hurts us more than it hurts Iran. For 27 years we have relied on unilateral sanctions and diplomatic chilliness to persuade Iran to moderate its behavior and forsake its nuclear ambitions. That hasn't exactly worked.
Direct talks with Iran will not persuade it to abandon its nuclear dreams right away. Even the slightly saner predecessors of President Ahmadinejad surreptitiously proceeded down the nuclear path despite pledges to do otherwise. Given Persia's precarious location and imperial impulses, I dare say that even our late unlamented friend the Shah was and would be doing the same.
When a problem is for the moment unsolvable, then enlarge it. (O.K., this is a Donald Rumsfeld maxim, but that doesn't make it inoperative.) One precedent is the opening to China negotiated by Henry Kissinger, which did not try to settle such intractable issues as the status of Taiwan but instead created a framework for a realistic long-term relationship involving both cooperation and contention.
Talks with Tehran should begin, without preconditions, by discussing such a framework while getting Iran involved in keeping the chaos in Iraq from ripping apart the region, just as Iran helped stabilize Afghanistan after the defeat of our mutual enemy the Taliban. We should then permit commercial deals with Iran's small private sector, which could build a middle-class constituency for stability and greater integration into the world economy. Who knows? Perhaps this could even lead to accession talks with the World Trade Organization. In the process, Iranians will see more clearly the benefits of being treated as a responsible global player. Only then might we have enough leverage to convince the nation's leaders that there's a downside to flouting the world on the nuclear issue.
President Ahmadinejad has the advantage of looking like a poet, sounding like a lunatic and not caring whether the West likes him. But Iran has multiple power centers. There's an election next month, for example, in which a reformist former President is challenging a fundamentalist cleric to join the Assembly of Experts that oversees Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. About 70% of the population is under 30, and there are at least 70,000 active blogs expressing all sorts of aspirations of a diverse people, including ones by the President (ahmadinejad.ir) and Supreme Leader (khamenei.ir).
That is why, in addition to government talks, it's useful to have informal contacts with the Iranian people. I was with President Bush in New Orleans a month ago, and he got to talking about the ravings of Ahmadinejad, but he knows not to personify relations the way he once did with Russia's Vladimir Putin. That is why he has called for, and Congress has funded, citizen exchanges with Iran. A delegation of health experts from Iran, whose AIDS program is one of the best in the region, will soon visit the U.S. under the auspices of the State Department's international visitors program and the Aspen Institute, where I work.
Engagement with Iran should be done in partnership with our allies in the region, namely Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They can help keep the Iranians (and Syrians) in check and look after Sunni interests. That requires one other ingredient: reigniting efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace, if and when the Palestinians form a new government willing to deal with Israel. The Israelis understand this; Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has informally talked to the Saudis about relaunching their Arab peace plan.
Who best to choreograph all this? Jim Baker. The Iraq Study Group, which he chairs with Lee Hamilton, plans to recommend a process along these lines, and his associates say that Baker would be willing to help implement it as a special envoy if the President offers him enough authority. That might be resisted by Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council staffer who coordinates Middle East policy, and Baker would not accept the job unless this is resolved. But Condoleezza Rice, who has pushed for a comprehensive diplomatic approach to the region, might be supportive, even enthusiastic. She knows that the Administration needs to salvage a foreign policy legacy beyond the botched war in Iraq.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Iran tells Talabani that US-led forces must leave Iraq by Farhad Pouladi
Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei told visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that US-led forces had to leave Iraq if security was to be restored in the violence-riven country.
"The first step to solve the security issue in Iraq is the exit of the occupiers from this country and leaving the security issues to the people-based Iraqi government," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.
"Americans will absolutely not succeed in Iraq and the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow," Khamenei said Tuesday during a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
"The main reason for the current situation in Iraq is the US policies that are being carried out by some intermediaries," the Iranian leader said.
He put the blame for Iraq's insecurity on "some US agents in the region who are mediators of these policies".
"Reinforcing terrorist groups and inflaming the wave of insecurity and killings in Iraq will be very dangerous for the US agents and the region," Khamenei said.
He also pledged that the Islamic republic would come to Iraq's assistance if requested.
"If the Iraqi government asks, Iran will not refrain from any action to establish stability and security in this country."
"Americans will absolutely not succeed in Iraq and the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow," Khamenei told him.
Talabani, paying a three-day official visit to the Shiite-dominated neighbouring country, has acknowledged he came to seek Tehran's help in curbing bloodshed which is increasingly being perceived as civil war.
During his trip to Tehran, Talabani also received fresh vows of assistance from his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stem the violence in war-torn Iraq.
Washington and London, whose forces are battling insurgents in Iraq, accuse Tehran of fomenting the sectarian conflict.
Iran has strongly denied meddling in Iraq, insisting repeatedly that the Iraqi conflict will be resolved if the occupation forces pull out of Iraq.
At a meeting with Talabani on Monday, Ahmadinejad promised to do all his country could. "We will help our Iraqi brothers with all that we can to implement and reinforce security in Iraq," the Iranian president said.
Talabani told reporters as he arrived in Tehran: "We need Iran's comprehensive help to fight terrorism, restore security and stabilize Iraq."
The Iraqi president, whose Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has in the past been backed by Iran, made a landmark visit to Tehran in November 2005. He said at the time he had won Iran's promise of support for his government's battle with insurgents.
His latest plea for help came as a fresh outbreak of violence left dozens dead across Iraq. The bodies of at least 40 people bearing torture marks were recovered after being dumped in various parts of the capital.
The Iran visit coincides with a flurry of diplomatic activity to try to resolve the worsening situation in Iraq, with US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki set to meet Wednesday in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Washington's staunch ally Britain on Monday condemned what it called Iran's behaviour in inciting violence in Iraq.
British Defence Secretary Des Browne warned the Islamic republic against seeing Iraq as a "tool in a wider confrontation" -- a reference to US-led efforts to force Tehran to curb its nuclear plans which the West suspects hide ambitions for nuclear weapons.
Tehran insists its atomic plans are only for civilian use.
"The first step to solve the security issue in Iraq is the exit of the occupiers from this country and leaving the security issues to the people-based Iraqi government," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.
"Americans will absolutely not succeed in Iraq and the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow," Khamenei said Tuesday during a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
"The main reason for the current situation in Iraq is the US policies that are being carried out by some intermediaries," the Iranian leader said.
He put the blame for Iraq's insecurity on "some US agents in the region who are mediators of these policies".
"Reinforcing terrorist groups and inflaming the wave of insecurity and killings in Iraq will be very dangerous for the US agents and the region," Khamenei said.
He also pledged that the Islamic republic would come to Iraq's assistance if requested.
"If the Iraqi government asks, Iran will not refrain from any action to establish stability and security in this country."
"Americans will absolutely not succeed in Iraq and the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow," Khamenei told him.
Talabani, paying a three-day official visit to the Shiite-dominated neighbouring country, has acknowledged he came to seek Tehran's help in curbing bloodshed which is increasingly being perceived as civil war.
During his trip to Tehran, Talabani also received fresh vows of assistance from his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stem the violence in war-torn Iraq.
Washington and London, whose forces are battling insurgents in Iraq, accuse Tehran of fomenting the sectarian conflict.
Iran has strongly denied meddling in Iraq, insisting repeatedly that the Iraqi conflict will be resolved if the occupation forces pull out of Iraq.
At a meeting with Talabani on Monday, Ahmadinejad promised to do all his country could. "We will help our Iraqi brothers with all that we can to implement and reinforce security in Iraq," the Iranian president said.
Talabani told reporters as he arrived in Tehran: "We need Iran's comprehensive help to fight terrorism, restore security and stabilize Iraq."
The Iraqi president, whose Patriotic Union of Kurdistan has in the past been backed by Iran, made a landmark visit to Tehran in November 2005. He said at the time he had won Iran's promise of support for his government's battle with insurgents.
His latest plea for help came as a fresh outbreak of violence left dozens dead across Iraq. The bodies of at least 40 people bearing torture marks were recovered after being dumped in various parts of the capital.
The Iran visit coincides with a flurry of diplomatic activity to try to resolve the worsening situation in Iraq, with US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki set to meet Wednesday in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Washington's staunch ally Britain on Monday condemned what it called Iran's behaviour in inciting violence in Iraq.
British Defence Secretary Des Browne warned the Islamic republic against seeing Iraq as a "tool in a wider confrontation" -- a reference to US-led efforts to force Tehran to curb its nuclear plans which the West suspects hide ambitions for nuclear weapons.
Tehran insists its atomic plans are only for civilian use.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
MIT 'Air Force' could help perfect Unmanned Craft by Peter J. Howe
Who says battery-powered airplanes have to be outdoor toys?
Not aeronautics professor Jonathan How of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , who along with a team of students this fall has turned an MIT lab into a first-of-its-kind US test bed for "unmanned aerial vehicles" that, with the help of computers, fly themselves.
It's undeniably fun, How admits, to get away with flying a model helicopter inside. But his team's work, sponsored by aircraft giant Boeing Co.'s Phantom Works research unit, could one day help revolutionize one of the fastest-growing sectors of the aviation industry, remote-controlled flying devices that are increasingly being used for everything from warfare and border surveillance to battling forest fires and doing seismic testing for oil deposits.
Teal Group , an aerospace and defense market-analysis firm in Fairfax, Va., recently projected that worldwide spending on unmanned aerial vehicles and related systems will represent a $55 billion worldwide market over the next 10 years. Annual spending on flying drone systems could triple, to $8.3 billion in 2016 from $2.7 billion now.
The new MIT indoor flying lab is helping to simplify one of the biggest challenges to wider deployment of unmanned vehicles: developing the very complex, perfectly reliable software and telecommunications systems to manage a fleet of flying devices and keep them from crashing into each other.
"Ultimately, when you are taking these devices out into real-world applications, you want people to perform a task like surveillance of the border. You don't want them spending a lot of time figuring out how to fly the vehicle," How said.
To test and debug a multiple-vehicle flying system outdoors normally requires four people monitoring every vehicle, How said, or potentially over three dozen people to run a test of 10 flying drones. "That is logistically hard, and very costly," he said.
With the MIT system, not only can one person handle several flying devices at once, "You can have a student essentially operate this from their bedroom," through a high-speed Internet connection.
How's air force consists of a half-dozen four-rotor helicopters, each about the size of a chicken and costing around $700. Their actual moment-to-moment flying is controlled by a network of computers.
So far, researchers have been able to complete tasks like landing a mini-chopper on a motorized toy truck, a good simulation of landing a drone on a Humvee in the desert or a battleship at sea.
Their next milestone is to keep a fleet flying for seven straight days, which requires helicopters flying back to a landing pad to recharge their batteries. Several graduate students in electrical engineering and aeronautics, including Brett Bethke, Daniel Dale, and Mario Valenti, handle much of the nuts-and-bolts work of keeping the fleet flying.
To create the equivalent of an indoor satellite positioning system, How's lab uses the same motion-monitoring systems from Vicon , a British technology company, that Hollywood studios have used for animated films. For a cartoon movie, the systems track an actual moving human to generate realistic-looking animated character movement. At MIT, they perform toy-helicopter air traffic control by tracking their position to within one-tenth of a millimeter in any direction.
The work directly addresses some of the major obstacles to wider use of unmanned aerial vehicles, said John Vian , a technical fellow with Boeing Phantom Works. "Enabling complex and coupled systems to operate reliably is really the biggest challenge we're facing," he said. "We need smart systems, and Jon How and the folks at MIT have the capability to make them work."
Boeing currently has "a stretch goal," Vian said, of coming up with a system that can enable one operator to control 100 vehicles. That will mean solving all kinds of nitty-gritty problems involving computer software, mathematics, motion monitoring, and communications, Vian said.
But for How and his fellow researchers, Vian added, it won't be entirely boring.
"You can see from what's going on in the lab," Vian said, "that it's just a blast."
Not aeronautics professor Jonathan How of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , who along with a team of students this fall has turned an MIT lab into a first-of-its-kind US test bed for "unmanned aerial vehicles" that, with the help of computers, fly themselves.
It's undeniably fun, How admits, to get away with flying a model helicopter inside. But his team's work, sponsored by aircraft giant Boeing Co.'s Phantom Works research unit, could one day help revolutionize one of the fastest-growing sectors of the aviation industry, remote-controlled flying devices that are increasingly being used for everything from warfare and border surveillance to battling forest fires and doing seismic testing for oil deposits.
Teal Group , an aerospace and defense market-analysis firm in Fairfax, Va., recently projected that worldwide spending on unmanned aerial vehicles and related systems will represent a $55 billion worldwide market over the next 10 years. Annual spending on flying drone systems could triple, to $8.3 billion in 2016 from $2.7 billion now.
The new MIT indoor flying lab is helping to simplify one of the biggest challenges to wider deployment of unmanned vehicles: developing the very complex, perfectly reliable software and telecommunications systems to manage a fleet of flying devices and keep them from crashing into each other.
"Ultimately, when you are taking these devices out into real-world applications, you want people to perform a task like surveillance of the border. You don't want them spending a lot of time figuring out how to fly the vehicle," How said.
To test and debug a multiple-vehicle flying system outdoors normally requires four people monitoring every vehicle, How said, or potentially over three dozen people to run a test of 10 flying drones. "That is logistically hard, and very costly," he said.
With the MIT system, not only can one person handle several flying devices at once, "You can have a student essentially operate this from their bedroom," through a high-speed Internet connection.
How's air force consists of a half-dozen four-rotor helicopters, each about the size of a chicken and costing around $700. Their actual moment-to-moment flying is controlled by a network of computers.
So far, researchers have been able to complete tasks like landing a mini-chopper on a motorized toy truck, a good simulation of landing a drone on a Humvee in the desert or a battleship at sea.
Their next milestone is to keep a fleet flying for seven straight days, which requires helicopters flying back to a landing pad to recharge their batteries. Several graduate students in electrical engineering and aeronautics, including Brett Bethke, Daniel Dale, and Mario Valenti, handle much of the nuts-and-bolts work of keeping the fleet flying.
To create the equivalent of an indoor satellite positioning system, How's lab uses the same motion-monitoring systems from Vicon , a British technology company, that Hollywood studios have used for animated films. For a cartoon movie, the systems track an actual moving human to generate realistic-looking animated character movement. At MIT, they perform toy-helicopter air traffic control by tracking their position to within one-tenth of a millimeter in any direction.
The work directly addresses some of the major obstacles to wider use of unmanned aerial vehicles, said John Vian , a technical fellow with Boeing Phantom Works. "Enabling complex and coupled systems to operate reliably is really the biggest challenge we're facing," he said. "We need smart systems, and Jon How and the folks at MIT have the capability to make them work."
Boeing currently has "a stretch goal," Vian said, of coming up with a system that can enable one operator to control 100 vehicles. That will mean solving all kinds of nitty-gritty problems involving computer software, mathematics, motion monitoring, and communications, Vian said.
But for How and his fellow researchers, Vian added, it won't be entirely boring.
"You can see from what's going on in the lab," Vian said, "that it's just a blast."
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