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November 27, 2004

Project pigeon

I kid you not.

I came across this while reading a book on design, of all things, and further information from here.

"During World War II, behavorial psychologist B.F. Skinner demonstrated an automatic homing system which would guide a bomb directly to its target.

Skinner's control system used a lens in the nose of the bomb to throw an image of the approaching target on a ground-glass screen. Inside, a pigeon trained to recognize the desired target packed at it with its beak. If the target's image moved off center, the pigeon's pecking tilted the screen, which moved the bomb's tail surfaces, which corrected the bomb's course. To improve accuracy, Skinner used three pigeons to control the bomb's direction by majority rule. According to him, the system was resistant to jamming, simply built, and needed no materials in short supply.

Despite these advantages, the military review board would not let the idea get off the ground."

Posted by sdehaast at November 27, 2004 03:08 PM Posted to wtf?