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Robots Go Spelunking
anakog writes "Yahoo! News runs a story about robots being used by the military in Afghanistan to search caves. The article features a few
slides
with pictures and comments. This seems to be the first time robots are used as tools for combat, although the article does not say if they have encountered any resistance yet. There is no mention of the manufacturer of the robots, however, I am fairly certain that they are the PackBots manufactured by IRobot. I happened to visit Real World Interface (which later merged with IRobot) a couple of years ago and saw the PackBots' predecessors, which were called Urban Robots. The company had a contract with the Department of Defence. As the name implies, the military were envisioning to use the robots to scan buildings in urban areas back then."
do these obey the 'three laws of robotics' or wot?
... let me see, clicking the link in my robots.net Slashdot sidebar confirms that, yes - they are indeed iRobot Packbots. ;-)
A little planning goes a long way...
Any questions ?
(appended to the end of comments I post, 120 chars)
I wonder how long until the army starts to attach other things besides cameras to these little bots. Chemical sensors, IR, guns, a few pounds of C4 and some roofing nails....
I would like the see the terrorists vs the RoboCup bots in fight. You can go in with info-red mounted cameras and hydraulic stabilized guns, but there would be nothing cooler than watching a ton of 5 foot robots slug it out with 'em UFC style.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I am actually considering electrolux's vacuum-cleaning robot. Does anyone have opinions on that one?
What are other affordable and useful robots? I know only of the vacuum-cleaner and Husqwarna's lawn-mower.
a story about spelunking and no goatse post yet???
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Hmm.. you really drew a blank on that FP attempt huh? lol
Didnt we learn anything from 'terminator'?
Kewl.
cept diarrea
I am fairly certain that they are the PackBots manufactured by IRobot.
Well I'm sure you are wrong. It is just Bender bending his way throug the caves
All work and no play makes me a dull boy
The robots in this article appear to be remotely controlled by a human operator but I can't help think that over time these robots and their predecessors will be given limited autonomy to execute tasks, and perhaps even kill. So given that future (which I admit is unlikely), what happens if a bot fails to obey the oxymoronicly-titled but somehow accepted Law of Land Warfare? If this violation came to trial, who would stand accused of the crime?
After viewing the yahoo "slidewhow" I had assumed that the article was just a cheesy way to sell digital cameras.
I was privledged to see the Packbot demo'd at ALS in Oakland last year. It crawled down the stage stairs, back up the stairs, then off the stage, a 3.5-4 foot drop! They had a video clip of it running through a small "water hazard". It was completly submerged, and all you saw was the wake. Rather impressive.
The same company, iRobot, makes these
Dolls.
In WWII, the German army used a remote control tank that was filled with explosives and driven into a target. A photo is here (about half down the page).
While not a true robot (I think these were control via wires), they were used in combat a good bit, including attacking landing craft during the D-Day invasion.
Another German tank, the Borgward IV was a surviable remote control vehicle driven by radio and was used to lay mines, telephone wire and the likes.
...to tell us "spelunking" is a newbie term?
I'll think you'll find that it is the US military. The above quote is either ethnocentric or ambiguous.
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
Just think - mabye they will feed the video of these bots running around to the media. Yeah... a LIVE show... with Geraldo doing the commentary... just think of the ratings when one of em blows someone away!! And we would get to see it!!
Kewwll!!
What would they name the show??
Uh.. mabye Running CAVEman? (ooh, that sucked, someone come up with a better one)
Israeli sapper robot in action.
spelunker n.
One who explores caves chiefly as a hobby; a caver.
[From obsolete spelunk, cave, from Middle English, from Old French spelunque, from Latin spelunca, from Greek spelunx.]
spelunking n.
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr
I'd love to see how the ubiquitous Microsoft "Not responsible for anything resembling a failure" line would hold up in a war crimes trial, after an XP-ACE powered demolition unit inadvertently levels a hospital.
Or they'll know all the weaknesses when Mauler 5150 or Nightmare come rolling into their cave.
If they run into Whyachi though, we might have to send in some robotic shop vacs to clean up the mess.
Clearly, what is called for here is semi-autonomous robotic spiders.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
...can you integrate them with your .Mac subscription?
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Finally we are catching up to one of the standard elements of sci-fi. E.g. one current example involving the military, on Stargate SG-1 they usually send a robot probe through the gate first, to make sure the planet they are about to has an atmosphere and isn't full of enemies ready to shoot them as soon as they step through the gate. The Stargate robots are bigger though, since they are loaded with measuring devices. They also use small remote-controlled aircraft on Stargate, another thing the US military is starting to explore. (That's one reason I like Stargate -- it's very grounded in current real life.)
:-)
Also, the guy in the third photo in the slides linked to in the article looks like he is wearing a Borg eyepiece.
... just think of the ratings when one of em blows someone away!! And we would get to see it!!
Kewwll!!
Yeah. Unbelievably cool. Want to volunteer ?
Uhhh.... Helloo??... Dude, I was being sarcastic.. you know - kidding, joking around, as in funny haha
So. Take a few of these handy dandy robots and merge them into the Robocode project from IBM ( Here ) and you could _really_ have some fun!
Well - then never mind. Obviously overlooked the irony tags. Sorry then :-)
Geraldo Rivera, eh? Searching for treasure in Al Queda's Vaults? Maybe he could send one of those robots back into Al Capone's Vaults, and maybe it would find something this time. For those too young to remember, it was the highest rated TV special of all time, and there was nothing in there. If Capone had ever used that hidden basement as a vault, he cleaned it out.
How ya like dat?
... sources. This is an AP story, that Yahoo placed on their news portal. Yahoo doesn't RUN any kind of stories. -- ellis
GetTheJob.com : Nothing but Real Jobs.
That struck me as a little odd, and unrealistic.
Geraldo deserves everything bad that happens to him.
..channel had a good show on robots and how the military would use them. Hermes looks like the robot they were demoing on tv. The soldier just grabbed it by the handle and flung it over a wall and let it go searching. It seemed really durable.
They also had these awesome little spy planes that fit inside a briefcase. To launch it, they had a little air piston that shot it into flight.
Live web cams
I hope everyone else who read this post was as disgusted by it as I was. I've got nothing against gay porn, but gay Transformers porn is kind of perverted.
What happens when it is time to turn it off
tells us all about the military's secret robots capbable of single-handedly kicking all of Hong Kong's contengent of the Big Bad Red Army.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
If things can be fastened to it with bolts, welding, rope, or duct tape, it will carry weapons. It's a matter of what is needed and what can be done.
If they rely on GPS for navigation, the robots must not be able to get that far into the cave. For that matter, I imagine the video feed and wireless communications are a major limiting factor on the depth to which the robot can explore -- I know the robo-mining people have been trying to solve this problem for some time now. Sure, the military probably has some nifty alien technology and all, but a cave is a cave, and RF is RF. I'd guess the controller still needs to be reasonably close for this to work well. My own teleoperated robot is nowhere near as kewl (as the kids say) , but if there are enough requests, I'd be happy to install a grenade launcher.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I certianly remember that, which is the precise reason in my post I used Geraldo, to make it even more ridiculous.
Not if the weddings involve shooting firearms into the air they are flying over at the time, no.
But if an armed terrorist assult involves layer cake covered munitions and exploding champaigne bottles, that's perfectly ok, huh?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I was at Acroname's Robo02 robotics expo in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this year.
e ry.html.
Lt. Colonel John Blitch (US Army, Ret.), of the Center for Robotic Assisted Search and Rescue, brought one of the Packbots that had been used in Afghanistan to the expo for his presentation on robotic search and rescue. (The robot still had Afghan dirt all over it).
A similar model was used, and lost, during the search at the World Trade Center site. Pictures of it at the WTC can be seen at http://www.csee.usf.edu/robotics/crasar/photoGall
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in spaceH^H^H^H^H^caves, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.
Re: Same Robot Used to Search WTC site
Dammit, I forgot to include two links:
Robo02: http://www.robo02.com/
Acroname: http://www.acroname.com/
Sorry about that...
'cause it's helpin' Dubya fight "terroism".
PS: I know how to spell it... I spelled it the way I hear TOO many people pronounce it... they make it rhyme with heroism.
PPS: On topic since these bots run Linux.
I wonder if they could make something akin to those funky bots in either Matrix or Minority Report. A bunch of big ugly sqidbots would be scary. A hundred or so tiny little metallic spiders would equally strike fear into enemy hearts Yes, unrealistic, but an amusing thought... --------- Beware, the anal probe!
what the heck happened to good old bravery?
The technical term for these robots is Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle (TUGV).
Waitaminnit... a company named for an Isaac Asimov book? Seems like an infringement to me...
Let's get this clear. Some guys sent a radio controled car with a camera on it into a cave.
"It's history in the making".
Is there actually anything novel happening here? Or is the U.S military actually just trying to manufacturer some good news to
1. Justify funding
2. Justify funding.
It's not just a teleoperator, either. It has sonars, GPS, and a magnetic compass. It ought to be able to retrace a route it's already taken.
You'd probably want to get Davros to program them like his Daleks
"Seek. Locate. Exterminate!"
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
The real-life man-sized six-legged tree-harvesting freak used for commercial foresting.
When a Talabot dies in battle, does it get to link into 72 virgin Cray's in it's afterlife?
Table-ized A.I.
IMHO these are merely remote controlled surveillance systems generously equipped with a grenade launcher and 12 gage shotgun.
The buzz bombs of WWII were more autonomous than these and thus more like a true robot. In the same vein, cruise missiles are more autonomous and thus much more "robotic" to me.
Don't believe the hype...
Yosemite Sam did this in a cartoon. He was "Yosemite Sam of Outer Space" and used various robots to go into Bugs Bunny's home to root him out.
Slashdot = alt.religion.windows.mpaa.riaa.sucks
Nobody read the article and noticed this? People keep posting that they're wondering how long it will take for the Army to put weapons on these.
The typical geek response to a robot is "Oh...HOW CUTE!" and run up to it to find out how it works. I think that a flotilla of shotgun-toting robots would change that response pretty quickly.
So they're already armed. How long before we see lines of robots armed with shotguns and tear gas herding protestors, or quashing riots? Good or bad, you decide.
...
From iRobot's website (http://www.irobot.com/corp/p02.asp):
"Our Corporate Mission statement is fourfold, but simple: Make money, have fun, build cool stuff, and change the world."
I feel so much safer now.
Other advantages:
In short, the Imperial Probe Droid is an excellent tool for uncovering hidden rebel bases.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
As part of the same program for which the packbots were developed, NASA's JPL has worked with iRobot on adding sensors and software to make more autonomous versions of these same platforms. My small company (Rossum Technologies) has been part of this effort for several years. Our 'urbie' version has stereo vision, omnidirectional cameras, laser range finder, infra-red cameras and more. Besides basic obstacle avoidance the robot is capable of autonomous stair climbing, visual-based navigation, leader-follower and others. Read more on JPL's web site
http://www.acl.lanl.gov/linuxbios/news/index.html# packbot2
why not just use Lego Mindstorms? Just add a brick or two for weight. True, the shotgun's recoil would blow it to bits, but you just snap it back together...
...the new name for bravery is "stupidity". Please update your records accordingly.
Thanks. It's from the idiotic ATMs in NYC. I think it sucks, too. I'll change it some day.
So if the robot finds an Al-Qaeda member, does it say "These are not the droids you are looking for"?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
there are photos of a bomb robot dragging a palestinian by his legs down the road.
i call that war, and i call it evil.
They showed one of these robots on the TV news. It seemed to be pretty noisy. My first thought was that the Al Qaeda bad guys would be able to hear the robot sneaking up from several hundred yards away.
Not quite. Combat robots were first used in World War 2, on the Eastern front - the "Goliath" anti-tank weapon. The Germans used a remote control (wire guided) tank-buster robot which was, essentially, an armoured box with tracks and a bucketload of explosives. It was about 1.5m in length and about one half metre in height.
The idea was that it be guided against Russian tanks then detonated. Although many hundreds were produced, it was not very successful, and the engineers could be found by soviet infantry who simply followed the cable trailing from the back of the machine.