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AT-ATs Coming to a Forest Near You
Audent writes "Not strictly speaking anything any of us should classify as work related, or even open source, but holy shitbags! I want one of these.
Plustech, a subsidiary of tractor maker John Deere, has built a six-legged walking logging machine that just has to be the prototype for an AT-AT walker. Imagine parking this puppy at the mall!"
the harvester advances forward and backward, sideways and diagonally. It can also turn in place and step over obstacles
Good. Maybe then those pesky forest rebels will have a harder time wrapping thier grappling hooks around me when I'm out logging.
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faeryman
If this company wants to make a go of this, they're going to have to make a military version. I don't know about you, but if I saw one of these things comming at me, I'd run for the hills!
There is no spoon or sig.
Trooper: Sir, small green AT-ATs approaching!
... Its that loud "lawn-mower" sound... Kind of like a trash-compacter...
Rebel Officer: Damn! Are you sure?
Trooper: Yes, can't you hear it?
Rebel Officer: Oh yes... Whats the ETA?
Trooper: Well, given their current rate of speed, I would say 2... no make that 3 weeks.
Rebel Officer: Good work Trooper - We had best begin to pack up the base and move out by no later than... noon tomorrow.
Trooper: Roger roger.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
would probabbly look a lot like the "tank" in [Ghost in the Shell]. which would make sense, IMO, because the manuverability would be *so* superior to track-driven tanks.
well, with a couple decades of engineering work to make it move faster and more adaptable, anyway.
at the mean time, i want to see a consumer version for *real* off-roading. and the crane thing can be used to grab hot women out of their convertables while dozing around downtown LA.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Have you ever seen a logging operation in action? Didn't think so. The fact is that the tractors that are used tear up a good sized swath and compact the soil making it harder for the forest to re-assert itself. This six-legged beastie is a great idea if they can make it competetive with current logging vehicles as it will reduce the ecological impact that logging has and that's a good thing. It's not like all research put into logging tech is bad; for example the use of log skidders (bulldozers pushing logs from where they've been cut to where they're put on the truck) has been greatly reduced by stringing up huge cables at the top of the hill being logged. Logs are attached to said cable and are carried downhill to log landings to be put on waiting trucks. This results in less damage done to the log so less needs to be logged and fewer necessary roads and less use of skidders meaning lower environmental impact and quicker restoration of the forest.
HAIL ANTS!!!!
This thing needs pneumatic claws so it can grip the sides of mountains and buildings. Walking a cliff face or wall vertically or horizontally would be a requirement for any kind of urban deployment of this technology
Also, it should look more like an actual giant armored space ant.
turret with high powered water/foam/fire cannon would be a nice option. Perhaps with harpoon/grappling hook gun with high test line on gear reduced winch. That way it would be able to swing from building to building and fight fires, mothra or those angels from evangelion.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
I'd bet it depends on if there is an imbalance in weight distribution and one side can't pick up 2 legs at the same time, which would probably force it into one at a time movement. Just a guess though. Theres lots of research done on simple walking robots done with really minimal fedback control circuits. They do teh same stuff. Of course the extra degrees of freedom in the joints makes things a little harder.
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Jack not name, jack job!
I'm so glad I saw this article here before I ran into one while hiking and found myself wishing I had brought a change of underwear. Not only that, but I'd probably never, ever again eat those funny mushrooms.
Thanks Slashdot!
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Have you ever even been around any construction/industrial equipment or machinery in your life? That thing is not loud by any means. In fact, until I watched the videos, the impression I was getting from all the loud comments was that this thing sounded like a jet engine or something (kinda like my comp sounds, heh). This thing is suprisingly quiet. I mean, if you listen closely as it walks, you can even hear the chains on its feet dangle and clank as the feet pads move. Sure, it isn't museum quiet, but your typically lawn mower is probably louder than this thing. I'll agree that it isn't all that fast, but I think the speed is almost just right for walking through forests, you don't wanna run into trees going too fast now.
if you think the logging machine is cool, check out the Spiderplow http://www.spiderplow.com
/left independently, plus about a dozen controls for the fiber burying blade.
:)
I worked on a crew that used one of these, installing fiber optic cable down the median of an interstate. The frickin' thing can go through the legs of highway signs, climb off of an 18-wheeler trailer SIDEWAYS, and stand on 1 leg while it's ripping.
The controls seem to be a little more involved than the logger, though. It's got a panel of about 30 two-way levers to control all of the motions. each leg can extend/retract, swivel forward/back, raise/lower, rotate each wheel right
Spiderplow = more bandwidth.
John Deere Forester = toilet paper.
It's ovious which one is the high-tech toy for the nerds
I think I need a new sig here.
Those legs are way too vulnerable.
Imagine rope or netting looped around a couple. I doubt they have much power for moving, simply strength for holding up. Think of your own legs when someone tied your shoelaces together. A puny little shoelace and you couldn't break it with your legs! One of the few things I believed in whatever Star Wars episode that was (New Hope?).
The legs need armor, but trying to armor them individually and completely would add way too much weight and bulk.
Consider a tank -- all that armor on the sides and some on the top. Battleships armored the individual turrets, but almost all the rest was on the sides and under the deck. Individual compartments were not armored. Not even magazines had their own armor, they were simply buried as deep as possible within the armor.
Infuriate left and right