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Cruise Missile Navigation - For Robots Like Roomba

Posted by timothy on from the sinister-just-means-left dept.

quackking writes "Relentless price dropping continues. Samsung patents a system which navigates a robotic vacuum using infrared sensors, map matching. When I worked on this stuff at a gov't spook lab long ago our group budget was in the mid 8 digits. Read all about it here. How hard would it be to repurpose this technology to more sinister uses?"

18 comments

  1. Lots of things can be repurposed by dbrutus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The entire technological trash heap we idly throw away in the 1st world is fully capable of adding lots of sinister oomph to an Iraq, N. Korea, or other totalitarian regime. The reason it's trash for us isn't because it's no longer useful. It's trash because it takes too many expensive geek hours to get useful work done on it. Drop the price of geeks 99% and all of a sudden the same stuff is quite effective.

    In case nobody notices, most totalitarian/authoritarian regimes always seem to drive wages down the toilet so this situation comes up more often than you might think.

    1. Re:Lots of things can be repurposed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Insightful??
      What a joke. What amazing hubris.
      Tripe from a North American "love my ruling class" weenie.

      The entire technological trash heap we idly throw away in the 1st world is fully capable of adding lots of sinister oomph to an Iraq, N. Korea, or other totalitarian regime.

      Nobody is more sinister than the U.S. ruling class and its henchmen.
      History will not be written by CNN or Hollywood, Mr. Clueless.

      In case nobody notices, most totalitarian/authoritarian regimes always seem to drive wages down the toilet so this situation comes up more often than you might think.

      And since you so arrogantly don't get it, let me spell it out:
      It is the imperial arrogance of your ruling class that is driving down any wages worldwide -- by putting and keeping in place dictatorships worldwide.

      Wall St. and the Pentagon salute such twits as you.

  2. So...fire is old technology too.... by tha_mink · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Even fire can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

    --
    You'll have that sometimes...
  3. Picture of the missle in action... by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 1

    Wow, with action like this, this technology will make a great vaccum cleaner!

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  4. Do what it says! by Hubert_Shrump · · Score: 1

    It's got an onboard 1/4 horsepower motor, at it's not afraid to burn through your Cat5!

    --
    Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
  5. thank goodness by SteakandcheeseUm · · Score: 1

    Well, at least the South Koreans patented it instead of the North Koreans. I mean, we wouldn't want to have our vacume cleaners turn on us, now would we?

  6. Not the most important system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I contend that map matching is not the most important or hardest navigation system in a cruise missle. It's the inertial navigation system. This type of system is still very difficult and expensive to make.

    1. Re:Not the most important system by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      Heh reminds me of a story I heard. The military were trying to put inertial navigation systems on its aircraft.
      The problem was that usually the jets use GPS. And GPS works fine, and the signal lock works fine and everything. But because the GPS is on top of the aircraft, the signal is lost when the plane goes into a roll. When the plane straightens out, the plane relatively hasn't moved much so the gps get another lock very fast. Unfortunetly "very fast" isn't fast enough when you are doing mach 1 in a fighter plane, and have just gone into a roll to lose altitude. Suddenly you find yourself doing top speed in a fighter jet with your altitude measurements saying you are 300m +- 300m.

      Using inertial measures wasn't particulary effective either, because if you mounted it in the middle, then you couldn't get enough accuracy out of it, and you want to mount it on the edges then you end up need 3 or 4 of them, with tons of wiring and redundancy etc.

    2. Re:Not the most important system by zero_offset · · Score: 1
      That sounds like *half* a story to me... what did they do?

      Seems like they'd just add a GPS antenna on the bottom of the plane, too. You could probably get your "very fast" lock with the bottom antenna before you lost your lock with the top one, and vice-versa coming out of the roll.

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    3. Re:Not the most important system by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      Well so far we haven't found a solution - still working on it.

      What if the jet was flying sideways? Like when turning in a dive?

    4. Re:Not the most important system by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      Ah! I didn't realize it was a "we" thing... it sounded like it was a story you had just heard about somewhere... But as I understand it, it isn't antenna orientation, it's antenna "visibility" -- having a clear path between the antenna and the satellite(s) -- so when it's flying sideways, both antennas should have a lock, right?

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    5. Re:Not the most important system by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      heh, afterwards I was wondering if you would pick up on the "we" bit. It's more off a the-company-i-work-for-does-it-but-I-don't-persona lly kinda "we". :)

      I don't really know. There's probably particular orientations in which it doesn't work, and what to do in such cases. The whole thing is really annoying because it's literally only a second when it fails on you, but comming out of dive, that is when you need it most :)

    6. Re:Not the most important system by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      A friend of mine does a lot with GIS at all scales (national region down to cm point sizes), and they rely heavily on GPS. I shot him an e-mail. He isn't aware of any orientation issues (and they're WAY into GPS... they own several of the big $25,000 backpack rigs and so on). If I solved the GPS problem, drop me a line and I'll send your employer a bill. :D

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

  7. Try Combination Vacuum and Pet Excerciser... by human+bean · · Score: 1

    First, set timer for while you are out, to avoid noise. Lock dog in same room.
    Second, replace rotating floor-cleaning brush with small cutoff saw blades. Place in cube office full of Ethernet jumpers and power cords hanging down on floors...,
    Anybody know how this critter defines a room boundary? What happens if it goes outside?

    --

    *whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"

  8. a robotic vacuum using infrared sensors by Knacklappen · · Score: 1

    a robotic vacuum using infrared sensors

    Wow, you mean something like a killer cloud (only inverted)? No wonder that your spook lab was being held so secret! ;-)

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    Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
  9. It's time to clean up! by corvi42 · · Score: 1

    Load these onto F-15s and lets go clean up Iraq!

    --

    There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
  10. Another myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This story makes no sense.

    They were going to supplant gps with inertial guidance? Wouldn't you think inertial sensors would have been invented a bit earlier than GPS?

    And flying with solely GPS is suicide. FAA doesn't even allow private pilots to use it for primary navigation.

    As for the inertial sensors doing rotation, while rotation can be mathematically derived from acceleration, it is inaccurate in situations exactly like this, and would seem to be a generally poor solution. However, since the rate of rotation is the same at the center of a plane as it is at the wingtips. A rotation sensor (gyroscope) would work equally well wherever placed.

    Since you can buy gyroscopes off the shelf, the entire scenario seems unlikely.