Army Looks at Robotic Dogs

mr. squishie writes "Someone important must have gotten an Aibo...According to Wired news, the Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command has just awarded a $2.5 million contract to build a prototype of a large robot dog that would follow soldiers into battle and carry food, ammunition, and medical supplies. This is apparently part of a larger movement by various branches of the military investigating the uses of robots based on various types of wildlife, ranging from engine-repairing robot elephant trunks and mine-destroying robot lobsters to the cliched robot-fly-spy-on-the-wall trick. I wonder if they're looking into giant robot anteaters as an alternative to costly bunker-buster bombs?"

Comments

Re:Mercantilism at its finest

[ThosLives]

You're right. There is no reason to allow more of our "hard earned" cash to go to the current government. Simply establish a new political party, convice lots of people to give you money and elect someone from your party, then change things.

I can't say that you will be successful, but this is an option for you to try.

Re:Lead or follow?

[RevMike]

If I were a soldier, the first thing I'd do is reprogram my dog to walk ahead of me, not behind me. Let it step on the landmines, absorb enemy fire, etc.

Oh wait, this robot is worth $2.5m, eh? Ah, now I understand why the soldier is in front.

Like most things in life, reality is more complex.

First, the $2.5m is to develop the dog. The actually cost of manufacturing one will likely be quite a bit less.

Second, if you sent the dog ahead, you probably sacrifice many of the advantages that you can bring to the battle - reducing your safety i the long run. for instance, an enemy spotting the dog could take a reasonable guess at your position and fire upon you with mortars before you have the opportunity to spot the enemy, evaluate their strength and position, and form a plan to engage. You've given up tactical initiative.

Why not just use a real dog?

[Theatetus]

We have and do use war dogs. The Marine kennels are in North Carolina and Virginia and the Army kennels are, I believe, in Oklahoma. In addition, MPs have canine squads just like civilian cops and many of these squads have war dog training in addition to police dog training.

They're useful for sniffing out booby traps and ambushes. There are a couple of problems, though:

• Training a dog is by no means cheap or easy (all told, hundreds of thousands of dollars). Robots would be cheaper once they get in production.
• No matter how well trained, dogs have common sense and feel fear. Robots wouldn't unless we programmed them to.
• Dogs die. Their handlers have trained with them for months or years. Losing a dog is *very* hard on the handler. Robots would not be so hard to lose.

Rat Thing

[depricatedFoo]

"Unit 247 wakes up. He is excited. Others are barking. Someone is trying to hurt a nice girl. This makes him angry."

Just how far away from Stephenson's Rat Thing are we?

Re:Mercantilism at its finest

[duffbeer703]

Try looking up the meaning of mercantilism, although you are probaly too dumb to understand:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mercant il ism&r=67

Mercantilism is all about establishing colonies and vassal states to exploit raw materials and create markets while building industry at home.

In case you haven't noticed, the US is doing the exact opposite since WW2.

Re:Mercantilism at its finest

[supersnail]

Another sad brainwashed libertarian.

The entire computer industry is a product of government funding!

Alan Turing's Betchly code buster was paid for by the British government.

The various early US computers (ENIAC et all) were paid for by the US DoD.

Modern large computer architecures were an offshoot of various government funded University projects (Notably the University of Manchesters various machines from the Marconi MARK 1 & UMIST machines).

The original DARPA internet was funded by the US DoD.

The WEB was invented at CERN ... an international project funded by various goverments .

Just because governments are sometimes dumb it doesn't mean they are always dumb. And anyway capitalists are so much better at wasting money c.f. Enron et all