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

Mercantilism at its finest

[dada21]

Pretending to protect national security, provide the troops with better gear to fight terrorism, and other great headlines, our government is spending more of your money on projects that will go way over budget and provide little of the original promises.

Unfortunately, this is how our federal government always works. We've lost our capitalist direction in the last 140 years, and are now thoroughly mercantilist. Promises are made, but in reality those promises only lead to friends of the government getting a big wad of cash -- and when they over extend the budget, they just ask for more.

Sure, $3 million doesn't sound like a lot, but when has government ever provided anything at or under budget?

I'm disgusted that the average citizen allows this. There is really no reason to allow more and more of our hard earned income to go into the pockets of those friendly with the powers-that-be. Both the Democrats and Republicans have lied and lied, and neither is going to help us stabilize the economy and put more money in your pocket without increasing the costs to others.

Re:Taliban does this already!

[John Jorsett]

Its called a mule.

My exact thought. Either someone in DoD needs some training in what animal does what job, or they think that there's PR points to be gained by calling it a 'dog'. If that's the objective, they may as well call it a 'robot manatee' and really score some environmentalist points.

Robotic Animals

[herwin]

At Sunderland, we're working on a 'robotic sheepdog' to help find victims in building collapses or similar disasters. This would be able to track its controller acoustically and use similar technology to localize and track sound streams of interest.

Robust efficient legged vehicles

[G4from128k]

I've always thought that legged vehicles where an obvious solution to all-terrain travel and transport. Rubber tires become increasingly inefficient at the terrain becomes rougher (absorbing energy in all the deflections from rocks, etc.). And walkers can go where no wheeled vehicle can pass. The problem has always been designing legged motion systems that have the fluidity of biological walkers (the jerky move-stop-move motion of oldstyle robots is too slow and inefficient). But with faster embedded processors and sensors, true fluid walking and running are possible.

I wonder if this presages the return of true calvary -- robotic-horse mounted soliders.