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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?"
Work on robot soldiers, and save yourself all of the hassle of killing people at all. That would be a lot more fun to watch on CNN anyway.
would then be the cheap alternative.
Its called a mule.
Ah hell, I really can't bring myself to type it. I deeply apologise for my descent into Slashdotism. It won't happen again. I promise. Honest.
Cheers,
Ian
I wonder if they're looking into giant robot anteaters as an alternative to costly bunker-buster bombs?
Why not? After all, they've already got a giant robot chimpanzee as an alternative to a defense secretary.
<rimshot>These sigs are more interesting tha
I've no problem with this idea if they don't call any of the dogs "Beagle."
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.
>
When the early prototype mysteriously faild to deliver the food, an investigation revealed that they had foolishly based the design on Scooby Doo.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I wonder if they're looking into giant robot anteaters as an alternative to costly bunker-buster bombs?"
Who is deploying giant robot ants? If no one is deployiong such a weapon, why are we creating something to eat them?
How about the sections of Snow Crash told from the point of view of the robotic guard dog.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
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.
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.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
In the book version of Starship Troopers by Heinlein, there is a whole military division of soldiers paired with cybernetic dogs called the K-9 Corps.
My copy is on loan to a friend, but I did find a PDF of it on the internet through google. Don't know if it is legit though: Starship Troopers
-- DrZaius - Minister of Sciences and Protector of the Faith
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.
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I wonder if they're looking into giant robot anteaters as an alternative to costly bunker-buster bombs?
How about AT-AT's?
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Legs aren't necessarily a great form of transport. The are slow and use lots of energy. Evolution never came up with the wheel, or tracks (like a tank) or rotating blades (like a helicopter). Why should a robotic "dog" be better than a tracked vehicle, for instance?
Perhaps the real plan is to give them glowing red eyes and smoke coming out of their mouths, to scare the opposition. Now that would we worth doing...
I thought that's what E3's were for. Won't we be putting all our PFC's and Lance Corporals out of work?
All's true that is mistrusted
Why not just use a real dog?
It's much more efficient, easier to fuel, infinitely more intelligent, far less expensive
And they taste good too!
I for one would love to ride a giant metal dog to work every day. And at 50 pounds per squad thats 400 pounds capacity at least.
Then you could paint it up like a Warg Beast from LoTR.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic canine...ah fuck it. This isn't fun anymore.
Innovation at its best:
... ... quote ...
... /quote ...
The walking forest machine by Plustech.
http://www.plustech.fi/Walking1.html
I'd start with something like that
The walking forest machine is Plustech's best-known innovation.
The goal of product development was to create a machine that has
the best possible working stability and minimum impact on the
terrain
The walking machine adapts automatically to the forest floor.
Moving on six articulated legs, the harvester advances forward
and backward, sideways and diagonally. It can also turn in
place and step over obstacles. Depending on the irregularity of
the terrain, the operator can adjust both the ground clearance of
the machine and heigh of each step.
Microserf: 18.5% slashdot corrupt
...it isn't even a real dagget!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
A mule can be far more difficult to control and less reliable than even an MS-Windows based robot.
For instance, I sure hope that robo-dog doesn't fetch the boms I launch at the enemy...
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:
All's true that is mistrusted
...wait till you see the Army's $349,000 pooper scoopers for said dogs.
I couldn't agree more, but I believe the reason is animal cruelty. People are drafted rarely, but only after they have the priveledge of voting. The rest of the armed forces are all volunteers. Dogs are neither capable of voting or of volunteering, so someone would raise a fuss about it.
Of course, war is war. People die, and yes, animals die too I'm sure. Back when wars were fought on horseback, it wasn't like the movies -- the horses DID get injured and killed.
no comment
"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?
.M@
--
do you use them for good, or for awesome?
RoboFrog v1.0, which will be followed closely by RoboRedneck v1.0 (steel and aluminum telescopic gig accessory standard on the "dee-lux" model!) Also, you won't have to worry about this (although fabricated anyway) happening, as the Kevlar waders accessory are already available for ordering.
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I wonder if they're looking into giant robot anteaters as an alternative to costly bunker-buster bombs?
Licking terrorists to death is probably SOME violation of the Geneva Convention!
K9 from Doctor Who! Yeah!
Reminds me of Zhuge Liang's wooden oxen (back in the 3rd century AD - though now people think looking at the plans he left behind it might just have described the invention of the wheelbarrow rather than an actual mechanical beast)! From Romance of the Three Kingdoms:
"I have had a scheme ready for a long time. The timber that I collected and bought in the River Lands was for the construction of wooden transport animals to convey grain. It will be very advantageous, as they will require neither food nor water and they can keep on the move day and night without resting...They are being made now after my plans, but they are not yet ready. Here I have the sketches for these mechanical oxen and horses, with all their dimensions written out in full. You may see the details."
Zhuge Liang then produced a paper, and all the generals crowded round to look at it. They were all greatly astonished and lauded, "The Prime Minister is superhuman!"
A few days later the new mechanical animals were complete and began work. They were quite life-like and went over the hills in any desired direction. The whole army saw them with delight. They were but in charge of Right General Gao Xiang and a thousand soldiers to guide them. They kept going constantly between Saber Pass and the front carrying grain for the use of the soldiers.
Along the Saber Pass mountain roads
The running horses bore their loads,
And through Xie Valley's narrow way
The wooden oxen paced each day.
O generals, use these means today,
And transport troubles take away.
Where asked where the idea came from he replied:
"The world is filled with things of man's making. I have long observed vehicles throughout the land, and considered the principle by which beasts of burden walk, and thus invented this..."
The story also comes with a case of military espionage as the enemy Sima Yi captures some of them and tries to copy the design.
Some damned Rebel Flyer wraps a cable around the legs.
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The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.
They will be fought in space, 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.
-- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of
Lisa Simpson"
What is funny is that we are already building so many robots to kill people, like cruise missiles for example, drone spy planes etc. Where has the Asimov's idea of the three robotics laws gone?
You can't handle the truth.
The future is ALL robots on the battle field. It has alread started. The predator drone is the first big step. It flies and attacks remotely. All of the new DoD research money is going toward robotic replacements for soldiers. Our tanks now are controlled completely electronically. It shouldn't make a difference whether the soldiers are staring at a computer monitor inside the tank or miles away in a safe place. And why send a soldier down a fox hole, when an X10 wireless webcam and a $30 RC car from radioshack would do the job? The final step will be when mostly human-shaped robots with rifles are controlled remotely. It would be able to do most things a soldier does if it has a microphone and speakers and video cammera. He could see and hear what it does and speak through it. It will be much easier to take over 3rd world conutries when we have no casualties, soldiers don't have to sleep, and have machine accuracy for targeting.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Have a look at their Engineering page. You'll see images of both Rugged RHex (featured on Slashdot earlier) as well as Sony's bipedal Qrio robot. Marc Raibert has assembled an impressive team of people to work on these very cool projects.
Does anyone have any info on the development progress of electromagnetic pulse weapons (nuclear or otherwise)? Goldeneye-type stuff? It would seem something like this could turn a battalion of robot soldiers or field of robotic support dogs into a pile of titanium scrap.
Hrmm. A little googling revealed this rather thorough article in the Crypt Newsletter that seems to indicate that any claims these weapons are viable is hogwash.
So bring on the robots! Woo-hoo!