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Robots for No Man's Land
Roland Piquepaille writes "The Stryker is an 18-ton infantry vehicle, already deployed by the U.S. army in places such as Iraq. Right now, it has human drivers. But that will no longer be the case by 2010, when it will be driven by a robot. Today, the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second. 'Its brain -- a 40-pound computer system tucked inside its body -- processes that data, and makes instant judgments on how to act and where to go.' These robots are developed by General Dynamics Robotic Systems, Inc. (GDRSI), which received $185 million last November to build between 30 and 60 automated-navigation prototypes to be used in all kinds of military vehicles. This overview contains more details, references and photographs."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/con gress/ 2003_rpt/stryker_reality_of_war.pdf
Highlights?
- Designed to be transportable by a C-130, but can't.
- Designed for the modern urban battlefield, but too big to make a U-turn on even the widest streets.
- Designed to face the weapons of our enemies, but the armor cannot withstand Rocket Propelled Grenades (a hugely prolific weapon in Iraq and Afganistan, even now).
To top it all off, the light tank varient of the Stryker (which the entire Stryker Brigade concept relies upon for support) cannot fire it's weapon if infantry troops are within 200' (the muzzle blast will fry them due to the huge compensator needed) and the cannon cannot be fired off to the side of the vehicle, or the recoil will knock it over. What a great piece of equipment!
Not to hijack the thread, but this is just another attempt for General Dynamics to get some good press out of a complete piece of shit program that is endangering the lives of the grunts who are forced to work with it.
This is the same Stryker that has such thin armor around the enormous wheel wells that machine-gun bullets can penetrate, would kill its own crew if the turret howitzer were fired, and is best taken out via a simple molotov cocktail setting fire to its tires. It is intended to be air-deployed, but is so close to the weight margin that some armor had to be eliminated. In some configurations the Stryker has to be split across 3 planes and assembled on-site. Oh, and the thing is the size of a school bus--just what you want in urban situations requring manouverability, which is supposedly among its missions.
The Stryker is a mistake--I can see why they'd bolt the robot onto it in order to keep funding going, or to mask the sunk cost on this turkey. I couldn't find the PDF detailing these problems, so try this link: stryker problems Right now it's most interesting as an example of the strength of momentum some defense procurement contracts have.
Remain calm! All is well!
Just to correct this, "Ladar" (aka "Lidar", "Laser Radar") does not emit radar signals. It only emits laser pulses and measures the time-of-flight of the light signal (sometimes uses phase shift of laser pulses for better precision). I'm betting the reporter heard "Laser Radar" as "Laser and Radar". Or perhaps they have a separate radar unit.
I'm also curious about the 400,000 points per second. There are some experimental flash (aka scannerless) ladars that get some pretty good rates, but not that many and AFAIK this isn't one of them. The best I can find on the web is that the Stryker Ladars can get up to 60,000 range samples per second. I'm guessing the 400,000 is actually pulses, but it can take many pulses to make a single measurement depending on the type of ladar and the range resolution.