Radiation Robot Makes Troops Safer

Darkman, Walkin Dude wrote to mention a plucky little radiation-proof robot working to make life easier for folks in the military. From the article: "By this time an hour and a half had gone by, and the team was temporarily out of ideas. Phil had estimated that the robot could remain ambulatory in the radiation field for only 50 minutes, and in fact the robot's lower portion was no longer responding to commands. The RAP team, as a precaution against this very circumstance, working with White Sands personnel had tied a rope to M2 before sending it into the work area. The rope, attached to a RAP team winch 100 feet outside the structure, ensured the robot could be hauled out if radiation damaged its drive unit. But radiation shields now blocked a direct haul. M2 was hemmed in. Using a ten-foot-long pole and standing at the edge of the field (which fanned out like a flashlight beam, strongest at its center and weakest at its edges), team members hooked and then tugged at the rope hauling M2. The deflection of the rope's pull slid the robot around a moveable radiation shield without knocking it over. The RAP team's winch then pulled the robot directly out. "

Comments

Sad, really

[daeley]

Seconds later, Sarah Connor grabbed the pole and impaled the robot, destroying its primary power supply. Even as its eyes went dark, emergency systems kicked in to begin rerouting secondary and tertiary power systems.

Wise to the design of robots, Sarah and her son, future savior of humankind John Connor, shoved the robot through a nearby doorway conveniently located right above a steel foundry where it dramatically screamed in electronic pain for a few seconds. And then it was over.

"Is it over, mom?" John asked, panting.

Sarah Connor wiped the sweat out of her eyes. "It's over," she said as the familiar industrial movie soundtrack theme began to play. "It's over."

Could Someone Please Explain This?

[kadathseeker]

"But radiation that can kill a human also can kill a robot's electronics. Bennett estimated M2 could withstand intense radiation for only 50 minutes." That's alot of elaboration. I know how cells are affected by radiation, and have and idea of how electronics would be, but I haven't heard alot about this problem and don't know for sure. How exactly are electronics affected by this radiation? Cool robot, though. It'll make a great new overlord.

Re:Could Someone Please Explain This?

[Scorillo47]

Ionizing radiations (usually beta/gamma radiation) can affect materials in various ways. For example, an energetic gamma-ray photon (around 0.3 MeV for the Cobalt-60 spectrum) would cause partial ionization of Si atoms in traditional semiconductors. Since the n/p difference is extremely small in a single transistor, you just need a few thousand ionizations in it to make it unusable.

P.S. http://www.nlectc.org/training/nij2005/Conca.pdf - some interesting material there.

Re:Could Someone Please Explain This?

[Red Flayer]

Here's some info, relevant material pulled:

"There are many different types of radiation effects, many of which cause both mechanical and electrical degradation. Mechanical defects consist of ones that cause properties of materials to be altered. For instance, such defects could alter the mechanical, optical, thermal and electrical properties of metals. Electrical degradation would physically occur during operation. Due to the accumulation of alpha particles, bits can be flipped during operation and cause system failure"

There's more in-depth info out there, but most of the detailed stuff I was trying to access requires memberships in consortiums etc. I was a little surprised by the bitflipping.

Re:Could Someone Please Explain This?

[Scorillo47]

I don't know, franly, but I am not sure about using tubes because as someone else pointed out, beta radiation (and gamma rays too) would ionize the rarefied gas inside the tube, therefore affecting the flow of electrons (in fact this is one of the principles behind various designs of radiation detectors). But probably it might work in some conditions.

Another solution would be to use hardened semiconductors, with much bigger gates, etc. For example, in space you have cosmic rays (which, BTW are much more energetic than nuclear-generated gamma rays). NASA is using hardened electronic components which are able to withstand the random ionization generated by cosmic rays.

Re:Could Someone Please Explain This?

[willgps]

My lab was involved a few years back with an high performance computing experiment with self-healing FPGA's after exposure to ionising radiation.

They flew some off the shelf (non radiation hardened) FPGAs on the FedSAT-1 spacecraft.

I was involved with a different (GPS) payload, but i believe the HPCE payload was able to successfully self-diagnose and correct single gate errors on the chip. (http://www.crcss.qut.edu.au/comp/hpce.pdf)

What?

[thesnarky1]

The summary says "radiation-proof robot", but TFA says "Phil had estimated that the robot could remain ambulatory in the radiation field for only 50 minutes, and in fact the robot's lower portion was no longer responding to commands."

I'ma call shenanigans on this one. And "making life easier for folks in the military?!" In ONE instance, this helped what happened to be a Military research plant. But the poster makes it seem like this'll win the war in Iraq. Seriously, this is a HORRIBLE scew to put on the article.

Rant aside, I think this is very interesting problem solving. Especially the 10-foot poll bit. Just goes to show that technology can't win everything. Not by a long shot. Interesting problem, interesting solution, both very complicated.

The RAP team

[commodoresloat]

The RAP team, as a precaution against this very circumstance, working with White Sands personnel had tied a rope to M2 before sending it into the work area.

Then the RAP team started throwing up gang signs and rhyming insults against the enemy....

Uhmm...

[NitsujTPU]

Did you read the article?

1) The robot is not radiation proof.
2) It was a pain in the ass.

The story is that they fixed a situation with a robot. The robot didn't make life easier, it was necessary because humans couldn't approach the radiation source, even in protective clothing. It took 4 days to do, and the success was mostly due to shrewd hackery on the part of the team operating the robot.

where is my crowbar

[russ1337]

All you need is a HEV suit and a Crowbar. Everyone knows that!

Question

[Comatose51]

"Unfortunately, heat from the radiation source melted the plastic"

So, how did they assemble this radiation source in the first place??? As an aside, radioactive cobalt bomb is VERY nasty and close to a doomsday weapon.

And this, folks...

[Arivia]

this is why the last rule of adventuring is "never forget your 10-foot pole".

Only 2 sp at Anonymously Run General Store!

emphatic re-iteration

[rheotaxis]

Article says: "The cause was a stuck cylinder the size of a restaurant salt shaker but considerably more deadly: Gamma rays from the cobalt-60 it contained could kill a man in half a minute."

I have to ask...when did restaurants start serving salt that's only somewhat less deadly than cobalt-60?

This was a GAMMA source, not a neutron source

[Ellis D. Tripp]

It is neutron flux that will activate non-radioactive materials, not gamma rays.

Re:I hate reading about stuff like this

[twiddlingbits]

I think you are making this up, or else were an ignorant troop. Humvees ARE amored, just not to the level of surviving an IED made of 155mm rounds. They were meant to protect from small arms fire. Uparmored ones are being produced are in in country, just not as much as we would like. Not much except an Abrams is going to survive some of those IEDs.

The unmanned recon planes (such as Predators) exist and are in use. They are painted to blend in almost perfectly with the sky, so you DON'T see them. They are not used too often as they cost a LOT of $$$ and we lose them ever so often (too often). Good recon can be had from other sources, HUMINT is often the best but is hard to get.

Gov't contractors are NOT corrupt. Try working for one. There are incredible hurdles you have to jump thru to make certain all is above-board. And guess what, that costs money! When you have a whole staff of people doing Ethics Training that gets expensive, and each year every employee has to be re-trained to meet some stupid DOD mandate. Like someone forgets thier ethics each year and has to relearn them. The guys/gals in DC approve all the contracts, so if you think you are getting overcharged talk to them. They negotiate the deals and contractors rarely get the price they ask, often they get a lot less.

Re:I hate reading about stuff like this

[radiotyler]

Woah, calm down. I'm in Iraq. For the second time.

We have these armored IED hunting vehicles. They save lives. And I guess things have changed in the HMMWV department too: ours have been up-armored. I don't want to down play your experience here in Iraq, but things are getting better everywhere, every day.

-t

Re:I hate reading about stuff like this

[Raul654]

About the unmanned planes - you're flat out wrong. A predator is built with mostly COTS parts, with a price-tag of $4.5 million - compared with the $300 million price tag of a manned fighter jet.

Re:And it runs FreeBSD!! Awesome!

[TubeSteak]

Dude, you must be new here.

There's nothing at all 'well disguised' about the lemonparty website.

Seriously, you must be new here. I'd forgive you if the given link was a redirect, but anyone who's been on /. since the good old days of GNAA and TrollKore knows about lemonparty, tubgirl, goatse and so on.

I highly recommend you read wikipedia's entry on shock sites so that you don't get fooled again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shock_sites

Re:Nuclear Power

[TubeSteak]

The cylinder normally arrived and departed through a metal sleeve, driven by pneumatic air. The method resembled that used by drive-up banks, where pneumatic air drives a cylinder containing transaction paperwork first one way and then the other.

At White Sands, a pressure of approximately 20 psi was normally enough to move the container from its secure resting place to its forward exposed, or live, position; the same air pressure in the opposite direction sent it back. Over previous decades, on the rare occasions when the cylinder stuck, technicians had merely increased air pressure to send it on its way.

But this problem was different. From the safety of their control room, technicians increased air pressure in steps until they had reached 50 times normal, or 1000 psi, but they could not budge the cylinder.

...

...Inspection revealed the problem: Forceful early attempts to blow the cylinder back apparently had bent the straight switch into a right angle...

Idiots.

Perhaps this event will help set a new model for operational safety. I can't believe how stupid those operators were. It never occurred to them to send out a fucking maintanence tech to inspect the mechanism and figure out why it was sticking?

I seriously doubt that the manual (it's the DoD, you know they have a manual for this) included "up the PSI" as a way to resolve the issue.

I don't think anyone should be fired over this, but i expect them to review all their procedures for problem solving with respect to their radioactive materials.

/Rant

As for nucleur power plants, I think it'd be best not to increase the use of remote robots. The more human inspection is required, the more shielding they have to use, which imho is a good thing.

Re:I hate reading about stuff like this

[darkmeridian]

Well, the Interceptor vest each soldier wears is a great piece of technology. American troops also have night vision. MARPAT camo scheme is scientifically designed to hide troops in many conditions (nighttime, wet/dry on an infrared scope, etc.) A little radio call gets JDAMs or GPS-aimed artillery to drop onto an enemy sniper. And about tanks: there's a tradeoff between the weight and the armor. A heavily armored vehicle will move slower and may be shot more (and we hope it can take the extra punishment). A quicker though less armored vehicle can avoid unguided RPG fire (we hope) and can maneuver through alleyways that troops would otherwise have to clear by foot. (Blowing up the whole block is a war crime.) Having the seats face outward means little in the current battle conditions. RPG-armed enemies pop out for a second to get a shot off and then run away behind a corner or into a hole they had dug out. IEDs, well, you don't want to shoot at those at close range. Now, I'm not saying warfare is easy or harmless. I'm saying we have brought a heck of a lot of technology to bear to reduce the load.