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"Bear" Robot to Rescue Wounded Troops
Jim Hall writes "The US military is developing a robot with a teddy bear head to help carry injured soldiers out of combat. The "friendly appearance" of the robot is designed to put the wounded at ease. The 6ft tall Bear can cross bumpy ground without toppling thanks to a combination of gyroscopes and computer controlled motors to maintain balance. It is expected to be ready for testing within five years. 'It is also narrow enough to squeeze through doorways, but can lift 135kg (500 lbs.) with its hydraulic arms in a single smooth movement, to avoid causing pain to wounded soldiers. While the existing prototype slides its arms under its burden like a forklift, future versions will be fitted with manoeuvrable hands to gently scoop up casualties. The Bear is controlled remotely and has cameras and microphones through which an operator sees and hears. It can even tackle stairs while carrying a human-sized dummy.'"
Give the robot a menacing look with red eyes, a gun, 500 pounds of Ammo, and leave the troop home; Also embed an explosive.
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If the thing is so sophisticated that can navigate rough terrain in a hostile arena and carry someone back, why not give it a gun and let it do the fighting? Then there would be no wounded to carry back.
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i would have figured this thing would have needed a massive battery pack, judging by the description of its functions, but the picture shows only a slight slender thing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously, there's a reason Pedo-bear is such a popular meme. It's extrememly creepy to see something so supposedly cute doing bizarrly out of context things. Especially when you've got the whole 'uncanny valley' coming into play, with both the robotics and the fixed, glassy stare.
A much better idea would be to structure the robot as clearly not humanoid, but just as clearly not intimidating. Something like a walking stretcher or the robotic donkey they recently tested. Preferably not with a less-than-useless face; robot movies show that video cameras can be just as cute.
ceci n'est pas une
How comforting to know that the robot will be able to pick up my limbs or whatever is left of me carefully. ...but id rather see that budget spent promoting world peace
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
It's the new exchange rate. The US pound has been greatly devalued in relation to the European kilogram.
Anyway, I see a lot of skepticism about this design, but I think it's great. TFS makes it sound like the robot is designed with a furry brown teddy bear head, but it's more just a friendly robot face. Having been rescued from death (although not the battlefield kind) before, I would say that it's a great idea to have something like that when the people it will be picking up are not thinking clearly.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
I think a large breasted womanbot would be far more comforting than an evil robot bear, considering they are the number one threat to America...
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Notice how all the tenses used in the summary and article are present tense? Except the prototype doesn't do most of the things the article so glowingly describes. The only hint is the "ready for testing in 5 years." And even that is about as weak an assertion as one can make - not production, not deployment, not evaluation, but testing in FIVE years.
I build military bots, and I love this concept, I've even seen the current prototype. This is something we need and I wholly support the effort but this press release is pure marketing. The current prototype can't walk, and as far as I could tell it can't even stand yet, the prototype has large wheels where the 'knees' are currently.
I'm sure this story is a calculated attempt to get development money, and that's good, but it's couched in terms that make it sound like the technology is ready to go, which it's not. Five years is a long time, expect lots of program and design changes between now and then, and depending on politics (i.e. military funding) it may get scrapped entirely.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
But, if you regard hope as a myth then you are most certainly depressed.
Funny, but that shows not that robots can't walk. But that robots don't have a disaster recovery. What would a human have done the minute they sensed they were falling?
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This project seems ignorant of current first-response medical practice. The soldier in the rendering would choke, injure neck vertebra, and exacerbate internal injuries by the time the MediTeddy brought him to safety. If they are going to automate the recovery of wounded, they need to immobilize the patient. This looks like low-end science-fiction mashed-up with an old hollywood war-movie.
If the robots could figth aproximately as effectively as the humans, there'd be no reason to put human beings on the battlefield at all.