DARPA to Raise Robot LANdroid Army

Banekartr writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to develop a fleet of robots that soldiers can deploy in urban combat settings as they move through houses and along streets. The program, dubbed LANdroid, envisions miniature autonomous drones that can form a network capable of relaying radio traffic in a setting often considered challenging for communications equipment. According to a notional image of a LANdroid included in a DARPA pamphlet, each robot will be about the size of a deck of cards, and must be rugged, lightweight and able to operate for seven to 14 days, the agency said. Demand for technologies to improve the military's ability to fight in urban settings has increased in recent years because many of the operations in Iraq take place in Baghdad and other Iraqi metropolitan settings. DARPA officials will provide additional information about the program during a July 6 industry day."

Comments

Not very covert ....

[gstoddart]

Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?

Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone who doesn't want them about.

Cheers

Re:Not very covert ....

[Mockylock]

It probably depends on the price of them and the ability to deploy.

If you could dump 1000 of them out for 100 bucks a piece... all by dropping from a plane or several per soldier, it would probably be quite effective. Even if they do smash one of them, even a couple photos taken will be useful.

Re:Not very covert ....

[duranaki]

I think they see these operational in active combat zones. Not sure how many kids are running around smashing stuff when there's live fire a block over. They could always print a copy of the Koran on the cover, making it a sin to destroy them. :)

I just hope they run linux so I can program my own LANDroid minions.

Re:Not very covert ....

[gstoddart]

I think they see these operational in active combat zones. Not sure how many kids are running around smashing stuff when there's live fire a block over.

Hopefully that's true. But, I don't get the impression that when there's a running firefight in urban parts of Baghdad that they've managed to clear out all of the civilians. In some places (maybe not Iraq, I don't know), the kids are sadly participating in the live fire.

When you're battling an insurgency/non-traditional forces, they don't always clear everything out in advance so it's a nice sterile combat zone of good guys and bad guys. I suspect a lot of civilians end up trying to stay the hell out of the way to varying degrees of success.

Cheers

Re:Not very covert ....

[Stanistani]

Give them simple avoidance algorithms. We've been studying cockroaches for how long now?
Ew. Robotic cockroaches. Armed. Hundreds of them.
Better hope that IFF thingy works.

Re:Not very covert ....

[ackthpt]

Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?

Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone wo doesn't want them about.

So do what geocachers do, figure out how to hide something in plain sight. A grotty old tin is lying in the gutter. Who would guess it actually contains a little robot cabable of moving the can around with some motors and gyros?

The fact is warfare is again changing, to employ swarms of networked robots to monitor and react in a hostile environment some may not requre any camo.

Re:Not very covert ....

[Walt Dismal]

Seems pretty easy to use low-tech against these. Dogs for one. And then application of effective peasant technology such as POR weapons (Plain Old Rocks) or SMD (Shovel of Mass Destruction) or the more sophisticated FBCB airborne weapon, also known as Frikkin Big Concrete Block deployed off roof.

Also they may be susceptive to simple home-brew weapons. Robo-tasers, gadgets rigged from auto ignition coils, etc.

Re:Not very covert ....

[mikael]

From the PDF document (page 10)


The goal is to create small, inexpensive, smart robotic radio relay nodes that
dismounted warfighters drop as they deploy in urban settings. The nodes then self-configure and
form a mesh network - a temporary infrastructure that establishes communications over the
region. As the situation changes, the nodes will adapt the network, such as self-healing if nodes
are destroyed by the enemy. Through movement and density, the LANdroids will enable
effective communications in complex non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments like those found in
urban settings - dealing with phenomena like fades and shadows through strategic self-placement
and chaining of the relays.
...

For both the software and robotic areas, the program will develop LANdroids for use in settings
where the ground is relatively level and traversing complex terrain is not required. In general,
warfighters will deploy LANdroids in urban areas they want covered with communications and
the warfighters themselves will provide a large percentage of the basic locomotion, i.e., will carry
the LANdroids to a general setting and drop them. LANdroids are a solution that combines both
density and intelligent autonomous movement. Thus, in practice there will be conditions under
which LANdroids are unable to navigate a given terrain in order to self-heal or otherwise make
large adjustments in the network.

The illustrations present the LANdroid as a combination of a mobile phone (status indicating monochrome LCD), the chassis of a radio-controlled tank (treads) and a WiFi station (four antennae).

Given the cheap cost of CCD chips, they might as well stick a web-cam and microphone on each system to help in surveillance and gunshot triangulation.

Re:Not very covert ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Have them set to self destruct. Maim kids, problem solved.

Re:Not very covert ....

[vertinox]

Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone who doesn't want them about.

Well... That is what the sniper hidden on the rooftop waiting for a "no-signal" alert is for.

And to be fair to the kid (and to those standing around him), the alternative was to just have a Predator drone drop some white phosphorus on last known position of the robot.

Re:Not very covert ....

[Anonymous Coward]

"Give them simple avoidance algorithms."
Run when a wookie roars at you.

Re:Not very covert ....

[u-235-sentinel]

Won't a bunch of little robots crawling about be pretty conspicuous?

Really, how difficult will it to put a bounty out for kids to go about smashing such things with rocks or something? Unless they can stay undetected they're gonna be prime targets for removal by anyone who doesn't want them about.

Ah yeah, but if they were invisible. Now that would be difficult to smash :-)

Re:Not very covert ....

[reconn]

Well crap, you've just described a scene from the spiders, an alternate-history-GWOT web comic. Life art life art life.

Re:Not very covert ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't need an expensive Predator drone. Send a GPS-guided artillery shell when a droid drops off the net too early. Kids with rocks have to be told they have two minutes to leave after smashing the box. Maybe not even that much time, because some of the droids may have cameras and whoever is watching may send a shell before the young enemy fighter uses the rock.

Re:Not very covert ....

[Arcane_Rhino]

Possibly. Another, or perhaps additional, option is to plan for the child contingency. Make the bots appealing and give them a few "stupid pet trick" buttons so the child will take the bot home to play with it. Now you have an embedded 'bot that can be used for surveillance.

Re:Not very covert ....

[Original Replica]

The dogs would be good against the early models , but the T-800 will slip right by.

Re:Not very covert ....

[sgt_doom]

I think they're planning on dressing them up in white desert robes with dark mustaches.

Seriously, though, if they really require some decent droids they should buy them from Lady Caslon....

Hmm.

[Mockylock]

All in time for the Transformers Movie.

Minority Report

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the spiders from Minority Report.

Re:Minority Report

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what I thought of when I read the headline!

Beowulf

[jshriverWVU]

Just imagine a beowulf cluster of these!

Please no

[Hijacked Public]

Please tell me that the network layout graphics in the linked PDF were not created by an adult working for the US Government.

Seriously, the little guy running with a rifle icon, that has to be from some grade school art contest. No one could possibly think those are functional informational graphics intended for grown ups.

And the green clouds?

Re:Please no

[boyfaceddog]

Grownups? Since when are reporters and news managers grownups?

Re:Please no

[Anonymous Coward]

the network layout graphics in the linked PDF

Dude! This is Slashdot: you weren't supposed to actually RTFA!

Re:Please no

[Kadin2048]

Seriously, the little guy running with a rifle icon, that has to be from some grade school art contest.

It's from a clip-art collection. I swear to god I've seen it before.

I think the "green cloud" is intentional -- if you look at it, it's not just a cloud, it's an overlapping of circles with radial gradients surrounding each of the nodes, presumably indicating their range or effective coverage area. Or maybe because it just looks cool.

Anyway, this is DARPA -- what do you expect? They're too busy thinking about stuff to make slick reports.

Re:Please no

[Loke the Dog]

Well, sometimes you get the feeling people who make pdf-files spend more time on the pdf than on the idea, so I think this was pretty refreshing.

Re:Please no

[jdray]

I presume the green circles are "radio footprints." Of course, whomever made this either didn't realize that overlapping the radio footprints doesn't make the devices communicate (the footprint has to reach the next device over), or figured that people reading wouldn't know and were going for visual impact instead.

Re:Please no

[Hijacked Public]

The problem, as usual, is that the graphics will eventually affect how they look at things and silly cartoonish graphics aren't going to further anyone's understanding.

The green circles are all the same size. If the Landroid that fell down into the sewer can effectively cover the same area as the one clinging to the side of the building, this must be some new wireless LAN technology I've never seen before.

And the warfighters who are trying to communicate, they both look like Meatloaf wearing a cookpot on his head.

Why is the droid standing on the deck of cards in every graphic? Surely that must be to give us a sense of scale, to show us that we aren't talking about a regular deck of cards here but one about 2 stories tall, twice the size of our cookpot headed giant Meatloaf warfighters.

Wouldn't a line drawing of a city been better than a photo?

Anyway, I guess the thing touched a nerve. These same graphics could be done in probably half the time and be twice as informative if the emphasis was placed on conveying information instead of being cartoonish.

LANdriod?

[AltGrendel]

Come on, you can do better than that

And anyway, I thought that Lucas had a copyright on anything 'droid.

Re:LANdriod?

[Critical Facilities]

True. Besides, when I hear LANdroid, I think of the poor intern being blown about by cold air as he pops his head up from raised floor tiles like a meerkat while holding miles of tangled CAT5.

Re:LANdriod?

[ubrgeek]

Well, originally they wanted iLANDroid but ...

Re:LANdriod?

[genner]

It's still better than the old edroid's they had running around a while back.

Re:LANdriod?

[Reziac]

Actually, the first use of "droid" that I personally know of was in an SF novel from the 1950s. (Someday I'll find it again... gotta unearth and reread that part of my collection...)

But when I saw this article, my first thought was ... oh no, REPLICATORS!!!

Re:LANdriod?

[R2.0]

Screw Lucas - if Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons aren't involved, then I'm not interested.

Paging Gene Simmons

[Anonymous Coward]

Did these people learn nothing from the film Runaway? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/

Simpsons

[Lord Ender]

"We can put a man on the moon, but we can't build killer robot police?"

Re:Simpsons

[sgt_doom]

"We can put a man on the moon,..

The serious and lucid answer to that statement is the fellow who came up with the program was gunned down in Dallas on November 22, 1963. (Oddly enough, when George H.W. Bush was visiting Dallas that very day.)

Locator file for Geo. H.W.Bush:

Dallas on the morning of the JFK assassination, dining with Hinckley family on night before Hinckley Junior attempts to whack Ronald Reagan; brunching with brother of Osama bin Laden, and head of BinLaden Group, the day prior to, and morning of, 9/11/01....... Geez, so many coincidences, so little time....

I've got a bad feeling about this..

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, sir: droids!

Re:I've got a bad feeling about this..

[PinkyDead]

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Re:I've got a bad feeling about this..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Roger roger"

I can't wait

[niceone]

I can't wait for the civilian version - I could use a bunch of Wifi routers with tracks scurrying round my house making sure I never get into a weak signal area.

As long as I could turn them off at night that is.

Re:I can't wait

[mattnuzum]

At night they vacuum the carpet and mop the kitchen floor.

Not as good for the soldiers as advertised

[plover]

This is really being designed to help the army commanders answer the age-old question: "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?" Now they can just ask the LANDroids.

To Serve Man

[Doc Ruby]

able to operate for seven to 14 days

They'll probably need to recharge their batteries rather than dedicate a lot of space to bigger ones.

When the Pentagon sends out little robots that feed on "battlefield casualty" bodies, we're all doomed.

Re:To Serve Man

[Kadin2048]

I think the point is they would just have non-replacable batteries, work for 14 days (or whatever) by managing that power very closely, and then die.

I strongly suspect that they're considered disposable -- you place them out to get communications coverage for one particular operation, and then just abandon them in place afterwards.

Re:To Serve Man

[jdray]

Being military, they'll probably use RTGs to charge capacitors. I suspect a fairly small RTG would generate enough juice to charge ultra-capacitors for use on the high-energy stuff like movement. AKAImBatman would know more, if he's reading...

Re:To Serve Man

[AKAImBatman]

AKAImBatman would know more, if he's reading...

At your service. I saw the bat-signal and came a'running. ;-)

Being military, they'll probably use RTGs to charge capacitors.

It would be nice, but I doubt it. RTGs are still incredibly expensive and wouldn't be used on something throw-away like this. In fact, the military as a whole tends to shy away from nuclear technology unless it's a bomb. The only reason why NASA still uses RTGs in the face of public protests is because nothing else will work. (Spacecraft live and die by the power available to them. Nuclear is not just an option, it's a requirement for extended space travel. People are going to need to accept that if we ever want to push out into space.)

More likely the military will look into using fuel cells or microgenerators to power these little buggers. For about the same space as it would cost to pack a couple of LIon batteries, the engineers could stick an alcohol fuel tank & (power cell | micro-gas turbine) with many time the energy density. That would allow the robots to meet or exceed the 7-14 day life expectancy.

Here's an example of just such a fuel cell: http://www.gizmag.com/go/5325/

Re:To Serve Man

[quanticle]

just abandon them in place afterwards.

That may not be a good idea, since enemy forces could just then grab the abandoned droids, and use them to listen in or jam our communications. A better idea would be a self-destruct mechanism of some kind, to prevent capture.

Also, does anyone else think that these LANDroids sound a lot like the Probe Droids from Empire Strikes Back?

Re:To Serve Man

[Kadin2048]

Doesn't seem like that would be too hard to do. It might be something as simple as only storing the encryption key in volatile memory, so that when the batteries run out, the key evaporates. You're left with the hardware, but it won't handshake with the rest of the network or do anything else particularly useful.

Plus, if you're an adversary trying to avoid being killed by U.S. forces, picking up a U.S. radio and transmitting on it is probably unhealthy. As in, once detected, it could lead to serious HARM. (Obviously the AGM-88 is overkill for someone on a low-power radio, but conceptually you could do the same thing on a smaller scale; build some sort of micro-HARM that would home in on a low-power transmitter.)

Re:To Serve Man

[jdray]

I'll grant you that those things are much lighter and more power rich than LIon batteries, but it's still huge compared to the target size of the whole package the military is looking for, and 180 W/h isn't enough to do the sort of thing they need, AFAIK. I still think RTGs are the answer.

Re:To Serve Man

[AKAImBatman]

I'll grant you that those things are much lighter and more power rich than LIon batteries, but it's still huge compared to the target size of the whole package the military is looking for

The particular unit I linked to is a replacement for their current computer/radio batteries. You'd use smaller units in the "deck of cards" sized LANdroid.

180 W/h isn't enough to do the sort of thing they need

You sure about that? The LANdroid is intended to provide Wireless communications for 7-14 days. Its actual movement (which is far more power-hungry) would be not be in continuous use. Using 7 days on a 180 Wh power supply as a baseline, I find that the unit could operate on 1.07 watts. That's really not that bad. Most basic cell phones operate on a power budget in that range. With some clever engineering, I imagine that the engineers could greatly increase the amount of power available to it.

I still think RTGs are the answer.

RTGs are a good answer for a lot of things. But until they enter mainstream development, the only ones you'll see are the massive clunkers that NASA flies.

Personally, I want one in my cell phone and laptop. Never having to recharge again would be nice. ;-)

Re:To Serve Man

[jdray]

I find that the unit could operate on 1.07 watts

Okay, but what is that, about three and a half days? That's far short of "seven to 14 days" mentioned in the blurb.

If you look at this description of a General Purpose Heat Source Module (dontcha love those military descriptive names?), you see that the major problem with an RTG is, as you alluded to, mass and not size.

GPHS modules stand approximately two inches tall and have a base that is almost square with sides less than four inches in length. Each GPHS module is designed to weigh no more than 1.44 kilograms and produces a nominal thermal power of 250 watts at beginning of mission.

Three pounds is a lot for something a few cubic inches in size. But, given a 7% nominal thermal-electric conversion efficiency (I based my math on some numbers for the Cassini mission), 250 W thermal should produce 16 W electric out of that three pound brick (by adding a little more mass for a thermopile). One of those bricks contains four Pu-238 pellets, and the diagram suggests that they're the same design on each side, so one could presume a half-sized, two-pellet GPHS would produce eight watts at maybe two pounds total. Eight watts isn't much, but it's going to do it for longer than the average term of service for a soldier.

Politics aside, it sure sounds like an attractive solution.

Re:To Serve Man

[AKAImBatman]

*AHEM* I said:

Using 7 days on a 180 Wh power supply as a baseline

You said:

what is that, about three and a half days?

Answer: No. Read above.

Eight watts isn't much, but it's going to do it for longer than the average term of service for a soldier.

It also costs tens of millions of dollars. Like I said, RTG development is an ideal solution for many situations. However, the military does not currently have access to RTG technology, is not looking to devleop RTG technology, is cognizant of the fact that the public doesn't like anything nuclear, and is not going to spend upwards of 10 million dollars on the power source for each LANdroid.

That being said, the military would do well to look at developing SRGs and other more efficient radioisotope heat engines. These engines could provide nearly unlimited power to the troops in the field. Battery packs would no longer be a consumable, but rather a sustainable asset from mission to mission.

While the military is not going to install these in little dispoa-bots, I've always thought that they should have developed the technology for the Land Warrior program. The designs they had kept failing time and time again because they couldn't find a power source that was both light *and* long-lasting enough for extended missions.

The only problem with that use is that RTGs reject a LOT of heat. The soldiers would be carrying around scalding hot devices as their power sources. Which is why it's so important that more efficient heat engines be developed. If we can get a 20-30% conversion efficiency rather than 3-7%, the soldiers could carry something around that's not too much warmer than your average battery pack.

Unfortunately, there's another down-side yet again. Heat engines work on heat differentials. Which means that they're going to be at their worst in hot, desert climates. Guess where most of our problems are these days?

So getting RTGs/SRGs used is not a simple problem. I personally think that there should be a LOT more R&D going into them, but I guarantee you that they will NOT be deployed for small bots like this.

Re:To Serve Man

[jdray]

The soldiers would be carrying around scalding hot devices as their power sources.

Okay, you win. But thanks for the link to the SRG page. Very interesting. Now I'm going to go read up on "linear alternators."

Re:To Serve Man

[quanticle]

As in, once detected, it could lead to serious HARM.

Yeah, you have a good point there. However, it brings up another question. Presumably, these little robots will have soldiers nearby (otherwise, what's the point). So what's preventing the enemy from homing in on the radio signals emitted by these things when they're looking to ambush some GIs?

Re:To Serve Man

[Kadin2048]

That's definitely a risk, however I think there's a certain assumption of technological superiority. (Which has been the case at least recently, although I suppose it's dangerous to project that assumption too far into the future.)

But actually, using a little network of micro-repeaters like this makes life somewhat safer for individual soldiers, since their personal radios don't have to transmit with nearly as much power (since it just has to hit the nearest repeater, not the destination station). Also, if you have 5-10 of these little mobile repeaters for every human soldier, an enemy that's homing in on radio transmissions would have a lot more targets than if you just have the soldiers themselves equipped with radios. They essentially act as decoys, taking attention away from human troops. And given attitudes in the U.S., trading equipment for friendly lives is usually more than acceptable.

I predict

[plover]

I, for one, predict a fleet of "I, for one, welcome our deck-of-card-sized LANdroid overlords" jokes.

Re:I predict

[phreakincool]

I, for one, thought your post was awesome!

Must... resist... urge....

[Spy der Mann]

These aren't the droids.... GAHHHH!

Re:Must... resist... urge....

[3chuck3]

Yes, was this not the Antaganist army from Star Wars Ep 1 and 2?

Re:Must... resist... urge....

[ross.w]

Roger, Roger!

hmm .. us gov plus robots

[josepha48]

equals a really bad sci fi movie. I guess that depends on how you liked terminator or R.O.T.O.R. . I'm sure there are many others and they usually end pretty bad. Like some terrorist getting their hands on the robot and reprogramming.

But if it saves human lives, then it is a good thing. Until they decide they are better than us and hunt us all down.

ROTFLOL

WiFi Repeater With Wheels?

[Bob9113]

OK, I just gotta ask: Why would you want a WiFi repeater to be mobile? Given its size, it can't be *that* mobile, especially in an environment with a little bomb debris. I can't imagine it would be able to keep up with the troops, and the recovery rate (if they're hoping for it to drive home) would be so miniscule as to be outweighed by the increased bulk and cost of the drive unit.

Leave the drive unit and motor control out, double the battery life, halve the weight and price, drop twice as many. Then design a separate device to do whatever they hell those tracks are on there for (giving the brass stiffies, is my guess).

JM2C, but this looks like a tits-on-a-mule cockup between war scientists and dipshit generals. "That looks good. Can you put wheels on it?" "Wheels, Sir?" "Yeah, wheels, so it can drive around, like that Grand Challenge thing you did. And the Predator. Autonomous warfighting robots, it's the future, son." "Umm, well, I guess it's possible." "Outstanding! Let me know when it's ready."

Not that I don't dig the shit out of DARPA, and I definitely want an autonomoous WiFi tank of my own, but this seems a little stupid.

Re:WiFi Repeater With Wheels?

[Kadin2048]

Agree completely. Having it move around seems stupid, unless it has some sort of other purpose besides what's being disclosed. (Anyone remember the little slow-crawling bombs from Total Annihilation?) I think they're just there for the "wow" (or perhaps "WTF") factor.

Seems like, if you had enough money to spend on the design, you could make a wifi (or similar UHF/microwave) repeater that was really tiny. Use custom ASICs, and I bet you could get something that was less than an inch in diameter and a few inches long, including batteries. Harden them appropriately, and you could drop them from planes over a target area, and even if you took substantial losses, would still have a functioning mesh network on the ground.

What you really want isn't a miniature tank with a Wifi AP strapped to it, what you want is an overgrown self-powered RFID tag with transmit/receive and basic routing capabilities.

Re:WiFi Repeater With Wheels?

[Yvanhoe]

I suspect that they will not only have wheel but also cameras. THAT would make them useful as an occupation tool. (Of course it should absolutely not be tolerated outside a battlefield and any citizen should be authorized to destroy them during peace time). For a SF vision of this sort, you can check this SF webcomic. In fact the idea seems to come directly from it...

Re:WiFi Repeater With Wheels?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time, please at least skim the article before giving your half baked ideas. The link goes into great details about why mobility is required: shadowing. Shadowing is a result of signals in an urban setting (they get blocked by buildings, multipaths occur, etc). Being mobile allows them to make small location changes to minimize shadowing, and to repair the network when other nodes start dying. They're not supposed to follow the Soldier or return to home base after a week. They're designed to be dropped on the go, and to simply stop working after 2 weeks, with no need for clean up.

Re:WiFi Repeater With Wheels?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the PDF they specifically mention the two reasons for wheels/tracks (doesn't matter which for the project, just that it's able ot move):

• Fine tuning of signal strength. If you think this is not a significant advantage, you haven't spent much time trying to find the strongest signal for a particular location. Just because your home wifi is 'good enough' for your purposes, doesn't mean it couldn't be a lot better 2 inches to the North. This is very significant when you realize that these units will be deployed by soldiers willy nilly as they run around - the soldiers are specifically NOT required to 'find the best wireless spot'. They can drop the units as they run, and the units will take off on their own to build the best mesh they can.
• Repair of the mesh when a node goes down. So if Node 7 goes down, then Node 8 and 9 will try to find a better position for themselves to provide coverage where Node 7 was. Along with this they propose to follow a soldier - so they get better coverage as they move about.

Btw, they are disposable - there is no plan for them to drive home. They also aren't required to manage stairs or debris fields - flat relatively benign surfaces only, though they are required to be able to navigate around obstructions.

Re:WiFi Repeater With Wheels?

[glesga_kiss]

Btw, they are disposable - there is no plan for them to drive home.

Sounds like war in general...

Not a technical problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Our armies are not designed to be police forces that occupy cities.

This is not a technical problem that robots will solve.

Re:Not a technical problem

[Shihar]

That might not have been the original intent, but that is what they are used for now, and this is what they have to adapt to. For better or for worse, there is no other organization out there capable of acting as a police force in a combat zone, especially when it is a combat zone filled with warring ethnic and tribal rivals. Cops don't have the fire power, the UN couldn't find its dick (much less a genocide) if you handed it to them, and NGOs don't fight. The only alternative to using a national army is hiring out a mercenary army.

Now, it could be argued that acting as police is a waste of time/money. That said, I sure would like the army to have the ability to play worlds police if we have to. The future conflicts of this world will be Rwanda and Darfur style genocides and civil wars. Perhaps we will silently watch as we have in the past, but we should at least have the capacity to act should watching a nation drop 10% of its population in an orgy of rape and murder (as seen in Rwanda) eventually gets to our delicate sense of morality. Of course, we could just go the European rout and ignore every single genocide all together while paying lip service to diplomacy. It isn't terribly effective, but it sure is cheaper and lets you bring out peace slogans.

Re:Not a technical problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great, but his/her point remains that simply adding tiny rolling wifi repeaters to an army does not automatically turn it into a police force suitable for dealing with widespread violence in cities.

Re:Not a technical problem

[Shihar]

Right, and giving someone a bullet proof vest doesn't suddenly make you a competent soldier. What is your point? I don't think anyone OMFG give them a single piece of equipment suddenly the US military is the best policing force in the world. It is just one minor component of the many that will be needed.

I for one ::tab::

[t35t0r]

LANdroid army ::tab::

incidentally how does one include strings in gt/lt brackets without the /. parser recognizing it as html.

Twin linked pulse carbines?

[Pond823]

I'm looking forward to deep strike battlefield videos, all in the name of The Greater Good.

What No Weapons?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder how this will twart the sucide bombers in Baghdad?

Darth Cheney's Other Plan

[tjstork]

Is to compliment the army of droids with the orbiting battle station.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Conservative_med ia_site_claims_Bush_will_1202.html

So really, when it all boils down to it, liberals watched Star Trek, and wanted to make the world like that, whereas conservatives watched Star Wars, and wanted to make the world look like that.

Just a like President and a Vice President, there is a master and apprentice. Which is which?

Re:Darth Cheney's Other Plan

[zippthorne]

Considering Star Trek's positions on the continuity problem and DRM, I think maybe Star Wars' universe might be the brighter future.

"Well, what we do is make an exact duplicate of you, while killing you. Also, it might not be in that order, and sometimes one of those operations will fail."

and,

"There may only ever be one copy of the critical emergency medical software. Even if you get a portable, auxiliary storage device from the future. Move or move not. There is no copy."

Which brings to mind the Star Trek Paradox: You can copy people, but not programs.

Now, Star Wars did have it's problems, too, but at least the Republic was eventually restored.

Here's a plan

[clickclickdrone]

Paint them white, let them loose and wait for the enemy to say 'Ooh, iPhone!' then when they pick it up, kaboom!

& is your friend

[benhocking]

incidentally how does one include strings in gt/lt brackets without the /. parser recognizing it as html.

Use the &lt; (<) or &gt; (>) notation.

urban pacification ..

[rs232]

How about not spending the money on figuring out ways to destroy some gook village and instead spend it on health care. Wait untill they turn this stuff on you.

"This city has been pacified", Judge Joe Dredd

Re:urban pacification ..

[Shihar]

How about not spending the money on figuring out ways to destroy some gook village and instead spend it on health care. Wait untill they turn this stuff on you. Wait until they turn an army of wi-fi LAN bots on us? Oh dear god. Please, don't let them give me free wi-fi access!

Re:urban pacification ..

[kbielefe]

instead spend it on health care

I don't know. Suicide bombers don't strike me as the type who are really concerned about their health. Maybe some life insurance for them and accidental dismemberment for IED makers?

I for one...

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

...welcome our new... oh god I'm so depressed.

Landru?

[hachete]

did I hear someone mention Landru?

Nuclear material

[benhocking]

Yeah, because it'd be a good idea to give terrorists easy access to nuclear materials/technology. :)

(Yeah, I know, RTGs use low-grade materials, but it's funnier if you don't think too hard about it. OTOH, it might make it harder to detect actual bomb-making materials if you're scattering around a bunch of RTGs.)

demand for technologies has increased .. ?

[rs232]

"Demand for technologies .. has increased .. because many of the operations in Iraq take place in Baghdad and other Iraqi metropolitan settings"

How dare those Islamo-fascist-crypto-communists think they can run their own country and steal our oil.

Re:demand for technologies has increased .. ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. I mean, they have an advantage; they don't value human life. Makes it a lot easier for them then us; We should just give in and let them conquer the world, like the Quran tells them to.

Re:demand for technologies has increased .. ?

[rs232]

"You're right. I mean, they have an advantage; they don't value human life. Makes it a lot easier for them then us; We should just give in and let them conquer the world, like the Quran tells them to"

There was *no* danger of terrorism attacks coming from Iraq as Saddam Hussein kept the Islamic fundamentalists firmly under his thumb. And back when he invaded Iran, he was still one of Americas favourite dictators in the middle east. It was only after he invaded Kuwait that he became Americas second biggest bogey man.

"They" value human life the same as the next man, but having grown up in a refugee camp being bombed from the air by helicopter gunship, they are likely to become a little desensitised. The scattered population of dispossessed Palestinians are going to be a threat long into the future.

It was the US administration that promoted Islamic fundamentalism while it was usefully in pushing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. Bin Laden was specifically sent in to Afghanistan to organize the 'resistance'. Currently, Al Qaeda isn't so much an organization but an amalgam of remnants of these groups plus a distributed group of disaffected Muslims being fed poison by the religious leaders in so called religious schools (madras). This is the source of the current terrorist threat. As such blowing up some gook village in Iran is going to do squat to defeat terrorism.

Support the troops

[Anonymous Coward]

So the troops will have pr0n in the field, but how are the torrents going to be?

PTSD

[xinjiang77]

This must have been how Marvin became a paranoid android.

Transcript From the Pentagon Meeting

[Hoi Polloi]

Person #1: "We need ideas on how to resolve the Iraq quagmire."
Person #2: "How about a withdrawal?"
Person #1: "Unreasonable! Next!"
Person #3: "A death ray?"
Person #1: "Look into that, next!"
Person #2: "A withdrawal is the sane answer..."
Person #1: "No can do! Next!"
Person #4: "Ummm, a billion dollars for mind control research?"
Person #1: "Great! Add it to the budget, next!"
Person #2: "For a fraction of that we could end this."
Person #1: "Not acceptable! Gotta stay in! Next!"
Person #5: "A fleet of robots? We could take money from customs inspectors to pay for DARPA funding."
Person #1: "Excellent! Now these are the kinds of ideas this administration is looking for!"

Cute

[phrostie]

Cute little things, but they are going to have a hell of a time with stairs.

didn't I see these things ...

[Bob-taro]

... in minority report?

Re:Runaway

[Migraineman]

Minority Report? I immediately thought of the spiders in Runaway ... what? Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, Kirstey Alley ... killer robots, bullets that fly around corners ...
damn, y'all make me feel old.

Another Military-Industrial-CONGRESSIONAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Complex scam.

Here, Landroids. Good, little Landroids.

This
should take care of your army of zero.

Cheers,
Kilgore Trout.

Time to update the old T-shirt....

[Doctor Memory]

Anybody else remember the one with the two vultures on it that said "Scavengers my eye! I'm going to kill something!" I imagine a Beowulf cluster of these would look like a swarm of pirhanas come feeding time...

Re:Time to update the old T-shirt....

[Doc Ruby]

I remember the Marine Corps T-shirt that said "Kill 'em all... let god sort 'em out!"

Stairs

[amyhughes]

they are going to have a hell of a time with stairs

Says who?

Actually, I see these things (the DARPA card deck-sized robots) being tossed through second floor windows, and launched to higher storeys.

Mini-Helicopters

[writerjosh]

Supposedly, the LANdroids are to be deployed at the same time the troops are. The only problem I see is that these droids can't move as fast as Hummers and tanks. An army needs to be highly mobile, and take ground at a high rate. How can these droids change positions fast enough to compensate for a fast-moving army? Doesn't seem possible to me.

A better alternative would be to make these droids into mini-helicopters instead. They could land on roof-tops and thus be more out of harm's way. Plus, they could move much faster when needed. Plus, I think the mini-helicopters would be plenty durable. Have you ever seen that infomercial for those mini helicopters that can crash into stuff and keep right on going?

Where's my check, DARPA?

Re:Mini-Helicopters

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the announcement from DARPA you'll see that they are not supposed to move around a lot, just a little. Imagine moving into an environment (urban, rural, etc.) where you want to keep everyone connected. As your troops move through, you drop repeaters, and create an on-the-fly mesh network. But if a repeater ends up behind a wall, under a car, or behind some other obstruction, it would be nice to allow it to move itself around a short distance. This can greatly improve the signal quality and range. (Ever see those "can you hear me now?" ads on tv? ;-)

So the idea isn't quite as stupid as /.'ers are making it sound.

Deus Ex.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to develop a fleet of robots that soldiers can deploy in urban combat settings as they move through houses and along streets."

Welcome to Deus Ex.*

*Remember the spider bots?

Re:Deus Ex.

[FusionDragon2099]

Scanning area... target acquired...

Another Conservative failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, excellent idea. Let's retool our entire nation's military to make it more effective... to fight in Iraq. And that's it.

Gone are the days when our military is focused on "national defense". Now our military will be good for one thing, and one thing only: subjugating our Iraqi colony, and perpetuating the genocide of people who have the audacity to live above our oil.

Yep, these conservatives sure are smart.

Re:Another Conservative failure

[catdevnull]

Well, we (the USA) haven't had a defensive war/military action since WWII. Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (parts 1 and 2), Somalia, Bosnia, etc., are the larger operations that come to mind. If you think the lack of a "national defense" focused military is new, you're about 45-50 years late to realize this.

Realistically, most of the kinds of fighting in the post WWII era has been much like it is in Iraq--urban guerilla warfare fighting against a smaller outgunned and almost invisible enemy that uses booby traps and bombs (now called "IEDs") to kill as many troops as possible. The fact that our casualties from this war are LOW compared to all previous conflicts is remarkable. Any technology that can help keep troops alive is a GOOD thing--military personnel, strictly speaking, don't really have a choice about who they fight or where they fight much less the reasons why.

Whether or not this ARPA project is a good or effective technology remains to be seen. Since the press release is not classified, I'm sure it's not the most effective tool or weapon on the drawing board for Iraq or whomever the USA decides to fight next.

Before I make my final comment, please bear in mind that I am neither a conservative or liberal--I'm a moderate with no agenda to push except reason:

I will believe the sincerity of liberals who rant about oil, genocide, and foreign policy when I see them giving up the comfortable lifestyle our petroleum-based economy affords them. Equally, I'll believe the the sincerity of conservatives when they stop bullshitting us about their motivations for using the military to enforce our "foreign policy."

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Qaida to deploy daily EMP-releasing pipebombs.

SexBots

[HEADCHEESE]

Why has noone talk about the porn/stripclub applications. SexBots Rule. God im so lonely :-( somebody please make me a sexbot.

Re:SexBots

[catdevnull]

*poof* you're a sexbot

I blow my nose at your Landroids

[Aqua_boy17]

Hah!
I'll just counter-attack the Landroids using my LandLord(TM). It will send them home penniless and humiliated.

Well..

[ms1234]

Future warfare will be more and more fought in urban areas as people move more and more to cities. And as US has now noticed, urban warfare is something completly different from normal warfare.

only helps terrorists

[rebmemeR]

These robots will be easy pickings for the enemy. They'll figure out a way to harvest them, reprogram them, or just re-use the parts. This will put the terrorists and insurgents decades ahead. The wiring diagrams will be available by bittorrent.

Boom!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are of course assuming they never get the ability to defend themselves or just blow up...

I just wonder

[guruevi]

how long will it take for a freedom fighter and his 12 year old son to hack one of these and turn a platoon of these little buggers 180 degrees around.

Yeah, I know, sounds like a bad movie, but a bunch of electronics can be 'persuaded' to fight it's own side than a bunch of brainwashed people.

Do they have a Self Distruct feature?

[DigiShaman]

Well, do they?

1. Hunt

2. Fire

3. Self distruct if in danger and/or out of ammo.

So you've got car bombs eh? Well, we've got ROBO-BOMBER!

Terminator, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the Terminator scenario, where the people in control send out robots to kill anyone who opposes their power.

Re:Terminator, anyone?

[laffer1]

Yeah I was expecting a lot more terminator jokes. Combine this with Windows and you have terminator 3.

Please, please, please

[hawkd_sf]

tell me they'll at least test these in "war games" where they'll turn a group of moderately accomplished hackers loose to capture one, hack it and then turn it loose to rat out and confuse/betray it's brethren and the troops relying on same. And then they can see for themselves what a bone-head idea this is before they dare to let anyone's lives depend on this. Maybe enter them in a 'Battle of the Bots' and they can get stomped by a Vroomba...

Misread

[Toonol]

At first glance, I thought the headline was about the "raising of a RANDroid army."

I thought "Finally!" and was ready to grab my Objectivist Concordance and start marching.

University of Kansas

[Buzz_Litebeer]

They were working on this stuff at KU as far as 4 years back by mounting repeaters on vehicles that would allow the network to change dynamically and route around hills and stuff if connections between two vehicles was cut by terrain.

Picture one of those stage-hooks

[spun]

You know, I don't mean to be cruel, but every time someone attempts one of these jokes and gets modded down, I picture that person stepping out into the limelight and delivering his hackneyed line. Crickets chirp for a moment, an audience member coughs, and then a trumpet plays that sad little "WAH Wah wah waaaaaah" bit as the poor unfortunate is dragged off with a hook.

That's probably just me, though.

:O

[pmsyyz]

I'm picturing the little spider robots from Minority Report.

Irony alert

[RockWolf]

There's irony in the redundant mod of the parent post, somewhere. Can't quite spot it...

Humans are more important

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a better use of the defence force's money to deploy more humans. Two humans with guns can beat one human with robots and armour and wi-fi and gps etc.

Super Paper Mario

[GWBasic]

All I can think about is a soldier walking around, surrounded by a ring of little robots. This reminds me of Super Paper Mario where you can walk around surrounded by a ring of little Marios that will protect you.