The Army's $10M Spy Bat Still Too Big

Lucas123 writes "The University of Michigan's Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology (COM-BAT) is working on building a robot bat that would perform long-range reconnaissance for the U.S. Army, but U.Mich is currently struggling with miniaturizing components in order to make the bat small enough to be stealthy. 'The focus is to shrink down many electronics that while currently available would only be good if the US Army wanted, say, a 12-foot spy-bat.' Some components need to be 1,000 times smaller than they currently are. The Army's $10 million grant proposal calls for the bat to be six inches in length, weigh four ounces and use just one watt of power. The bat is supposed to be powered by a lithium-ion battery, charged by solar and wind energy, as well as simple vibrations."

Comments

Re:Sounds like a comic book prop

[AKAImBatman]

But seriously, why go with an ornithopter design?

Stealth. It needs to act (at least somewhat) like a real bat or it will be detected. Real bats are ornithopters. Ergo, the spy craft must be an ornithopter.

Pigeons next

[TheMeuge]

The idea of a bat-like creature is probably a concern because fixed wing designs will attract more attention.

Basically, they want something that'll look like a bird, fly like a bird, and would be able to engage in surveillance without anyone noticing. The next logical step would be to make a pigeon-like creature, that would be unnoticeable in an urban environment. A few thousand of those in a large city could make enforcing "free speech zones" much easier.

Re:Pigeons next

[TheMeuge]

I find fault with your logic, because you're assuming that one's beliefs and principles override one's requirement to work in order to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their families.

Re:Cue The Peacnik Hippie Crowd.

[evanbd]

So is the cure for cancer. And given the choice, I know where I'd want my taxes to be spent.

You present a false dichotomy.

I'm generally in favor of reduced defense spending, but research into new capabilities is something I think is worthwhile. I wholeheartedly agree that a cure for cancer would be better than this, but we don't have that choice available. Even if we did, it's likely that a few $M taken from a robotic bat project wouldn't even be close to enough.

We can spend money on both. Whether spending tax money on this is a good idea is mostly unrelated to whether spending tax money on medical research is a good idea. Obviously the two are connected through tax rates and thus the total government funding available, but as long as the projects are small relative to the total fund, they should each be evaluated against the alternative of reducing taxes (or increasing them, depending on your preferred viewpoint), rather than against each other.

We're all (well, mostly) smart people here, capable of evaluating complex choices. Let's at least look at the correct set of choices, rather than a rhetoric-filled politically motivated set of options that don't actually exist.