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Wall-E Lookalike Wins British War Robot Showdown
longacre writes "Following in the footsteps of DARPA's Urban Challenge, in which robotic vehicles had to navigate a complex obstacle course without human intervention, the UK upped the ante with its own Ministry of Defence Grand Challenge: within a mock enemy village, robots were instructed to find potential targets and make distinctions between armed troops, roadside bombs and snipers. The winning entry, Team Stellar's SATURN system, actually consists of three vehicles: a low level drone and a tracked ground vehicle transmit reconnaissance data to a high-altitude robotic relay aircraft, which proceeds to phone that data home to a central processing center. Upon announcing the winner yesterday, MoD said they are 'carefully considering if technologies demonstrated in the final can be incorporated into future frontline kit for the Armed Forces. It is possible that the winning team will have invented a product that can be developed rapidly for the front line.'"
I thought from the moment I saw the movie that he could be used for more than just making cubes of trash!
"Slapping lipstick on a pig does NOT make it Natalie Portman. Paris Hilton, maybe, but not Portman." - UncleTogie
Just what the world needs, a robotic killing machine that likes to hold hands.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
What I like is this:
Would it not, perhaps, be better to invest time and energy into robots which "make distinctions" between armed troops and unarmed civilians?
Read Pynchon.
Well, there are notable similarities.
For example, it has tank treads, just like WALL-E. Also, it has binocular-type eyes, similar to WALL-E.
However, the same could be said of an AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter sitting on top of an M1A1 Abrams tank. :)
... British robot enthusiasts are more likely to respond to this interesting challenge if the site of the "mock enemy village" was centred around, oh I don't know ... say 10 Downing Street?
Peace (!),
Andy.
p.s. or for 60's T.V. geeks, the real Village from the Prisoner ... dodge Rover for an extra 10 points ...
Did no one else see this movie? This is clearly a step towards Johnny 5, Wall-E be damned.
OK, OK, OK, First off, That robot looked nothing like Wall-E, Second Wall-E was based on robot designs we are capable of making now, so the similarity's are not that striking. Treads: Easy to build and practical, used in most designs except Asimo and Big Dog. Stereo eyes: useful and also integrated into a lot of designs. The big center box: holds batteries and CPU's, though doesn't compact shit. Johnny-5 looked more like this robot then Wall-E, but both are based on real science, J5 was more down to earth then the cartoon who had way to many degrees of freedom without actuators to make me comfortable.
WALL-E, War Associate to Locate and Liquidate the Enemies.
Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.
is ALIVE!
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Or French.
Or lazy and French.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
welcome our new robotic ov... wait, hasn't this been done before?
Contrary to popular oppinion, London is not burning. It is, in fact, quite nippy.
But the hands.. where are the hands? If it can't grasp Eve's hand in the galactic loneliness of deep space, then it is nothing like Waaaaall-EEEE.
PS: shouldn't robots on a battlefield all have arms, to move crap out of the way..etc?
well put. and note, if we're talking about armed battlefield robots, targetting the opposition with lethal force, false positives should NOT be acceptable.
Quote:
within a mock enemy village, robots were instructed to find potential targets and make distinctions between armed troops
This is obviously designed for use in "the war on terror" where most of the fighting is against mock enemies....
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Why uncomfortable, did it touch you..? ;)
Just make sure that the robots have a preset kill limit. Then you can send wave after wave of your own men in, until they shut down.
Wall E fed him some salad then waited till he fell asleep then he tyed him up with Christmas lights and molested him while he was unconscious.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
DARPA and the MOD tried to have a joint challenge, however most of the British robots were shot or run over by the American robots during the exercise.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
With the possible side benefit of clearing the area of horses...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Two dis-similarities..
The cardboard last minute visor over the boom camera. The last minute sandwich box with a fan in it on the deck top.
also the plastic tarp over what looks like a Canon S2 digital camera also mounted on the deck top.
I love these competitions, the projects come out to compete and every one of them looks like it was just snagged off the bench with a sigh of "I hope this works"...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They were making robots that look like that way before Wall-E. If anything Wall-E was designed off of some other robot
Hence the clauses in the Geneva convention referring to carrying arms openly, and distinctive badges and insignia.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just about any technology can be used to kill. At least with military hardware, the best weapon is one that never needs to be used.
Also, is there something intrinsically better about being mauled by an old fashioned cannonbal than a grenade? Or a crossbow bold instead of a sniper bullet? Ideally, if you could develop and maintain a sufficiently large enough technology gap you woulnd't need to fight. Military development is as much about saving lives through conflict deterrence as it is about winning wars by killing people.
Bottom line, guns don't kill people, people do. All I know is that I'd rather bring a gun to a knife fight than a knife to a gun fight. I'd also rather be the one wearing a bulletproof vest in a gunfight, and the one with the armour peircing bullets etc.
Yes it has binocular eyes and tracks but that is about it. I would say it would look more like Johny Five from "Short Circuit". As Johny Five had binocular eyes, tracks, and was silver and designed for warfare.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Shouldn't it be armed with a bayonet, have a red jacket and run on tea?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
PS: shouldn't robots on a battlefield all have arms, to move crap out of the way..etc?
Nope - they have rockets and guns (no doubt made out of kidney machines) to blast crap out of the way.
You would think in a UK competition there would be at least one of those remote control Daleks running around hollering "EXTERMINATE!!!"
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
No, it just ex-TER-minated him.
I have to say, the photo of the winner suggests to me that while it might be able to locate one sniper, roadside bomb, or armed troop it probably wouldn't last long enough to find a second one.
While the multi-layered approach sounds like a winner, I can only imagine that any land based robot is going to need to be small and fast to have a very high survival rate. Or, small and cheap so that several can be deployed.
I know what you did last summer. Just kidding, I don't work at the NSA.
So we just rely on the huge military power to be benevolent?
Unchecked power is a pretty bad thing.
So maybe a few lives are saved, but are those lives worth living if they are lived in subjugation?
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
"I'm Wall-E"
"and I'm a PC"
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Tap, tap. "Excuse me, are you an armed troop?"
Show me on the wiring diagram where he touched you...
Wow, a Manfred Man lyric reference.
But rockets and guns are 'arms' too :-).
I must say, mentioning distinction and honor when your armed forces are viewed as an aggressor in the large part of the rest of the world sounds rather... hollow.
I also won't take your claims at face value; they sound like way too much propaganda. Well, you sound like propaganda, to be more accurate.
Random capitalization doesn't help, either.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Why couldn't they just build a real one like this one they used on the publicity tour?
chess
No "Skynet" tag?
Nope a The Jam reference - sort of - From Going Underground.
"With Kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
and the public gets what the public wants.."
Yeah, that's the song. I'm only familiar with the song as sung by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, though... hmm, looks like it really originated with The Jam. Thanks, I didn't know that.