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Aussie Army Trains With Fleet of Robots On Segways
kkleiner writes "The armed forces of the world have already begun to hunt down and shoot robots. No, it's not the beginning of the man-machine war; it's a state-of-the-art training simulation that's very cool to watch. Australia-based Marathon Robotics has taken Segways and turned them into human-shaped autonomous robots capable of moving around streets and buildings just like people in a crowd! The Marathon bots can act like insurgents, hostages, or civilians, letting armed soldiers practice before being exposed to the real thing. The Australian Department of Defense already has a training camp using the robots, and the US Marine Corps will be establishing one this year."
...eh...nevermind
No words. It's just cruel.
If only they made some of those robots similar to Serge Graystone; or perhaps, more appropriately, to few targetbots we've seen in the pilot.
One that hath name thou can not otter
All I know is that I've got to A) Get a Segway & B) Get my Segway armour-plated & C) Get a life, as thinking Segways are cool is lame...
--Stak
Holy happy hippy crap!
The second Most Dangerous Game!
crazy dynamite monkey
Marathon bots can act like insurgents
And you don't think this is dangerous? Perhaps the insurgents you are programming are not like the insurgents we encounter.
Few can command respect by being simultaneously resourceful and comical. Aussies seem to accomplish this feat regularly.
Hats off, mates! Seriously, as an engineer, I think this is awesome.
It's somehow Pythonesque, but I can't put my finger on it.
I can see the fnords!
I, for one, welcome our new Segway-riding military android overlords!
This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the story! Shoot Me Kangaroo Down Sport
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Actually, the videos showed them using it as sniper training. In real life, the targets move around, scatter when shots break out, etc. You can't simulate that with paper targets, and shooting at real people during training generates a lot of paperwork.
I would pay cash to be able to play this.
These robots do not look like terrorists, they are more like either insane terrorists or a bunch of idiot pervy wankers, however, I say give them guns to shoot back and put bombs on some of them dammit, otherwise what kind of real life simulation is that?
You can't handle the truth.
Why couldn't they have rigged up some cheap 4-wheeled robots to carry targets around? Then there would be no need for the expensive Segway balancing mechanisms.
But when they want "unprecedented levels of realism" in a training scenario against real people, why not use real people? Outside of the odd practice with live ammo it doesn't like there's even good reason to simply invent a better non-lethal training weapon. It's probably cheaper and suffers none of a robot's shortcomings with terrain... ...like, say, Daleks and their pre-2009 arch nemesis: stairs.
Unless there's a reason where you wouldn't simply want more soldiers/police/etc. practicing as the other faction?
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
There is a world of difference between holding a rifle in your hand in the field vs a computer sim.
It's Australian Department of Defence you insensitive clods.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
When you have spent a year or so shooting 100+ robots dressed up in various ways and moving in various patterns, it's not that different shooting a couple of insurgents. Almost like robots.
Hmmm. How would YOU train soldiers? There were no segways, no robots back in my day. Or, more accurately, the few robots we had were capable of very limited functions, like loading a missile onto a missile launcher.
As already mentioned, blowing holes in paper targets is exactly that, a hole in a paper. Papers don't move, except a few rather complicated setups which move the target in one linear direction, or the reverse. Those robots can move in at least two dimensions, at varying speeds, and probably in 3 dimensions if ramps are built for them. Pretty good training, really. And as Gravatron has already pointed out, shooting at people can ruin people's days.
Let's just hope they aren't paying the price of an Apache helicopter for these robots.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Someone actually found a viable real-world application for Segway that isn't a publicity gimmick.
just wait, it will probably tip over damaging the robot. segway? will it ever end?
"Grown men wasting tax payer $ to play real life video games. It just goes to show you how much money can be wasted on 'defense' spending, and no one bats an eyelid."
And what is your suggestion to train for realistic scenarios? Dolphins with frickin' laser beams?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
... and shooting at real people during training generates a lot of paperwork.
Only if you miss.
Insurgent on Segway http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pFv8CAniYQ
I thought aussies are fighting with cane toads and camels.
Why don't they just dress up some kangaroos in camouflage and turn'em loose? It'd be a lot cheaper and after the wargames they could have "roo on the barbie".
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
If you watch until the end, it shows exactly that: scatter after shots
Make one of the robots look like C3PO. And of course and enable it to talk.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I'm glad you're here to save the day, Captain Redundancy!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The guy in the video was running KDE 3.x! And one can assume that
(skip to 3:48)
the Aussie army will be prepared!!
That's ridiculous. Everyone knows that dolphins use sonic amplificators.
How utterly ridiculous. Grown men wasting tax payer $ to play real life video games.
Jealousy is an ugly thing ....
There's a subtle flaw in the design of this 'simulator' however - no simulated opponents or hostages on the second floors or on the roof.
Let's just hope they aren't paying the price of an Apache helicopter for these robots.
Its the Australian Army. The only thing they're going to spend the "price of an Apache helicopter" on is an actual Apache helicopter - and even then, that'd be *one* Apache helicopter, and one only.
To real life Cyberball. I'd pay to see that in an arena.
Not to dispute your point, but we're buying Tiger's. Not sure what we'll do with them. They'll probably hang around here and never deploy, just like the Leopards.
The funny thing is we came back with an extra helicopter after Vietnam thanks to a couple of crashed and written off US Iroquois and some mechanics with a lot of spare time.
Why do you think we are in Iraq and Afghanistan :D
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
It scares me when someone from a military force says they came back from any war saying they had "a lot of spare time".
Is this what the Duke Nukem Forever team have been working on?
and shooting at real people during training generates a lot of paperwork.
Only if you keep a video of the training, and some fool with a conscience leaks it.
Spike Milligan's mostly serious WWII memoirs sum that up fairly well. A lot of waiting about and brief bursts of action appears to be the norm in most conflicts.
Physically, it is not difficult and I found the PT lessons and field exercises, while very informative, to be easy and even comical at times. Ultimately, the marches you'll do at your unit and on operations will be more difficult. Pro Cleanse
They're just scoping out their opponents and their traditional mode of transport. The Australian Government is preparing to fight a war against Google on two fronts - the internet filter and a hunting trip to Mountain View.
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Hundreds of them....
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Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
Not to dispute your point, but we're buying Tiger's. Not sure what we'll do with them. They'll probably hang around here and never deploy, just like the Leopards.
they should have upgraded to snow leopard...
If Aussie's are going to keep coming up with ideas like this it is somewhat clearer why we might need our own tech wikipedia.
I was just wondering when the robots will start shooting back. Will it be 2015, 2020 or 2030? Maybe we should have a slashdot poll on that. And should we call the computers controlling these robots for Skynet or would that infringe on known trademarks?
Not to dispute your point, but we're buying Tiger's
You are buying Tiger's what? Old golf clubs? Whores?
Very cool to watch actually lifestyle
and what do you feed them?
(a tiger!? in india!)
It appears they also found a real-world application for Linux on the desktop.