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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."
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!
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.
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.
The robots are for sniping practice. For long range shooting, nothing comes close to the actual thing. You really don't want to put real people out on the range.
I mean sure, they COULD just send their snipers off big game hunting, but that might not play so well.
I think insurgents in real life can climb stairs. I hope that doesn't come as a nasty shock to some Aussie soldier in the future...
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But we'll know who to call when the Daleks show up...
If you watch the video, they mention that the Segways lurch forward a bit when accelerating in a way that is similar to the posture of a human running. Also, I suspect that the stability that 4 wheels gives a platform is far too unrealistic to mimic humans well: If you ever read up on the physics of walking on two legs, you'll find that humans tend to lurch and sway a lot in a somewhat similar way to the segways.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!