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BEAR Robot Designed To Rescue Wounded Soldiers
Zothecula writes "The US Army is currently testing a robot designed to locate, lift, and carry wounded soldiers out of harm's way without risking additional lives. With feedback from its on-board sensors and cameras, the Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR) can be remotely controlled through the use of a special M-4 rifle grip controller or by hand gestures using an AnthroTronix iGlove motion glove. This equipment would allow a soldier to direct BEAR to a wounded soldier and transport them to safety where they can be assessed by a combat medic."
In under-fire situations, I understand the need to reduce casualties. Can this thing move fast enough to really get the job done? I mean, its not like our guys are fighting in speed-ball arenas, with nice and neat little pathways to the downed. Much of the time the terrain is shelled, broken remnants of buildings, cars, misc. crap is scattered everywhere, and tracked-robot friendly areas seem sparse. What about mountain fighting? If I were the Taliban (there I said it, fuck you Medal of Honor), I would target these things, they would stick out like a sore thumb. Its not like 'not shooting medics' has ever really been respected lately (by both sides).
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I'm on the battlefield, wounded, afraid and possibly delerious, and up rolls the bastard offspring of Wall-E and pedobear?
This is the funniest thing I've read today. So you want to send human soldiers into harms way but you then want to develop technology which can do a humans work to retrieve them without causing any further harm to your soldiers? Really?! War....
It seems as though one day armies (at least the US') will be composed of robots killing humans. I'm not going to trot out the usual OMG SKYNET!! sentiment, though. What concerns me is that there'll be at least one nation that will be out there making war without suffering much in the way of human loss: where will be the incentive to stop?
Take a lesson from one of your own:
It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it. - Lee, December 1862
When I think that after ten millennia of so-called civilisation we as a species still resort to murder to solve our differences I despair, I truly do.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.