Surveillance Robot That is Programmed To Hide

An anonymous reader writes "The folks over at Lockheed Martin have just released information about their new covert robot that can sneak up on buildings, detect and evade sentries, and send reconnaissance information back to the good guys. From the article: 'What makes the robot special is its ability to build a computer model of its surroundings, incorporating information on lines of sight. The robot is fitted with a laser scanner to allow it to covertly map its environment in 3D. It also has a set of acoustic sensors which it uses to distinguish nearby footsteps and their direction.'"

Comments

Stalkerbot is for criminal investigations!

[assemblerex]

Clearly it would never be used on students, protestors, political opponents or scornful ex-lovers.

Re:Stalkerbot is for criminal investigations!

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Hey they just crossed ninjas with robots.

There is no bad here.

better verify that

[clarkn0va]

...and send reconnaissance information back to the good guys

So if I know for sure that I'm the bad guy, I definitely don't want to be using one of these.

Degrees of definition

[naota-kun]

So, if the "bad guys" have this, does it still transmit information to the "good guys"? I suspect the good guys are simply the fellows with the bigger checkbook. But I'm an optimist.

Re:Degrees of definition

[davester666]

Ha. They don't spell it out, but obviously it comes with an ideology chip, which makes sure only people with the correct ideology can use it.

Re:Degrees of definition

[mug funky]

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Re:Degrees of definition

[Anonymous Coward]

0. KILL ALL HUMANS

Re:Degrees of definition

[Sulphur]

So, if the "bad guys" have this, does it still transmit information to the "good guys"? I suspect the good guys are simply the fellows with the bigger checkbook. But I'm an optimist.

Its robotic relativism.

Re:Degrees of definition

[JWSmythe]

    The "good guys" are the ones with the robots. The "bad guys" are the ones without them.

    It's kind of like, the "good guys" always win the wars, because their side is writing the history books. The "bad guys" are the ones who were bombed to oblivion, either with conventional bombs or nukes.

    Consider World War II. As written by the allied forces. America was not involved in the war. We were innocently sitting by, letting them fight it out. Suddenly out of nowhere, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. No one expected any such thing. We were not involved. Just ignore the fleet of about 100 ships in port, 3 aircraft carriers nearby, about 400 aircraft on the ground, and all the troops.

    If it were written by the Axis forces. America was staging for a strong attack against Axis forces. A pre-emptive strike managed to substantially reduce their strength, which reduced their ability to harm Axis soldiers and civilians.

    And we all know which way it went. Dropping two nukes on Japan ended it. Consider both points of view.

    For the allied forces, it was a strong blow to prove our military superiority, which ended the war.

    For the axis forces, the massacre of about 200,000 civilians forced our surrender, to save countless lives from further attacks.

    That is not to belittle the events of the war, or the tragic loss of life on both sides. It's only to illustrate how the perception of the outcome from such events is totally tainted by those who won. Of course the "good guys" won.

    How about those WMD's now.
   

Re:Degrees of definition

[shmlco]

"As written by the allied forces. America was not involved in the war. We were innocently sitting by, letting them fight it out. Suddenly out of nowhere, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. No one expected any such thing. We were not involved. Just ignore the fleet of about 100 ships in port, 3 aircraft carriers nearby, about 400 aircraft on the ground, and all the troops."

As I remember it in the US history book that I read, Japan was busy expanding to the south, China, and the Philippines in search of more land and resources. We were telling them that they needed to stop, or we'd be forced to intervene and blockade. They decided that a pre-emptive strike was in order. We didn't expect a conventional attack on Pearl, but were guarding against Japanese sabotage. They thought an attack would give them time they needed. It didn't.

"Dropping two nukes on Japan ended it. ... For the allied forces, it was a strong blow to prove our military superiority, which ended the war."

For the allied forces, it was a bluff made to prove our military superiority in an attempt to quickly end the war. If it didn't work, a long, drawn-out conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland would have killed hundreds of thousands of Allied and Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians in an operation that would have made all of the earlier Pacific operations look like cakewalks.

And it just so happens that these versions of history tie pretty closely to those espoused by the Japanese, in particular, Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki. There are also several revisionist attempts, including Day of Deceit.

Just goes to show that the presentation of history isn't always as one sided as one might believe.

Re:Degrees of definition

[Locke2005]

To a robot, "The Good Guys" are the ones supplying your electricity!

Re:Degrees of definition

[KillaBeave]

Mod parent up.

Also to expand on your point about the nuking of Japan being mainly to avoid a long protracted invasion.

We're still using the Purple Hearts that were made in anticipation of hundreds of thousands of casualties that would have arisen from Operation Downfall. From wikipedia ...

Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.

Re:Degrees of definition

[McKing]

(FYI, I posted this earlier, but I forgot to login so it fell below the threshold)

Actually, the Japanese plan almost worked. They're intent was not to overpower the US quickly and prevent us from joining the war effort, it was to cripple the US fleet in the Pacific in order to delay our entry long enough so that by the time we did join in (it was inevitable anyway) they would have a strong enough foothold on the South Pacific to withstand any attack we could muster. They also destroyed several British ships and outposts later that day.

The carriers in the Pacific weren't at Pearl like the Japanese expected (the Enterprise was due in Pearl on the 6th but was delayed due to bad weather, the Saratoga had just left San Diego, and the Lexington was delivering planes to Midway). There were also several capital ships in drydock in California that were hurriedly return to service right after the attack. If the Japanese had knocked out a few more capital ships and at least one carrier, then it would have been several months more until the US would have had enough of a fleet in the Pacific to start the counter attack and join the British.

The Japanese might have been able to dig in deeper and establish better air superiority and supply routes if that had happened. As it was, it was a touchy thing at first and we had to learn a lot of lessons quickly (i.e. a lot of sailors, pilots, Soldiers, and Marines died) in order to set up the conditions for the island-hopping campaign.

Re:I for one

[Dayze!Confused]

...that can sneak up on buildings...

Those buildings are so dang hard to sneak up on, but they sure let out quit a yelp when you surprise them!

Laser scanners covertly map?

[icebike]

Just how hard would it be to detect anything using a laser scanner to map its surroundings?

While potentially useful against unaware civilians, use in a combat situations or as a tool for covert operations would probably be easily thwarted by existing technology, using a standard digital camera (even a cell phone) to check for IR lasers (the most common non-eye visible lasers). There is nothing particularly covert about lasers.

Important Message from Kremlen

[ae1294]

In Soviet Russia robots hide from YOU!

Re:I for one

[ae1294]

... welcome our new hidden overlords

I was paranoid before I RTFA now I'm bat shit insane! The tin foil just isn't gonna cut it now.
I wonder if I can modify my tiger repelling rock to repel tiny robot overlords?

Anyone got a firmware update? The last one I Installed was 2.45b which seems slightly buggy and didn't mention anything about robots.

It's been done before

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

I could prove it if I could just find the stupid thing...

As if my insomnia wasn't bad enough already

[WonderingAround]

Thank's for making me aware that there are robots out there sneaking around unseen and unheard, heaven forbid someone gets the idea to give them weapons or even voices. WALL-E was kinda cool, you know what's not cool? When he sneaks into your house in the middle of the night, neutralizes your dog and family members, then fulfill's your bittersweet fantasies of a robot style apocalypse!

Re:As if my insomnia wasn't bad enough already

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

WALL-E was kinda cool, you know what's not cool? When he sneaks into your house in the middle of the night, neutralizes your dog and family members, then fulfill's your bittersweet fantasies of a robot style apocalypse!

STALK-R?

Just when you thought

[Anonymous Coward]

... it was safe to jerk off

Fight fire with fire

[Hognoxious]

I don't know if there's a high-falutin' name for this strategy, but sometimes the best way to defend is to behave like an attacker. For example, if an opponent breaks through behind you in Rugby you run like his support player would in order to block his passing lanes.

In this situation you get your own robot that's programmed to sneak up on you in a similar way. If it doesn't find anything in one place it moves out, wanders around randomly and tries another route. Chances are it'll bump into the attacker at some point.

robot pride

[georgesdev]

It's time for robots to be proud. They should not have to hide anymore. It's the 21st century!

You can run but...

[PerfectionLost]

I didn't RTFA, but I did look at it. Did anyone see the screenshot of that robot? Who cares if it can tell you're coming. It's got 4 wheels, and couldn't hit a top speed with any amount of debris around it. Seeing as its lockheed, I'm willing to bet picking up one of those just net you a cool 100 million dollars.

I loved this line

[g0bshiTe]

Lockheed Martin have just released information about their new covert robot that can sneak up on buildings

Because buildings are just so tough to sneak up on.

Robot Overlords

[mohkev]

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords...Well, I would if they'd stop playing hide and seek!