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DARPA Unveils an Android-Based Ground Sensor Device
DeviceGuru writes "DARPA announced a sensor reference system device based on a new Android-based sensor processing core called the ADAPTable Sensor System (a.k.a. ADAPT). The initial ADAPT reference device, called UGS (unattended ground sensor), is designed as the basis for a series of lower-cost, more upgradable sensor devices for military applications. The ADAPT program is part of larger effort by the U.S. military to reduce the costs and speed production schedules for military equipment, using an ODM process similar to that of the commercial smartphone industry. Potential applications for the technology include swarms of hive-mind UAVs or robots, or perimeter security sensors hidden at a deployed airfield or underground, all networked together and capable of transmitting video."
"Lower-cost" was a criterion. Just compile natively with the Android NDK in C/C++ or any compatible language.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Why Android?
I mean I'm a big proponent of embedded Linux, but I just can't understand why every big company or government that deals with embedded devices wants Java on there. I understand the need for high level APIs and using common systems, but still. Android is a monster designed for tablets and phones. If you stripped out the UI you wouldn't really have android any more. You'd just have an embedded Linux platform with a few Java APIs on top.
That isn't to say Android is useless. It's designed for tables, phones, and mobile devices. So, use it for those things. There's just no need for a headless sensor to be running so much unused crap.
Ahh well, welcome to the military industrial complex. A place where Agile development doesn't exist and the requirements docs for waterfall are changed every other month. That plus a little pork here and there show just why those cost plus contracts end up taking so much money.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
They want a mainstream, widely used platform for the developer, tool, and libraray support. They don't want to use C/C++ as their primary language (but have the option of using it when necessary). For R&D, an embedded UI is useful. For audio and video applications, they need an ARM chip anyway (as opposed to a smaller, cheaper embedded chip). And Android is actually optimized for long battery life, audio, video, and sensing (since that's what phones do). Realistically, what other choices are there?
They couldn't use iOS even if they wanted to because Apple isn't licensing it. And they can write C code under Android.
Quite the opposite: C/C++ code is at risk for memory leaks. People occasionally retain pointers in Java, but those problems are easy to track down. More importantly, with Java, there is no risk of memory corruption.
Linked articles not very informative...one of the many SoCs available, I suppose. A little more info here, but not much.
http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/05/29.aspx
Not sure why they need the Android layer; what does that bring above the many distros already available? (Thinking of things like Pi, Arduino...)
What next, DARPA play store?
BTW, for those of you wondering, ODM=Original Design Manufacturers...
You're funny. I like you.
A Ground Sensor is pretty cool. Now, if they could get a Voltage Sensor too, each Android could store a single bit! Watch out human race, here we come!
WTF is a Ground Sensor??
Stalin would be jealous
we've been selling one for years. You can get one for between $50 and $150, or build your own since it's actually open hardware. http://robots-everywhere.com/site/data-loggers/thalamoid/
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
This appears to be what has happened to the systems I worked on back in 1972-1973 while in the Air Force in Thailand. Back then the "ground sensors" were air dropped (mostly) devices that had seismic sensors to detect movement on the Ho Chi Minh trail. There were also types that sensed audio and some other types too, but the majority were ADSIDS which were seismic. They were built with discrete components and some RTL IC technology. There were no microprocessors then and the computer that received the output was a big iron IBM 360. The exact location of the sensors were never known since they were dropped from an F4 doing about 500 Mph. The position error at best was maybe a 50 meter radius. Having GPS tell you were the sensor really is would have been a great advantage, and also having some basic telemetry about the battery status and overall operation would have helped. We only knew when the batteries went dead when the sensor went silent for a long time -- of course that could have been because they changed the route of the trail too -- something that happened often.
Although I have seen some articles on what we did on the web, they are not always completely accurate or complete. For one thing the communications techniques used by the sensors on VHF frequencies were very similar to what latter became ethernet. Something that really gave me deja vu when ethernet came along.
Does Googles terms of service for Android mean that the military has to send all data collected to Google?
Pork chops and apple sauce.