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Navy Plans To Use Xbox 360 Controllers For New Periscope Systems Aboard Its Submarines (go.com)
According to ABC News, the U.S. Navy is planning to use Xbox 360 controllers to operate periscopes aboard its most advanced submarines. High-resolution cameras and large monitors are replacing the traditional rotating periscope in the Navy's Virginia-class subs. While they can be controlled by a helicopter-style stick, the Navy plans to integrate an Xbox controller into the system because they're more familiar to younger sailors and require less training. They are also considerably cheaper. The controller typically costs less than $30 compared to the $38,000 cost of a photonic mast handgrip and imaging control panel. The Xbox controller will be included as part of the integrated imaging system for Virginia-class subs beginning with the future USS Colorado. It is supposed to be commissioned by November.
make it so
Low Battery! DIVE?
Think of the savings!
They should steer the boat with another controller. Run the reactor with a third.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
they're comfortable, reliable and reasonably priced
Surplus Xbox 360 controllers are getting pretty cheap these days....
Of course, you know the ruggedized military version will cost 4 figures each and half will end up broken in the TV lounge by sailors playing 688 Attack Sub on the Xbox 360.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Wow! $38,000. Just think of how many hammers and toilet seats that could have bought.
The controller typically costs less than $30
I actually just bought a (wired) Xbox 360 controller about a week ago. It cost a little over $30 on Amazon for a new one. They seem hard to be hard to come by lately. Is there another place I should be looking for a better value on these?
Up Down Up Down Left Left Right Right Up Down
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Now I won't be selected to join the Navy.
Probably what they mean is XBox-like controllers. Hardened for military use... Let's see, $25,000 apices? That sounds reasonable...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
up up down down :S
One of the reasons military gear is far more expensive is that it that they usually expect it to be hardened to stand up to some action. Ships get hit. They want it to still work even after a torpedo goes off.
Of course, this mass produced piece of plastic is cheaper and people are already familiar with it's use. The question is, will it shatter when the ship gets hit by a shock wave that does not kill the crew?
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Honestly, a periscope that captures all 360 degrees is the perfect situation to use a VR headset. Literally, all you are doing is looking around which is precisely what VR is suited for!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
It's just for the periscope. They're not using the Xbone controller to steer the ship or shoot nuclear torpedoes.
But it's not unprecedented in industry. Most HMIs run Windows now because operators are far more familiar with Windows than any other windowing system. Truly that was not the case originally Unix was used before Windows but not anymore.
(not retail Windows mind you, it's quite a bit different in terms of being hardened and fool proof - but still Windows)
Yah that's what we want. Nuke armed subs run by an Xbox. Just you wait until they decide to phone home. Periscopes are just the beginning, mates!
Obviously left and right are possible, it'll just rotate the scope.
I was in the Navy for 21 years. There is a reason that military equipment is rugged in an almost silly Fisher-Price kind of way. Sailors (and Soldiers, Marines and Airmen) are incredibly rough on their equipment. They are a mostly a bunch of 19-22 year olds being led by 26 year olds (with 1-2 35-40 year olds in charge). I guess Xbox controllers are cheap, so you can pack a bunch of spares. You will need them.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/08/29
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/11/28
The subs will use officially certified versions. They might be exactly the same as the retail ones, but they sure wont cost $30. Nor $300. But $3,000 would still be a significant saving.
So some savings I guess.
I discovered this when I tried switching from a mouse to an Xbox controller for gaming. With the mouse, you change its position and the direction of the camera changes appropriately. Once you've learned how much mouse motion corresponds to how much angular rotation, you can instantly move the camera from one one direction to another simply by moving the mouse to the appropriate spot on the desk. If you want to rapidly move the camera back and forth between two set directions, it's trivial because you're just moving the mouse between two fixed positions on the desk. You could do it blindfolded.
Not so for the thumbsticks on the XBox-style controller. It doesn't control the direction the camera is pointed. It controls the rate of change of the direction the camera is pointed. You have to push the thumbstick in the direction you want the camera to move, wait for the camera to almost get there, ease up on the thumbstick so the slew rate slows down, ease up some more, ease up some more, then let go when the camera is finally pointed in the desired direction. If you want to rapidly move the camera back and forth between two set directions, it's a lot of work each time, and you need to be watching the camera view to do it.
I emailed one of the developers working on drivers to allow you to use the controller in games which didn't support it, and learned why. The thumbsticks only have 256x256 resolution. That is, there are only 256 discrete measurable directions the stick can be pointing in each axis. This isn't enough resolution for precise aiming, so they have to use the gimpy slew-rate aiming.
For a camera limited to just one degree of motion like it sounds like this one is, you want to use a paddle controller. It's just a potentiometer. You rotate it and the camera rotates along with it. It too has a 1:1 correspondence between direction of the controller and direction of the camera. So you could rapidly move the camera back and forth between two set directions, blindfolded. In particular, if you put a raised ridge on the paddle wheel, the operator can know which direction the camera is pointed by feel, instead of having to read a numerical bearing readout. This is much more intuitive (the operator basically won't need any training) and less prone to error.
occurs due to a sticking A button.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Oh, and don't forget to replace the Chinese-made controller chipset. Probably about $38K or more additional.
The $37,970 difference is due to the missing battle-short switch.
Wait till the navy finds out they come from china.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I'm calling bullshit on this one.
An off-the-shelf xbox controller is not marine-grade. Its components will corrode. There is no sensor validation or redundancy. It uses a cheap plastic housing that will crack if impacted.
It does not make sense to potentially entrust the lives of hundreds on a cheap plastic toy controller. There's simply too much at stake.
Perhaps some parts of the controller will be included in the military-designed final product, but literally buying a COTS controller and integrating it aboard? Bullshit.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Because in a few years, half the submarine force is going to be laid up with carpel tunnel and debilitating hand cramps.
Imagine all the people...
They should have used an iPhone. You wouldn't even need a code to unloc... oh wait.....
They are also considerably cheaper. The controller typically costs less than $30 compared to the $38,000 cost of a photonic mast handgrip and imaging control panel.
They cost $30 NOW. They won't cost $30 in 2050 when they haven't been manufactured for twenty years. The Navy had better stockpile them today since they aren't really designed to last that long, nor are they designed to deal with a marine environment, nor will sailors in 30 years be familiar with the XBox 360. Not to mention that they certainly won't cost anywhere near $30 by the time they get installed in a sub (assuming the story is actually true...) Something about this story sounds a little off...
I think there ought to be a clause against weaponizing products, especially by those that make such products: Xbox, or any Linux distro and/or source code.
I just hope the Army doesn't recruit gamers. I can just see it now. The commander orders them into battle, and they all run out and get shot and killed, thinking they are going to respawn in 10 seconds.
It initially scared me to think that kids who are young enough to find the xbox 360 to be "natural" would be old enough to be at the helm of billion dollar nuclear armed submarines. Then I realized there are plenty of kids in their 30s who think the xbox 360 is natural even though they are old enough to remember the earliest days of the 8 and 16 bit consoles.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'm disappointed someone at Slashdot doesn't know the Konami Code by heart. It's Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start.
I did a quick search to see if your code was an obscure reference to something else (since I like to give three-digit UIDs the benefit of the doubt), but so far I haven't found anything.
Xbox controllers have been used on military robots like the iRobot packbot and the R-Gator. See
http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2...
and
https://www.wired.com/2009/06/...
This has to be a hoax. The might copy the design to make a controller, but I seriously doubt they'd use an actual Xbox 360 controller, not rugged enough, not waterproof, and so on. I've worked for a military contractor, I have a fair idea what their requirements are, and some plastic consumer thing like that isn't going to pass muster.
Sim Sub.
The tech will feature both the $30 controller, as well as the $30 million control panel. There will be plenty spares for both, but more of the controller, as it's cheaper, smaller, and easily replaceable at nearly any port in the western world.
I've used more than one piece of military tech that featured a 360 controller as an interface, and have been responsible for it's continued use in theater. It's actually a pretty great idea from a military point of view. Consider maybe one or two guys are fully trained on the ZYX control panel and can effectively use the ZYX system. Damn near the whole of the lower enlisted already understands how a video-game controller works, so the odds of the ZYX system going down on account of a manpower issue issue are very small. Many are also already accustomed to operating a video game controller for long hours with no sleep and all the coffee you can drink.
Source: I was there, man.
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Are Xbox controllers mil-rated? You want a nuclear submarine to get sunk because an Xbox controller failed?
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Spoiler: those are real ships you are blowing up with that controller.
The photonics mast is not new. The Seawolf class had photonics in addition to the periscope. Virginia-class has had no periscope in its design (first boat commissioned in 2004).
This news is about the XBOX-style controller.
Oh, and the display surfaces have been using trackballs for decades.
Kriston
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