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Posts Tagged ‘military robots’

It runs along a guide rail, keeps its balance after two guys try to tip it over, and rights itself after lying on its side, not unlike your pet getting up from its nap.

As we heard earlier this week, AlphaDog is designed to carry 400 pounds, last 24 hours and carry enough fuel for a 20-mile trip. It is also significantly quieter than its predecessor, BigDog, which further solidifies AD’s position as leader of the pack.

This video shows a lab prototype undergoing early tests, according to Boston Dynamics. It's being developed under DARPA's Legged Squad Support System (LS3) project. DARPA and the Marines are expected to take this beast for a walk sometime in 2012.

[IEEE Spectrum]

Boston Dynamics is building a bigger, sturdier version of the military’s future trusty companion, and will likely unveil it within a few months. The company’s founder and president, Marc Raibert, shared the LS3 robot's progress Tuesday at a keynote speech at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Apparently LS3 (Legged Squad Support System) has been nicknamed BullDog, according to IEEE Spectrum.

Alas, no fun video yet, as Boston Dynamics is apparently waiting for permission from DARPA to release it.

BullDog, like BigDog, is designed to carry hundreds of pounds of gear for armed forces, ambling over rough terrain and following humans without complaint. The larger version will carry 400 pounds, last 24 hours and carry enough fuel for a 20-mile trek. It will also be able to jump over obstacles, and more easily regain its footing after it falls over. BullDog will also have greater navigational autonomy than BigDog, IEEE says.

The most significant change may be that it’s significantly quieter than BigDog, which is quite obnoxiously, buzzingly loud:

Granted, a prancing, unstoppable four-legged metal beast probably doesn’t need stealth to look awesome and surprise the enemy.

BullDog is a 30-month, $32 million project funded by DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office and the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. The project started in early 2010, so we anticipate a full unveiling sometime next year.

Until then, content yourselves with some of BigDog’s greatest adventures.

[IEEE Spectrum]

The Collaborative Unmanned Systems Technology Demonstrator (CUSTD) system is explained something like this: Aerial drones can pick out subjects from the air, but depending on a particular drone’s sensor array (for weight reasons, different drones carry different sensors) it may not be able to follow a target indoors or through a crowded urban area. So it calls in a few friends.

In this case, perhaps it calls over another airborne aerial drone to help it track its quarry. Or it could seek the help of robots on the ground (or both). A vehicle like the Army’s Autonomous Platform Demonstrator could rapidly navigate through city streets to stay close to a target while the airborne platforms follow from above.

At some point, any of the craft could strike. Or they could simply follow the target until a manned operation could be scrambled. Or they could simply surveil and report. The point is, they could talk to each other and quickly form a multi-platform plan of action.

As it pertains to the various and differing sensor technologies aboard the three hypothetical unmanned platforms in the example above, this is payload interchangeability is key. It would allow for better resource management in that it could quickly get the right tools to the right jobs.

Besides, how will the robot uprising ever get underway if our autonomous ‘bots can’t talk to each other?

[Ars Technica]

The Cougar20-H, manufactured by California-based TiaLinx, is the latest iteration in a series of sensor systems employing the company’s fine beam ultra-wideband (UWB), multi-gigahertz radio frequency (RF) sensor array (we’ll call it UWB RF). Its earlier Eagle5-N was a tripod-mounted radar that could detect breathing and monitor heartbeat through walls. An army grant then led to the development of the Cougar10-L, which essentially mounted the Eagle5-N on a small, remotely controlled robot.

But the Cougar10-L had to be very close to a given wall to “see” through it, making it less nimble and more obtrusive during stealth operations. So last week the company rolled out the Cougar20-H, boosting the radar’s power so it can sense through walls from a distance.

As Danger Room's David Axe points out, though the Army funded the Cougar20-H’s “enhanced situational awareness,” the robot's minimal mobility limits its military applications.

For search and rescue operations or standoff situations, though, such a robot could be indispensable (for instance, it could locate living but incapacitated persons trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building). It also could find applications in monitoring border traffic, not only scanning vehicles for signs of human trafficking, but also for detecting underground tunnels used by smugglers of both human and material cargoes.

[Danger Room]

Even the Army seems scared of this one

The hauler is named the Carry-all Mechanized Equipment Landrover--yeah, that spells out CaMEL. It's a 60-inch-tall treaded vehicle capable of carrying an impressive 1,200 pounds of stuff, and its usefulness in the field is proven by its popularity. Israel has bought more than 60 of them, and the U.S. Army is looking into its possibilities as well.

But Northrop, with no particular urging from the market, has decided that the CaMEL would be much cooler with a massive .50 caliber M2 machine gun mounted on top. It's controlled remotely by a touchscreen, just like its slightly-less-violent hauling brother, and actually uses a hybrid engine ("Just like a Toyota Prius," says the Northrop rep).

Shown off at an Army conference, the gun-toting CaMEL wasn't built to spec for any organization--in fact, the U.S. Army seems downright scared of using armed robots. Back in October of 2009, the Army pulled the armed-robot SWORDS program after one of the robots behaved in an unsafe manner. Nobody was hurt, but it's made the Army very skittish about getting in bed with these kinds of machines. Northrop mostly built the armed CaMEL to attract visitors to their booth, and probably for fun as well. But it might have the result of gently encouraging the Army to take a second look at armed 'bots--hopefully they're more reliable than certain lying robots.

[Wired]

Like many of its counterparts, the individual RTM snake can slither into tight spaces, climb impassible obstacles, or swim where soldiers cannot, all the while beaming back images to the soldier controlling it by remote. Each snake is equipped with a sensor array, not least of which is a LIDAR scanner that lets it render 3-D depictions of objects, landscapes, or faces.

But the snakes also work in groups, acting more like fingers or the tentacles of an octopus. Arranging several of them on a circular base creates an array that can gingerly pick up, rotate, and inspect an IED or possibly even open a door -- a seemingly simple task that falls outside the capabilities of most robotic platforms. Its touch sensitivity allows it to do delicate work -- you don't want to squeeze a live munition, for instance -- yet in tandem the snakes could be reasonably strong.

The developmental hardware that the RTM program is currently working with spun out of research into snakebots conducted in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and consists of three 9.5-inch tentacles and a large screen laptop for the operator. The master program runs advanced algorithms that are able to manipulate the motors in each link of the snakes to work in concert as though they belong to single organism. But the system is completely scalable, so a small custom array could be designed to give the Army's Warrior robot system a more dexterous "hand," while larger tentacle arrays could be fitted to larger vehicles or robots.

[U.S. Army via CNET]

The robots are fitted with surveillance equipment, tracking and voice recognition systems, and heat and motion detectors that can identify threats approaching from the other side. If they prove successful they could be deployed along the entire DMZ, augmenting South Korea's strong military presence already in place.

Upon sensing a threat, the robots alert a command center where a human operator uses the 'bot's audio and visual detectors to try to identify the nature of the threat. The operator can then give the robot the order to either stand down or unleash its arsenal.

Pyongyang, as you may have heard, is quite proud of its military image and maintains a standing army of more than a million soldiers, whereas South Korea has a force of just 655,000. As such, South Korea plans to bring more robots into its arsenal in coming years, including robots armed with sophisticated sensors and weapons that could bolster its numbers on the battlefield.

[Telegraph]