Yeah, even in 1972 Sesame Street knew where it was at… Poor S.A.M. coulda used a GPS, though. That strange cement mixer was a tramp.

What with today’s article on the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, I thought I’d provide you with a different perspective, from someone who has direct experience with robots in combat.

When Lieutenant General Rick Lynch was in Iraq, he lost 155 soldiers under his command. “80 percent of those soldiers didn’t have to die,” Lynch said, if more robotic systems had been available. “There’s got to be a sense of urgency. I am so tired of going to demonstrations of technology,” said Lynch. “The technology is there. We’ve got to get past the demonstrations and into the field.” Specifically, Lynch (who also holds a master’s degree in robotics from MIT) is looking for autonomous systems that can completely remove soldiers from the battlefield and replace them in convoy duties and surveillance missions. Lynch specified four applications in which he feels that robots are being underutilized with serious consequences, including convoy route clearance, IED hotspot monitoring, supply convoying, all of which is directed at minimizing the IED threat to soldiers.

When it comes to mounting weapons on semi-autonomous and fully autonomous robots, Lynch is very clear on what he thinks:

“There’s a resistance saying that armed ground robots are not ready for the battlefield. I’m not of that camp,” he told National Defense.

That includes the robot autonomously firing the weapon or, in other words, shooting without a human in the decision loop, he said. SWORDS never had that feature, and the idea of armed autonomous robots firing guns on the battlefield remains controversial. But Lynch was steadfast.

“I believe we can do automatic target recognition … to allow that capability. Autonomously,” he repeated.

…

“Every day, we try to make the lives of our Soldiers and their families better,” Lynch said. “And advocating unmanned systems technology is all part of it… Because in my mind, it is about saving lives.”

[ National Defense Magazine ] VIA [ Danger Room ]

Update- Noel Sharkey, a member of ICRAC, was kind enough to comment on this post. You’ll find his comment, and my response, directly below the post.

Sigh. Whenever anyone decides to independently set up their own “international committee,” you know there’s gonna be trouble. The “International Committee for Robot Arms Control” (ICRAC) sounds like a good enough idea, at first… But based on the few statements that the committee has made, it seems pretty clear to me that they’re not going to accomplish much besides continuing the pattern of getting people who don’t know how robots work needlessly scared and upset.

Unsurprisingly, this irks me (to put it mildly). Why I think the whole thing is a dumb (and maybe even bad) idea, after the jump. (Read more…)

Where oh where in the wide wide world of robots have you been hiding, Titan? Obviously one of the most advanced humanoid robots of our age, Titan not only has no trouble with bipedal walking, but also manages bipedal dancing, bipedal singing, and bipedal flirtatious joke cracking. Most recently making an appearance at GITEX 2009 Dubai, the technology inside Titan promises to usher in a new era of…

Of…

Sigh, yeah, of guys in robot suits. Oh well.

[ Cyberstein Robots ] VIA [ Engadget ]

Last month, we posted about Lockheed Martin’s SAMARAI UAV, a monocopter designed to test control principles for a much smaller unmanned reconnaissance drone. The University of Maryland has just demonstrated the results of several years worth of research on monocopters, and they’ve got a fully controllable vehicle that uses a single wing no larger than a seed pod, and packs a camera to boot:

As you can see, the UMD monocopter can take off from the ground, hover, fly controllably, and land without killing itself. The key was a lot of research into the flight characteristics of the seed pods themselves, which enables the monocopter to autorotate just like the real thing. Obviously, the camera isn’t really useful for surveillance at this stage, but that’s solvable. Researchers suggest that the craft could be airdropped, autorotate for a while, and then be controlled remotely for “defense, fire monitoring and search-and-rescue purposes.”

The implication of the Lockheed Martin project (based on this image, anyway) is that their final product will be both the size and form factor of a samara, while the UMD monocopter relies on an external motor and battery pack for propulsion, stability, and control. While it would be totally awesome (and very stealthy) to have a little surveillance robot that looks like a seed pod, for most purposes, having a functionally similar design is just as good, and (most importantly) UMD has an aircraft that works… And it only costs $500, which odds are is going to be a damn sight cheaper than anything that Lockheed Martin produces.

[ UMD Press Release ] and [ Project Website ] VIA [ Boing Boing ]

In February, we posted about how the first robots back to the moon are likely going to be little earth moon movers, designed to shift large amounts of regolith (i.e. dirt) to help construct a base. Moon dirt is tricky stuff to deal with; unlike earth dirt, it’s pointy and abrasive and gets into everything. NASA has sponsored a competition for lunar robots to test out their moon dirt moving skills here on earth, and for the first time, a couple of them were successful enough to win some prize money.

The robots had to move out of a starting area, collect a minimum of 150 kilos of fake lunar regolith material, and deposit it in a container in 30 minutes or less. The winner, a ‘mostly autonomous’ robot from WPI named Moonraker, managed to dig up and deposit a staggering 440 kg of dust. All (but one) of the robots competing this year were teleoperated, but that’s something that’s almost certainly going to change.

NASA is sponsoring six other challenges to develop new technologies, each of which includes prize money of up to $2 million. I think I’ve said this before, but the return on investment that agencies like NASA and DARPA get on challenges like this is so incredibly huge (not to mention an awesome opportunity for students and startup companies) especially compared to the typical lack of efficiency that a more traditional production process tends to exhibit that I don’t understand why they don’t put more resources into them. Forget about contracts and blown deadlines and budgets… Just make everything a challenge and embrace the results.

[ Regolith Excavation Challenge ] VIA [ New Scientist ]

Israel Aerospace Industries’ HAROP loitering munition is sort of like a cross between a surveillance drone and a cruise missile. It has a 1000km range and an endurance of 6 hours, and can carry conventional steerable color or IR cameras. Oh, and it also carries 50 pounds of onboard explosives, which it’ll set off as it crashes itself into a target. Seems like an awfully expensive way to blow something up, but if you absolutely need to get the job done while minimizing collateral damage, HAROP could be the way to go. Somebody thinks so, at least… An unidentified customer has committed to a $100 million contract.

[ IAI ] VIA [ CNET ]

Good news, everyone! Now even robots can get swine flu! This sexy fellow has been designed to exhibit all the symptoms of everyone’s favorite epidemic, including moaning, sweating, convulsing, and crying. And then if you don’t treat him, he stops breathing and dies. And then, I guess, you have to push the reset button. Sounds like some fun training for medical workers… Let’s just hope he’s not contagious, ’cause I haven’t vaccinated my Roomba yet.

VIA [ Pink Tentacle ]

We know a little bit more about Saturn’s moon Titan since Cassini’s probe Huygens managed to land on its icy surface and snap some incredible pictures, and the evidence for things like hydrocarbon oceans and cryovolcanoes has made a follow-up mission near certain. There have been a variety of long duration proposals, and the coolest ones involve robot balloons and sailing boats.

One of the mission proposals that includes a little sailing boat is called TiME (as in, “it’s TiME for Titan”), which stands for Titan Mare Explorer (mare being scientist-speak for “something that kinda looks ocean-y”). If approved, TiME would launch in January of 2015 and reach Titan in June of 2022, landing in a lake called Ligeia Mare which is about the size of South Korea. Once there, it’ll cruise around the lake, its chief objective being to study the methane cycle on Titan, which is thought to be analogous to the water cycle here on Earth. Solar power won’t be an option (since it’ll be raining methane most of the time), but TiME will be powered by an Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator, which should let it cruise for 14 years or so.

Balloons are also a good option for Titan, since they can cover so much territory without having to worry about getting stuck. Another proposal, called the Titan Saturn System Mission, includes both a little battery powered boat and a hot air balloon that’s designed to spend six months circumnavigating the entire moon:

At the moment, no decision has been made on the next mission to Titan, but whatever it is, it looks like it’s gonna be fun.

[ Presentation on TiME (*.PDF) ]
[ TSSM ]
VIA [ AUVSI ] and [ The Register ]

“We live in a world where there are actual fleets of robot assassins patrolling the skies. At some point there, we left the present and entered the future.”

Almost the future, but not quite… We’re transitioning out of the age of computers and into the age of robotics. Or we will be soon. Just remember that it’s not all about fleets of robot assassins, it’s also about helping people, and making things possible that were never possible before.

[ XKCD ]