Believe it or not, some of the toys that get DARPA money do make it into general use in the armed services. The Crusher UGV has just graduated from its birthplace at Carnegie Mellon, and is entering the army, albeit a stateside research arm thereof. From the video, it looks like it’s been updated with a new sensor suite, probably to improve its autonomous obstacle avoidance capabilities… It looks a lot like some of the sensors on DARPA Grand/Urban Challenge vehicles, for good reason: they work, especially when designed by CMU. This version of Crusher is designed to navigate itself between GPS waypoints without human intervention, although fully autonomous deployment is still a ways away. Hopefully, passenger cars will be categorized as obstacles to avoid, rather than crush, by then. Video after the jump. (Read more…)

The whole point of robots is that they’re not human. When it comes to military ops, the upside of not being human is that robots can get blown up and it’s not such a big deal. The downside (and it’s a big downside) is that robots aren’t yet ready to make their own decisions in battle, meaning humans have to be in the loop somewhere. Chatten Associates has created a camera system designed to provide robot operators with a real telepresence; that is, feeling as though they’re in the robot’s shoes treads. The HARV (Head-Aimed Remote Viewer) system combines a gimbal mounted remote video system on the robot with gyro equipped VR goggles for the user; wherever you move your head, that’s where the camera looks. The HARV can improve mission performance by 300% - 400%, and includes a 36:1 optical zoom, night vision camera, laser target designators, stereo audio, and a price of only $40,000. The following video shows the HARV being demoed on a few different platforms, including a MAARS battlebot armed with a paintball gun (cool!):

Currently set for delivery to the military in March is an updated HARV system, with a higher resolution thermal imager and a laser rangefinder, able to geolocate targets up to 2km away. Next step? How about something for, say, UAVs? Brilliant idea! We’ll just have to arrange some way of stealing it from the Canadians… Video after the jump. (Read more…)

This torpedoey looking AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) is, at first glance, fairly unremarkable… It carries onboard sensors to measure temperature, salinity, conductivity, depth, and biological productivity, with a GPS surface navigation system and an Iridium satellite data connection. It’s 1.5 meters long, and weighs about 60 kg. So what’s the cool part? Well, although it only has a top speed of about half a meter per second, it can keep that up for five years, giving it a range of about 40,000 (!) kilometers, which is just shy of a complete circumnavigation of the Earth at the equator (assuming such a thing were possible for a submarine). This AUV achieves such efficiency thanks to its propulsion system, which uses the temperature differential between the warm surface of the ocean and the cooler water below to create motion. Basically, the glider oscillates between floating up toward the warmer temperature and then sinking back down toward the cooler temperature, and its wings convert that vertical motion into horizontal motion.

This is the XRay, a large thermal glider AUV being developed by the US Navy. It’s designed to patrol large areas of ocean and coastlines for extended periods of time (6 months or so), hunting for submarines. Since it doesn’t have an engine, it’s virtually undetectable, and thanks to its hydrodynamic hull, it should be able to reach speeds of up to 3 knots (almost 4 mph).

Really boring video showing the thermal propulsion system in action, after the jump. (Read more…)

This little camera may not look like much, and in fact, it’s not much, measuring less than 3″ square. But what it can do is huge. It’s a LADAR (or LIDAR) camera, which uses a laser to create 3D images. This tiny little guy has a 128×128 pixel sensor, and it’s able to detect objects up to 22,000 feet away with a depth resolution of up to one inch, depending on what laser is installed as an illuminator. LADAR (Laser Detection and Ranging) uses timed pulses of laser light to determine how far away and how reflective something is, and this particular camera is able to operate at up to 30 frames per second, which results in pretty decent 3D video:

Since the laser pulses are only 20 nanoseconds long, they’re invisible to the human eye, most cameras, and night vision systems. The ability to create on-the-fly 3D maps ought to give PackBots some autonomous navigation capabilities, or if nothing else, they’ll improve situation awareness, especially in complicated urban environments. You can watch a 60 minute long presentation on the technology here.

[ Advanced Scientific Concepts ] VIA [ Robot Stock News ]

According to Defense News, the Israeli military is in the early stages of planning a robotic defense system with the ability to “take over completely” from humans. We’re not just talking automated weaponry here… this system would be a command umbrella, able to take control of automated and semi-autonomous systems like interceptor missile launchers in the event of “attacks that exceed physiological limits of human command.” As far as I know, this is the first system that’s being designed to operate (at least partially) without any humans in the loop at all. Some meat from the article:

“It will be designed for man-in-the-loop as well as autonomous operations,” said Milo, the officer spearheading the vision within Israel’s user community. “But right now, our emphasis is on algorithms, not autonomy. Man-machine interface is the name of the game, because the more clever we make the interface, the more successful we’ll be in providing operators and commanders the situational awareness they’ll need to make very tough decisions…”

“Our approach cannot be based exclusively on man-in-the-loop, nor can it rely only on the opposite. Rather, we need to build an operational concept and a system that is flexible and situationally dependent,” Milo said.

In the future, and “under very complex scenarios,” Milo said, the envisioned super system would be able to generate a level of supreme situational awareness and snap intuitive capabilities that could surpass the very best wartime commanders.

“We’re talking about something that sees everything and calculates everything and makes decisions that can only be made through a real revolution in BMC4ISR [Battle Management/Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance],” he said. “We’re not there yet, and it could take a decade. But this is our vision and we’re running in that direction.”

There’s no denying the advantages of having a system like this in place. And even if humans are available to be in command, I have no doubt that Skynet the system will be capable of making more timely and efficient decisions than humans, because that’s what robots are good at. What robots are NOT good at, however, are making decisions like these… And we’re not talking about computer games, here. That could have been WW3, and it’s not the first time we’ve come close thanks to a computer error. I’m sure Israel is cognizant of the risks involved in giving control of weapons to a computer, I just fervently hope they’ve watched all the relevant movies and know what they’re getting themselves into.

VIA [ Danger Room ]

Well, I’m disappointed. It looks like a drone dogfight, which would be the only thing more robotic than the acting in Top Gun, is not going to be feasible for at least the next 25 years, according to the Pentagon… Dyke Weatherington, deputy director for the Pentagon’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Task Force, states that “there’s really no way that a system that’s remotely controlled can effectively operate in an offensive or defensive air combat requirement. The requirement of that is a fully autonomous system, we don’t have that level of autonomy yet and frankly in the roadmap that will take many years to get to.” He’s got a point there, sort of, but I also think that the speed of development of aerial combat drones is being vastly underestimated, especially when it comes to the AI. I’m not saying I think it’ll happen in the next year, but 25 years is a very, very long time when it comes to computers. I mean, 25 years ago was what, 1982? Think about the amount of change that has happened between then and now, and project it forward. We’re rapidly approaching the point where hardware is not going to be the limiting factor, and where computers will be able to operate (and interoperate) fast enough to make faster and arguably better decisions in an active combat environment than humans are capable of. The hardest part, in my opinion, is not going to be developing the autonomy: it’s going to be getting past all of those prickly ethical issues that come up when you have robots deciding whether or not to shoot at people.

BTW, the drone matchup above is the Boeing X-45 versus the MiG UCAV.

VIA [ Danger Room ]

This is a concept video of the Blackswift unmanned hypersonic bomber. It’s powered by engines which transition between turbojets under Mach 2, ramjets to get near Mach 6, and finally scramjets to put the cruise speed (not sprint speed, cruise speed) up to around Mach 10. That would give the bomber 2 hour worldwide precision strike capability.

Lockheed is currently designing a technology demonstrator of the Blackswift, designated the HTV-3X. If DARPA secures $800 million in funding for it in 2009, this thing could actually be built. Part 2 of the above vid, after the jump. (Read more…)

Most of the time, armed military robots don’t phase me that much. I mean, I can understand why they’re useful and important and generally a great idea when it comes to protecting living people. But, I’m starting to wonder if I’m deluding myself after watching this video of a concept armed rover from Robotex:

The video makes it quite obvious that this robot is designed to kill people, and do it efficiently. It’s pretty scary, if you ask me. Of course, robots like TALON SWORDS are designed to do the same thing, but the designers of those robots have chosen to emphasize both versatility and safety, while the Robotex bots do only one thing. This, incidentally, makes them about 1/6 the cost of the TALON system at between $30,000 and $50,000 each. The Robotex system currently on the market (in the pics above) mounts an $8,000 Atchisson Assault-12 shotgun, which “delivers the lead equivalent of 132 M16s. … [The robot is] two feet tall, travels ten miles an hour, and spins on a dime. Remote-controlled over an encrypted frequency that jams nearby radios and cellphones, it’ll blow a ten-inch hole through a steel door with deadly accuracy from 400 meters.”

As if that wasn’t enough, part of the system includes semi-autonomous Neural Robotics miniature helicopters, also outfitted with automatic shotguns:

I think what bothers me about all this is not the robots themselves; rather, it’s the fact that the people marketing these robots have one thing on their minds: selling armed robots to kill people and make money. Whether or not this is (in general) a good thing or not is debatable, and whether or not other companies developing armed robots are doing effectively the same thing (just less bluntly) is also debatable.

Like it or not, I can’t help but be certain that this is the future of the military.

[ Robotex and Neural Robotics ] VIA [ CNN / Fortune ]

Military supply convoys are one of those necessary evils when it comes to any major operation, and the US Army is looking to shift resupply duties over to unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) as soon as it’s feasible. Carnegie Mellon (winners of the DARPA Urban Challenge) have landed a $14 million grant to improve their “Crusher” UGV, adding a more advanced suspension system and upgrading the hybrid electric drive. The real interesting part, though, is the software, which allows Crusher to autonomously navigate through complicated and unfamiliar environments by combining GPS with a suite of onboard sensors, as well as (optionally) a little scout UAV.

The vehicle itself is already pretty burly. Weighing in at 6.5 tons, it has a top speed of 26 mph, a range of 450km, and (as you can see from the video) is quite a climber, able to move over rugged terrain with little trouble. Most importantly for the army, it can haul over 25% of it’s own weight in cargo. Now all it needs is some spinners on those six wheels and it’ll be good to go… You know, just a little bling to break up those drab army colors.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Crave ]

If you haven’t heard of RipSaw before, this thing is nuts. A sort of supercharged, all terrain tank, RipSaw’s 650hp engine can drive it from 0-50 in 3.5 seconds, with a top speed of 80 (!) mph, over just about any terrain. And now, it doesn’t need us anymore, thanks to some new GPS guidance. The video below shows several different versions of RipSaw, including a piloted vehicle, a remote controlled vehicle, and the early testing stages of a completely autonomous version. PS- Cheezy audio totally not my fault.

Yours for approximately $200,000.

[ RipSaw ] VIA [ Danger Room ]