Here's a pretty interesting piece of defense tech sent over by DT reader Travis the other day about an innovative mast system that can be used in unmanned ground vehicles that allows the diminutive bots to see over high walls.
The so called Situational Awareness Mast uses a patented interlock system that differentiates it from telescoping masts that take up a lot of room and weight when stowed, thereby limiting their extension height.
The Situational Awareness Mast (SAM, also known as a Zipper Mast) from Geosystems Inc. is a telescoping linear actuator that has a unique property -- it's stroke length is an order of magnitude greater than its nominal height! For example, the SAM8 is a 10 lb device with a stroke length (8ft) that is 24 times it's nominal height (4 inches)! This can be used to vertically translate a robot's sensor suite for better visibility while still allowing for a low profile. Read on for information on the different Zipper Mast variants, the patent describing the system, and an exclusive video of a Zipper Mast on an iRobot Packbot!
Be sure to check out Hizook for more details on how Geosystems accomplishes the low-profile boom. They've got pics from the patent and other schematics. As with UAVs, UGVs are beginning to come into their own and I know from personal experience they're a potential lifesaver on a battlefield strewn with IEDs, mines and other boobie traps.
And here's a video of the system that best explains how it works.
If only we could be a fly on the wall when our enemies are plotting to attack us. Better yet, what if that fly could record voices, transmit video and even fire tiny weapons?
That kind of James Bond-style fantasy is actually on the drawing board. U.S. military engineers are trying to design flying robots disguised as insects that could one day spy on enemies and conduct dangerous missions without risking lives.
"The way we envision it is, there would be a bunch of these sent out in a swarm," said Greg Parker, who helps lead the research project at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. "If we know there's a possibility of bad guys in a certain building, how do we find out? We think this would fill that void."
In essence, the research seeks to miniaturize the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle drones used in Iraq and Afghanistan for surveillance and reconnaissance.
The next generation of drones, called Micro Aerial Vehicles, or MAVs, could be as tiny as bumblebees and capable of flying undetected into buildings, where they could photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.
By identifying and assaulting adversaries more precisely, the robots would also help reduce or avoid civilian casualties, the military says.
Parker and his colleagues plan to start by developing a bird-sized robot as soon as 2015, followed by the insect-sized models by 2030.
The vehicles could be useful on battlefields where the biggest challenge is collecting reliable intelligence about enemies.
"If we could get inside the buildings and inside the rooms where their activities are unfolding, we would be able to get the kind of intelligence we need to shut them down," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.
Philip Coyle, senior adviser with the Center for Defense Information in Washington D.C., said a major hurdle would be enabling the vehicles to carry the weight of cameras and microphones.
"If you make the robot so small that it's like a bumblebee and then you ask the bumblebee to carry a video camera and everything else, it may not be able to get off the ground," Coyle said.
Parker envisions the bird-sized vehicles as being able to spy on adversaries by flying into cities and perching on building ledges or power lines. The vehicles would have flappable wings as a disguise but use a separate propulsion system to fly.
"We think the flapping is more so people don't notice it," he said. "They think it's a bird."
Unlike the bird-sized vehicles, the insect-sized ones would actually use flappable wings to fly, Parker said.
He said engineers want to build a vehicle with a 1-inch wingspan, possibly made of an elastic material. The vehicle would have sensors to help avoid slamming into buildings or other objects.
Existing airborne robots are flown by a ground-based pilot, but the smaller versions would fly independently, relying on preprogrammed instructions.
Parker said the tiny vehicles should also be able to withstand bumps.
"If you look at insects, they can bounce off of walls and keep flying," he said. "You can't do that with a big airplane, but I don't see any reason we can't do that with a small one."
An Air Force video describing the vehicles said they could possibly carry chemicals or explosives for use in attacks.
Once prototypes are developed, they will be flight-tested in a new building at Wright-Patterson dubbed the "micro aviary" for Micro Air Vehicle Integration Application Research Institute.
"This type of technology is really the wave of the future," Thompson said. "More and more military research is going into things that are small, that are precise and that are extremely focused on particular types of missions or activities."
Killer robots which can change their shape to squeeze under doors and through cracks in walls to track their prey are moving from the realms of science fiction to the front line in the fight against terrorism.
The US military has signed a GBP 1.6m deal with a technology firm to design robots which are intelligent enough to work out how to wiggle through small spaces to reach their target.
The action film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, featured a seemingly unstoppable killer robot played by Robert Patrick. The machine was made from liquid metal and could change its form to slide under doors and walk through iron bars.
America's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and the Army Research Office has awarded the contract to iRobot, which has developed other robots for the military.
They want scientists to come up with a design for a tiny robot able to move under its own power and change shape so it can get through gaps less than half an inch wide.
The US administration has not said what it wants the robot to do but its specification says: "Often the only available points of entry are small openings in buildings, walls, under doors, etc. In these cases, a robot must be soft enough to squeeze or traverse through small openings, yet large enough to carry an operationally meaningful payload."
In an effort to inspire creative ideas, the US military has pointed to examples in nature of creatures which are able to squeeze through narrow gaps and change their form.
Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairwoman of iRobot, said: "Through this programme, robots that reconstitute size, shape and functionality after traversal through complex environments will transcend the pages of science fiction to become real tools for soldiers in theatre."
But Scottish-based experts believe the challenge may be too much even for the US military's budgets and technology.
Mike Cates, professor of physics at Edinburgh University, said: "There are materials which can change their shapes and then regain them. There are alloys, known as memory metals, which are used in glasses and which can regain their shape. The difficulty in this case is all the other elements which need to be added to a device such as this, such as the circuitry and some form of system to propel it."
Brian Baglow, of technology firm Indoctrimat, said: "As well as designing the materials for this, the sensor systems will be a problem. It's not easy for them to work out where the gaps are which they can get through."
-- Christian
Another Good Look at the Sarcos Exoskeleton
(I'm still partial to Troy's suit, if not for the spot-on marketing techniques [joking])...
(Gouge: CL)
-- Christian
Bionic Arm
Last week we had exoskeletons...this week it's bionic arms. And I think this is from the guy who invented the Segway.
Military.com has an interesting story about a "bum bot" that rolls around an Atlanta neighborhood:
Cars passing O'Terrill's pub screech to a halt at the sight of a 300-pound, waist-high robot marked "SECURITY" rolling through downtown long after dark.
The regulars hardly glance outside. They've seen bar owner Rufus Terrill's invention on patrol before - its bright red lights and even brighter spot light blazing, infrared video camera filming and water cannon at the ready in the spinning turret on top.
"You're trespassing. That's private property," Terrill scolds an older man through the robot's loudspeaker. The man is sitting at the edge of the driveway to a child care center down the street. "Go on."
The man's hands go up and he shuffles into the shadows. Almost immediately, a group of men behind him scatters too.
The Bum Bot's reputation, it seems, has preceded it.
The electronic vigilante - on the beat since September - has enraged neighborhood activists, who have threatened protests. Street people say it's intimidating. And homeless advocates question the intentions of its inventor, who uses the Bum Bot as a marketing tool and a political prop.
As a supplement to the UAV plan outlined in the post below, Gizmodo has a post about this wild concept the Army has laid at the feet of select engineering schools, including the University of Michigan. Here's an excerpt:
The proposal is for the bat to be just six inches in length, weigh only four ounces and use just one watt of power, backed by a lithium-ion battery, which could be charged by not just solar energy, but wind energy and random vibrations as well. The bat's intended goal would be to run surveillance ops and relay data in realtime, including sights and sounds from minicams and mini-microphones, but also radiation and poison gas readings.
The UMich grant consists of $10 million over five years, creating the U-M Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology (dubbed "COM-BAT"—pun intended). The focus is to shrink down many electronics that while currently available would only be good if the US Army wanted, say, a 12-foot spy-bat. Not too stealthy.
For energy recovery, UMich will work to develop "quantum dot solar cells," making current solar cells twice as nice. The bat's autonomous navi system will be 1,000 times smaller than current systems, and that much more energy efficient too. The comms system will be shrunk to one-tenth the current size, too.
The Army . . . giving new meaning to shrinkage.
(Gouge: CM)
-- Ward
Video: "Send more robots!"
Here's a quick video fix to start your Tuesday:
As the man says, "Why send a soldier when you can send a robot?"
-- Ward
The Robot Nose Always Knows
Thanks to cameras, speakers and microphones there are robotic vehicles that can see, talk and hear what's happening at some potentially dangerous perimeter or checkpoint and relay the info in real time to a security center.
And, if necessary, the robotic gate guards can open or return fire on human command.
And while the machines still lack the "nose" to sniff out trouble, that soon could change thanks to a new, computerized scent detector manufactured by Israeli Defense Industries.
The U.S. Army has been talking to Scent Detection Technologies of Israel, which brought the Mini-Nose system to the United States about six months ago, about adapting it to a robotic vehicle, said Tom Neugebauer, SDT's U.S. Operational Integration Manager in Dallas.
"The Army contacted us a few months ago," he said today in Washington, D.C., where he was presenting the system at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual meeting and exposition. "They want to put it in places where they would need to screen people."
Neugebauer said the company developed the system at the request of the Israeli and U.S. governments. Israel was especially eager for a new-generation explosives detector because of the history of suicide bombings in the country, he said.
Unlike the systems used throughout U.S. airports, which rely on a chemical analysis of swabs rubbed across clothing and other items, the Mini-Nose uses a vacuum gun to "sniff" an object. The gun's nose is then placed into a small sensor chamber about the size of a desk phone where the vacuumed particles are analyzed.
The results are immediately viewable on a touch screen that is based on a Windows mobile operating system. The beauty of that is that if any new chemicals or combinations begin emerging on the terrorist explosive scene, the information can, once known, be downloaded to the chamber to be recognized when sniffed out.
Currently, at least one U.S. hospital and some corporations have adopted the Mini-Nose, but it's not yet being used at American airports. Negebauer said the company is still going through the process to be certified by the Transportation Safety Administration.
-- Bryant Jordan
Rifle Robots Rigged and Ready
This month's National Defense magazine reports that the Army has quietly introduced a rifle-toting robot into the Iraq war. So far three of the Special Weapons Observation Remote Reconnaissance Direct Action System (SWORDS) have been deployed. (Wouldn't that acronym actually be SWORRDAS? And how long did some major at the systems command spend working that one up?)
The SWORDS is armed with a M249 rifle and is remotely controlled by a soldier through a terminal. There are no reports of the SWORDS being used in actual combat yet, however.
The 80 robots approved under an urgent materiel release are being held up "due to limited funding in fiscal years 2006-2007," said Lt. Col. William Wiggins, a spokesman for the office of the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.
“While SWORDS is currently not a program of record, the Army has initiated a memorandum of agreement between ARDEC and Robotic System-Joint Project Office to expedite establishing a funded program to meet Army needs," Wiggins said in a written statement.
Yesterday it was “Congo,” today it’s “Minority Report.”
Well, sort of.
They don’t look quite as creepy as the spider bots that crawled under doorways and scanned bath tub surfaces in the Tom Cruise hit, but you can see that it might only take a few years to make them that way.
A North Carolina company has developed a technology that can give robots the ability to climb sheer walls. Vortex Holdings, LLC ginned up the so-called “Vortex Regenerative Air Movement” technology that creates a “tornado in a cup,” making it possible for small payloads of up to 3.5 pounds to be adhered to walls.
It’s easy to see the potential military and law enforcement applications of such a device, especially in urban fights where snooping around the corner and peering over that window ledge could mean the difference between popping the bad guy and hitting civilians.
I’ll let DT readers decide whether this kind of thing could potentially result in unwarranted and excessive intrusion into civilian life.
New Scientist Tech reports that the U.S. Army has contracted Vecna Technologies of College Park, Maryland to develop a robot specifically designed to extract wounded troops.
"The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR) will be able to travel over bumpy terrain and squeeze through doorways while carrying an injured soldier in its arms," the article states.
"The robot's hydraulic arms are designed to pick up loads in a single smooth movement, to avoid causing pain to wounded soldiers. While the existing prototype slides its arms under its burden like a forklift, future versions will be fitted with maneuverable hands to gently scoop up casualties.
"The robot's humanoid body and teddy bear-style head give it a friendly appearance. 'A really important thing when you're dealing with casualties is trying to maintain that human touch,' says Gary Gilbert of the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center in Frederick, Maryland, which provided the initial funding for BEAR's development. Congress has since added $1.1 million."
BEAR is expected to be ready for field testing in about five years.
(Gouge: CM)
-- Ward
Merging of Man and Robot
Seapower is the official magazine of the Navy League but under the direction of Richard Barnard, Peter Atkinson, and Rick Burgess in recent years it has also emerged as a great source of future tech news and information.
The May issue of Seapower is no exception. Among features on micro air vehicles and new uses for fighter targeting pods is a cover story about the merging of man and robot to fight the wars of the not-so-distant future.
In the story, titled "New Era," Seapower correspondent Roxana Tiron writes about how "scientists foresee the merger of man and machine capabilities, enabling creation of robots to fight side-by-side with humans." She goes on to suggest that "advances in biomimetrics will help scientists imitate organic life, fostering machine intelligence approaching human speed by 2040."
"Robots will be used routinely in the most dangerous missions," said Stephen DeAntonio, business development director at Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center. "They will be fully autonomous with sophisticated behaviors and will be part of full-fledged networks where the is credible information sharing among ground robots, air vehicles and humans."
The article also mentions the notion that fast-acting robots could take over when odds favor enemy forces.
Can't you just see the headlines circa 2040? "General charged with waiting too long to commit robots," or "Soldiers complain that robots stole taste of victory."
(Update, 1200 EDT): And of course no Robot/Human article would be complete without running the "I Robot" scenario to ground.
"It is imperative for robots to become part of the command structure," said Thomas McKenna, director of ONR's Sciences Division. "Why should be build expensive wild beasts?"
Can you say "Robo Berzerker"? Sounds kind of cool, actually.
(Photo: "Robolobster," developed by Northwestern's Marine Science Center for naval reconnaissance and surveillance, mine detection, and search and rescue.)
