Like I said, thanks to this new robot, finding Sarah Conner Should be a snap
Posted on 06/27/2004 7:26:31 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Air Force testing robot vehicles for guard duty
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., (AP) -- The Air Force wants to take away Staff Sgt. Miguel Jimenez's job, and that's just fine by him.
The Miami airman was plucked from his normal security duties at nearby Tyndall Air Force Base to help test whether a robotic vehicle can take the place of humans in guarding air bases and troops.
``If somebody wants to spend the money and send something like that out there instead of my life, I'm all about that,'' Jimenez said Tuesday of the robots that cost from $200,000 to $500,000.
One robot being tested is a Jeep-size, four-wheeled vehicle that has been equipped with radar, television cameras and an infrared scan to detect people, vehicles and other objects. It carries a breadbox-sized mini-robot that can be launched to search under vehicles, inside buildings and other small places.
Another robot is fashioned from an off-the-shelf, four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle, giving it added versatility because a human also can ride it like a normal ATV. Both vehicles can be remotely operated from laptop computers and can be equipped with remotely fired weapons, like an M-16 rifle or pepper spray.
``What we are hoping is the robots will actually detect the enemy first,'' said Capt. Adolfo Meana Jr., chief of the concepts division for the Force Protection Battlelab at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
``If you shoot the robot we don't care. We know you're there, you're hostile, and we can keep our forces in reserve to move tactically against the enemy. The robots will save our troops' lives,'' he said.
The vehicles can be programmed to patrol specific areas and then alert an operator by radio if they find something suspicious. They have loudspeakers and microphones for questioning intruders and the operator can pick from a variety of languages.
A human always is in the loop because the military doesn't want to give machines complete discretion, said Walter Waltz, chief of robotic research for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Tyndall.
Jimenez said he found the laptop controls easy to use.
``If somebody that uses PlayStation or X-Box, that type of thing, it's right up their alley,'' Jimenez said.
Ping!
With this new toy, finding Sarah Conner should be a snap...
Connor? Sarah Connor?
If we had those when I was growing up I probably wouldn't be alive. We Air Force brats loved exploring places and things we weren't supposed to. One night we went looking for a nuclear bomb and got caught outside the war room at the B52 field house.
That wasn't in Plattsburgh, was it?
When I was at Peterson AFB back in the 70s we caught a dependant kid (about 14YO) throwing M-80s in the latrine toilets. He said we couldn't touch him, and he was a Colonel's soon. AFTER beating him up some, we locked him in the Bay Orderly closet for about 3 hours. When we let him out, he took off running. Never heard from any Colonel and never saw the brat hanging around the barracks again, either.
Above. Should be Colonel's son.
You got to get a ping list going...ping me next time 'round.
Sure. You will be on.:)
Welcome to the end of history and the rise of the machines.
Like I said, thanks to this new robot, finding Sarah Conner Should be a snap
Dumb, unimaginative and destructive. No class. Must have been from a divorced family and only spent Summers with daddy.
The brats I grew up with were military junkies. We spent time at boneyards like civilian kids spent at pick-a-part. Morbid really, because some planes were from crashes. We knew what crashes meant.
Like I said only this time with illustration, finding Sarah Conner, piece of cake
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