Posted on 05/23/2009 3:16:50 PM PDT by ak267
What was once sci-fi is becoming reality on the battlefield. Still got a few kinks to work out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
Very impressive, and frightening. Sci-fi nightmares becoming real.
But we already know how to defeat them using tow cables and falling log piles....
Looking at the video, I think it would look cool recut to be accompanied by bluegrass.
Walking vehicles for military purposes have been experimented with as far back as the ‘50’s. Walking vehicles are used today in the logging industry.
Oh boy, they finally developed a Metal Gear. Compared to what those things do in the video game series, I am not impressed.
This silly thing is just a robotic experiment, and not a particularly good one at that. It is impractical on the battlefield.
DARPA, and its US Navy sister, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), make some of the most brilliant, innovative defense research, and to have this held up as an example of that is almost embarrassing.
Here are some highlighted DARPA projects:
-Accelerated Development and Production of Therapeutics: rapidly and inexpensively manufacturing millions of doses of life saving drugs or vaccines in weeks, instead of the years required to ramp up today’s manufacturing practices.
-Blue Laser for Submarine Laser Communications: provide for timely, large area submarine communications at speed and depth, which no other future or existing system, or a combination of systems, can do.
-High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System: novel, compact, high power lasers making practical small-size and low-weight speed-of-light weapons for tactical mobile air- and ground-vehicles.
-High Productivity Computing Systems: supercomputers are fundamental to a variety of military operations, from weather forecasting to cryptography to the design of new weapons; DARPA is working to maintain our global lead in this technology.
-Networks: self-forming, robust, self-defending networks at the strategic and tactical level are the key to network-centric warfare; these networks will use spectrum far more efficiently and resist disruption if the GPS time signal is unavailable.
-Quantum Information Science: exploiting quantum phenomena in the fields of computing, cryptography, and communications, with the promise of opening new frontiers in each area.
-Real-Time Accurate Language Translation: real-time machine language translation of structured and unstructured text and speech with near-expert human translation accuracy.
The Office of Naval Research is involved in so many ground breaking research projects that it is hard to keep up. Here is their website.
Well, now we know where Obama’s next dog will come from.
Cables that tie up the legs, and swinging logs?
Cables might be a problem, but the legs could be designed to slide out of cable traps.
These devices are much smaller than the AT-ATs. They should be able to recover from short falls. There have no vulnerable biological drivers.
I wonder how they'll hold up against RPGs.
The other design problem that comes to mind is that now you have 4 legs which must be working at all times for this unit to operate. Can it work missing, 1, 2, 3 or even all 4 legs?
Now you've got me thinking of a pogo-stick robot.
The code to operate this robot with fewer legs might be simpler than what it already runs. The legs seem to respond very quickly and accurately to changes in terrain and body position, so if the code can handle it, why not?
If the robot is ruggedly built or cheap to manufacture, limb loss might not be a significant consideration.
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