Posted on 06/24/2004 4:54:08 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Carnegie Mellon University robotics researchers, in conjunction with the US Marine Corps' Warfighting Laboratory, have developed a small, throwable, remote-controlled prototype robot designed for surveillance in urban settings. Several of the robots are being sent to Iraq for testing.
The robot, known as Dragon Runner, has the ability to 
see around corners and deliver information to Marines while keeping them out of danger in urban settings where human access is impractical, dangerous or unsustainable. The Dragon Runner project is managed and funded by the Warfighting Laboratory, Quantico, Virginia, which is part of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command. The system has been under development for more than two years and has already undergone rigorous testing in a variety of austere environments.
"The Dragon Runner can function in loose soil with small obstacles but is most effective on relatively flat surfaces like streets and sidewalks, making it ideal for an urban, desert environment," said Captain Dave Moreau, Dragon Runner Project Officer with the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab.
"We have conducted a thorough evaluation of its capabilities in an urban, desert environment at both the former George Air Force Base, in Victorville, California, and Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas," added Captain Moreau. "The next step is to test Dragon Runner operationally in theatre." The architect behind Dragon Runner is Hagen Schempf, a principal research scientist in Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. During his career, Schempf has designed robotic systems for asbestos removal, nuclear waste remediation and cleanup of underground storage tanks containing toxic materials.
"Dragon Runner is the lightest, smallest, most rugged, readily portable robot system for remote scouting operations in existence today," he said. "It has the potential to be the eyes and ears of the Marines in forward urban operations, allowing them to gather intelligence without being in harm's way. It is a tool that reduces potential lethal exposure to our troops by reducing the amount of time that they expose themselves to danger."
The Warfighting Laboratory describes Dragon Runner as a small, four-wheeled, all-wheel drive, invertible, tossable, remotely operated, low-cost, man-portable, mobile ground sensor designed to increase situational awareness at the small unit level in urban environments. In today's modern battle spaces, potential enemies capitalise on the asymmetric nature of urban areas. In response, Dragon Runner can provide real-time imagery of tactical objectives and potential danger areas beyond a Marine's line of sight during day or night.
Dragon Runner can stand in sentry mode by using several onboard motion and audio sensors to monitor selected areas. It may also be configured to carry mission-specific payloads. The complete system includes the vehicle, an operator control system and a controller configured for one-handed operation, all held in a custom backpack.
Dragon Runner has a top speed of more than 20 miles per hour but also can be operated with slow deliberate control. It operates in a mode similar to modern video games and can be deployed from its backpack in less than three seconds.
In addition to his work at the Robotics Institute, Schempf is chief scientist at Automatika, a Pittsburgh-based company he founded in 1995, that develops novel robotic and automation systems.
Automatika has licensed the Dragon Runner technology from Carnegie Mellon to explore the civilian opportunities for such a system. They believe there could be a variety of uses, such as in civil defence, SWAT, protecting America's borders and in criminal defence.
BTT
This sounds great!
A little camoflage and they'd be perfect . . . Make 'em look like a piece of trash, rubble, paper bag, tumbleweed, etc. and trashy iraqis would never notice 'em until they were up close.
Nice!
And cheap clones to run up and down the back alleys and draw fire.
Let a few of them loose in downtown Cincinnati and freak people out!
It is good this made it to FR. Robotics is just getting started even though it has kind of been around a long time. NASA is putting robotics at the top of its goals and funding it heavily from now on. We're going to see some amazing and new things. The throwbot would be an interesting dog toy for those [dogs] who get tired of fetch.
Goliath LIVES!
Yup. I perked up at the mention of "payloads." I wonder what some of those might be? Hey, Abu, what's this? . . . KABOOM!
I smell border control applications.
I still think we ought to take a few C-130s to Omaha and load up on hogs. Turn them loose in the caves in the Afghan mtns and in Fallujah and watch the so called warriors run like the wind. Even though as a realtime geek I think a throwable robot is a great idea (and would keep some of the Forth and C coders employable here in the US). Just MHO, YMMV.
FRegards,
PrairieDawg
Love it!
Don't let them lose in San Francisco, or within days they will have all kinds of rights. They will wind up with their own union, be getting married, collecting welfare checks, and given the right to vote.
This is no place for watermelon jokes.
Loose, loser, lose, lost, losing, loosing; words are your friends.
Not only that, they are my life. Both my wife and I are paid to be writers. Alas, KEYBOARDS are not my friends. When all my friends were taking typing classes in high school (1970s), I laughed and said there is no reason I am ever going to need to use a typewriter.
So while I do know the difference between lose and loose, I still have to get past those dyslexic finger tips that have never quite gotten the hang of typing properly. Sen dme to the back of the class , Prof.
I only posted that because somebody was complaining about the repeated use here of the "almost" word, my new computer came with a new keyboard, and I am not a typist; this thing is convex while the old one was concave, I'm having a terrible time unless I turn on the 480watt overhead light.
It's also possible to create commands that convert a few words into an extensive block of text. One of my favorite commands is "oh go away". I'll not bore you with the output that results.
check out this web site this thing does it all!
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/resources/marsupial/marsupial.html
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