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Robotics Technology

South Korea To Develop Army and Police Robots 286

Posted by samzenpus from the you-have-twenty-seconds-to-comply dept.
JonathanGCohen writes "South Korea is planning on developing an advanced line of robots for military and police use by the 2010 decade. A $34 million USD infusion of cash will spur development and result in robotic applications like security watchmen and eight-legged autonomous combat vehicles. "
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South Korea To Develop Army and Police Robots More

South Korea To Develop Army and Police Robots

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  • Smart Robots? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mfh ( 56 )

    Smart robots need three basic functions of sensing, processing and action. Thus far, robotics researchers have tried to cram the three into a single dummy, causing expenses to soar. [...] Instead, the planned robots will be receiving most sensing and processing capabilities via a Web connection. Only the ability of movement will be located in the robot.

    Nothing could possibly go wrong, there. Clones [slashdot.org] will have a better chance of getting the job done than web vulnerable policing units carrying live ammo.

    • spiders robots? come'on, it's so much easier -though less stylish- just pressing buttons and nuking the weak guys. i guess korean politicians and stakeholders are /. material, major geeks with the hazardous add-on of unlimited funding... i can't wait to see a combat between brazilian robot bees and peruvian mechanical guinea pigs
    • Too bad the scientist who claimed he could make clones turned out to be a fraud. They will just have to settle for an army of droids.

    • Re:Smart Robots? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Neoprofin ( 871029 )
      It could be just as effective as the company in the US that allowed disabled (or lazy) hunters to hunt via webcam controlled rifles. Just put a team in control of some fire support robots at hot spots and let the over priced camera sit in harms way rather than cheap human bodies.

      • Re:Smart Robots? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by msloan ( 945203 )
        Yeah, I always thought it was smarter to have humans control the robots, rather than cooking up some AI. Sure, AI is cool, but for this application it is really unecessary. Plus this would give all of this generation's video game addicts a decent job.

    • Re:Smart Robots? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hackstraw ( 262471 ) *

      Being that Americans don't hardly even get killed anymore when they wage their war every 10 years because of our superior technology, I see the next incarnation of war to be a big battlebot war or something.

      I would say that even that is progress. Hell, even then maybe wars won't cost us so much. People pay to go to arenas like in the days of gladiators. (I'm not sure if they paid or it was free.) But still, picture a football sized arena, and the lights go down and its US vs N. Korea. Of course WMDs wo

      • The future of war is now: advanced technological societies waging war with ever-more precise, ever-more-powerful weaponry, tolerating few if any casualties among their own forces, confronting archaic, pre-modern societies whose only effective counterforces are terror--a willingness both to kill and to die.

        Anyone who thinks that in the future wars will all be nice and bloodless, largely carried out by our obedient robotic proxies is invited to step out of his cubicle and look at where real wars are being

  • Haven't we explored this option before? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MagicDude ( 727944 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:17PM (#14506792)
    Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.
    • ... they should be blue, with jointed legs, and a white domed bit on top.
    • Look, we all know there were a lot of problems with the ED-209 series. But it was a rush job and, after all, we *did* offer a formal apology to the families of those Nicaraguan farmers. And, anyway, that was almost 20 years ago.

      Trust me, buy yourself an ED-1260. It's the most glitch free ED model yet. It's only had once incident, and that didn't involve a single fatality (assuming that girl comes out of the coma).

      And, best of all, the ED-1260 is Linux-based and easy to mod! Just make sure and DO NOT try to

  • The important question. (Score:5, Funny)

    by interactive_civilian ( 205158 ) <mamoru&gmail,com> on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:17PM (#14506794) Homepage Journal
    Will they be able to find Sarah Connor?

    Oops, wrong web site.

    /slashie

  • Worth it? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BHennessy ( 639799 )
    Although the article says they intend for the robot to take action, surely they couldn't be doing much more than photographing any evil-dooers they come across as chasing down and following people would be quite a challenge. Although, imagine how awesome a giant six legged horse/spider roaming the streets at night would be.
    • ...surely they couldn't be doing much more than...

      There are no promises here.

      Imagine something like a large rack mount UPS with legs. If it detects you it aims and fires. It's ambling along the street at night, along with the other several hundred deployed in the area.

      No, it isn't likely to happen to you. Eventually, however, it will happen to someone, somewhere.

    • Re:Worth it? (Score:2, Funny)

      by m00j ( 801234 )
      I picture a giant 8 legged robotic spider jumping out of its hiding place, letting out a 150 dB roar (the sound effect for t-rex in Jurassic park would work well) and then chasing the criminal down the road (these things would be fast, and loud on account of their heavy weight breaking the concrete sidewalk). Once it caught them it would pin them down, release a squirt of rotting flesh smell for effect and then 'eat' them into the holding cage in their belly.

      The criminal would never commit a crime again!

  • Robots watching robots (Score:5, Funny)

    by zymurgy_cat ( 627260 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:19PM (#14506810) Homepage
    I wonder....will the robot security guards watch robot football all night long when I visit my customers' plants on the midnight shift....or rather, when my robot visits the plant for me......

  • Isaac Asimov would not have liked this! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yobjob ( 942868 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:20PM (#14506811) Homepage
    The government also seeks to build combat robots. Three Laws of Robotics: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

    2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

    3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

  • North Korea (Score:3, Funny)

    by mickyflynn ( 842205 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:21PM (#14506820)
    If i lived next door to a crazy, nuclear-armed country with a million-man infantry, then i'd probably want a technological upperhand as well on the battlefield. However, as wars are always going to be fought no matter what, i'm willing to put my boots on the ground for honour and glory and hopefully some metals... so joining the army. god damned robots better not screw me over on the only thing left that seems to be hiring... graduating with an english degree in May. what else can I do?
    • If i lived next door to a crazy, nuclear-armed country with a million-man infantry

      you mean like... the US??
      • Yeah, definitely a Funny :-)

        If the US actually *did* have a "million-man infantry", do you seriously believe we'd have an insurgency problem in Iraq?
      • Nah, it couldn't be the US, they don't have a million infantry men.
        • If i lived next door to a crazy, nuclear-armed country with a million-man infantry

        you mean like... the US??

        Yes, like the US. We live next to Canadians and Cubans, two military-mad nuclear weirdos, and that is bound to make people crazy. Heck, just look at Florida, absolutely swarming with Canadians and awash with Cubans.

        Also, keep in mind that Europe sent all their criminals and religious loons here to the US, and now they are shocked, shocked they say, that we Americans act like this. Tchah!

    • Live on the beach as a hippie living coconuts on Kauai. Get food stamps. Beats dying in Iraq for Bush buddies oil.

  • Cold, emotionless, enforcement drones ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Average_Joe_Sixpack ( 534373 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:22PM (#14506828)
    In the US we call them "State Troopers"
  • ... the freakin' sharks with laser beams!
  • only old people listen to police robots!

  • That bothers me. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:23PM (#14506839) Journal
    In the USA, the military is not allowed to interfere with civilian matters (that was until recently). One of the advantages of this, is that it is so enforced in the military, that most would rebel against any attempted military coup or an attempt to convert America to a dictatorship. But a robot will not likely have a sense of ethics. They would gladly do exactly what the current leader says, be it Clinton (for you republicans) or GWB (for the rest of us).

    • Re:That bothers me. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jasonditz ( 597385 )
      It's also a lot easier to keep quiet when you order a robot to torture somebody or massacre a group of protesters... there are all sorts of benefits that the would-be supervillain wouldn't want to pass up.
    • They would gladly do exactly what the current leader says, be it Clinton...

      Do they have robotic cigars?
       

  • Marriage? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:25PM (#14506853) Homepage Journal
    What happens though when the Robot Police want to marry the Robot Teachers:
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/ 04/0338238&tid=216&tid=146 [slashdot.org] ?

    Will Robosexual unions be allowed under South Korean law?

    And just wait until the messy Robodivorces when Robot Police Lady rolls off with Robot Soldier:
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/ 25/0218254&tid=216&tid=219 [slashdot.org]

    And they haven't even invented Robot Lawyers yet! The world will come tumbling down.
  • The world would be a much better place if we could ensure all wars are fought with only robots on BOTH sides. Think of all the human lives which would be saved.
    • In a completely robotic war the only casualties will be civilians.
      • In a completely robotic war the intended casualties will be civilians.

        War is about civilians, and their stuff. A robot war won't be about the bloodless battlefield. It will be about columns of chromed killers rolling through your city, arresting the city authorities, imposing curfew and deference at gunpoint. It will be about having your home broken into in the dead of night by a dozen robots, who drag your out of the house into the street, search through all your stuff, download your hard drive, interrogat

  • Jump a head to the end goal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Belseth ( 835595 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:33PM (#14506881)
    Already the leaders stay home and play armchair warfare. Next step is the soldiers stay home and play war like a video game. It's been around for years folks, it's called Robot Wars. I say the leaders of each country build the best fighting robot then they can duke it out and nobody gets hurt and we save billions of dollars. Got a border dispute? Whoever can build the best fighting machine wins? It levels the playing field, saves time and money and by far the most important it saves lives. Don't like a level playing field? Try talking out your problems like civilized people do.

    • Re:Jump a head to the end goal (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Draveed ( 664730 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:50PM (#14506974)
      Why bother building a fighting machine? If you're just going to turn warfare into a little game, just have some humans play an existing game to solve your problem. Have the 2 nations each pick a soldier for a boxing match or even just a game of poker. It's all the same. You're just trying to take the killing and destruction out of warfare.

      The problem is that your system relies on trust. How can I trust that my enemy is only going to confine this combat to the "fighting machine arena" or poker table, or whatever? You can't. Your enemy may just backstab you, and while you're only ready for your sanitized combat, they lunch a real attack on your cities. So you need to prepare for that and spend billions on a conventional army anyway.

      • Have the 2 nations each pick a soldier for a boxing match or even just a game of poker. It's all the same.

        Yeah, that's exactly the same...

        "Full house. Sorry, Hitler."

        "Sheisse!"

      • The problem is that your system relies on trust. How can I trust that my enemy is only going to confine this combat to the "fighting machine arena" or poker table, or whatever?

        If my deadly robot destroys your deadly robot, my deadly robot army will probably be able to defeat your robot army. It's a combination of threat, plausibility, and feedback when measuring capacity for warfare. There is a presumption that the superior robot will be able to dominate inferiors. In all likelihood though, resolution will
    • What you're missing here is that the robots built for war won't be built to kill other machines - they'll be built to penetrate deep beyond enemy defense and inflict the maximum possible casualties appropriate for the situation, all without putting a human pilot in danger.
      • No they will be built to take out the enemy's robot production facilities. Heavy casualties will only make the target country more aggressive, and cause allies and neutral companies to rethink their position. While not appreciatively decreasing their combat readiness. That is of course assuming that the enemy doesn't just roll over and surrender when attacked.
      • "inflict the maximum possible casualties appropriate for the situation"

        Just how many human beings have to die an agonizing death to be "appropriate for the situation" exactly?

        Jeezus! I wouldn't want to be inside your head for very long buddy.
    • Try talking out your problems like civilized people do.

      I'm reading through the World History from 4000 B.C to the 20th century. From what I've read, it seems to me that all civilized people do is kill each other, or go to extreme lengths in discovering new ways of killing each other.

      There's a difference between 'civilized' and 'intelligent'. But I wholeheartedly embrace your opinion.

  • ED-209 (Score:2, Redundant)

    by modemboy ( 233342 )
    And they shall call it Enforcement Droid 209. Oh wait, 8 legs, make that Ed-809 ;-)

  • I, for one, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:36PM (#14506896) Homepage
    I, for one, welcome our incoming flood of posts in this syntax.

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by deblau ( 68023 ) <slashdot.25.flickboy@spamgourmet.com> on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:37PM (#14506901) Journal
    which are they going to develop first, their Army or their Police Robots?

    • which are they going to develop first, their Army or their Police Robots?

      Is there a difference ? Just set "ask before shooting" to "false", and one becomes the other.

  • I like this four-legged design [wikipedia.org] better. :-)
  • eight-legged autonomous combat vehicles
    It looks like they are going to shell out for some Tachikoma.

  • just one step along the way (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Surt ( 22457 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:44PM (#14506952) Homepage Journal
    The rich need the poor to do only a few jobs: mass manufacture, police and emergency services, civil services. When they've got robots that eliminate the need for those at the bottom, I doubt they'll keep them around. If you are middle class or lower, you should think carefully about whether you're helping to build technology that will allow the upper class to do away with you.

    • Precisely! Once they have these technologies they'll fake a nuclear war and send us all into bunkers far underground (to "protect" us) in which we can do little but build the rich more robots.

      Hmm... this is all sounding kinda familiar...

      (For the PKD impaired: A link! [amazon.com].)
    • If the poor are eliminated, then who's buying the stuff that the rich are selling thus making them rich? I think there would have to be some kind of middle ground somewhere in there, or the rich will become poor too.
    • Sure, if you argue in complete disregard for historical evidence. This is what Karl Marx predicted would happen as an eventual result of industrialization. However, it did not. What happened is that _fewer_ people lived in poverty, because enhanced efficiency led to more wealth in general (the dynamic mechanism is complicated, but one way to look at it is, the poor don't get poorer overnight and instead "buy in" to the system). If you take this to a limit, like you did, where all work is done by robots, you
      • "What happened is that _fewer_ people lived in poverty, because enhanced efficiency led to more wealth in general (the dynamic mechanism is complicated, but one way to look at it is, the poor don't get poorer overnight and instead "buy in" to the system)."

        I think you are conveniently overlooking the massive amount of income redistribution that goes on in all "first world" capitalist democracies. Look at the third world countries without income redistribution and you will find a few people who own everything

  • The Cops, The Criminals & The Civil Fruitcakes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2006 @11:50PM (#14506971)
    If the Robo-Cops hits the streets, the invention of small EMP grenades won't be too far behind. As an American citizen, do I have the constitutional right to bear EMP grenades? Or would EMP grenades fall into the same classification as regular explosive grenades?
    • Silly American, they aren't EMP "grenades", they're EMP "guns" [amazing1.com].

      And if they ask, tell them it's for defending your State against the Federal government.

    • Re:The Cops, The Criminals & The Civil Fruitca (Score:5, Informative)

      by Belseth ( 835595 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @12:48AM (#14507240)
      If the Robo-Cops hits the streets, the invention of small EMP grenades won't be too far behind. As an American citizen, do I have the constitutional right to bear EMP grenades? Or would EMP grenades fall into the same classification as regular explosive grenades?

      Two problems with that senerio. First EMP weapons at last word were still a rumor even for the military. If they do exist they would bulky and probably produce a fair amount of radiation. It isn't that easy to produce a field strong enough to knock out electronics.

      The other issue is if that were a risk it's possible to harden hardware electronics from EMP fields. A lot of military hardware is already. I'd be real surprised if it was ever possible to produce an EMP gernade. In some ways it's not that different than trying to make a nuclear hand gernade. They may have had them in Starship Troopers but they don't exist in the real world and there's no way to make one with current understanding of physics. Even the brief case bombs were never proven and those are considerably larger than a handgernade. I tend to believe they are possible from what I've read and seen but I'm not 100% convinced one has been made.

      There's far easier ways to take out a robot than an EMP bomb. Part of the draw back to most battle robots are they aren't really that tough. You'll notice most have stuck with a wheeled or tank tread approach. Wheels and tank treads are tougher and more efficent than walking machines. A two or four legged robot would have the same frailties as well as advantages of an animal with the same number of legs. The biggest problem always is trying to make motors small enough and strong enough to make walking possible. Equalling a human for strength, speed and endurance is far harder than it looks and it's a very long way to the bionic man.

      • The other issue is if that were a risk it's possible to harden hardware electronics from EMP fields. A lot of military hardware is already.

        Someone I know was shown around an Antonov transport plane, and initially thought "Stupid Russians, they've got huge areas taken up with valves instead of a little box full of semiconductor components". Then he thought about EMP from a nuclear explosion and how those valves would barely notice it, and it's a lot cheaper than mucking about with short production runs of s

      • In some ways it's not that different than trying to make a nuclear hand gernade. They may have had them in Starship Troopers but they don't exist in the real world and there's no way to make one with current understanding of physics.

        They weren't so much hand grenades as bazooka shells. And on that note... M-388 Davy Crockett tactical nuclear recoilless rifle [wikipedia.org]

    • C'mon, this is not the True Geek(TM) response. If you have highly capable -- and heavily armed! -- robots wandering the streets, the right thing to do is infect them with viruses that subvert their brains (which will probably run Windows ZZ.2060, har har) so that they do your bidding instead of the City Council's. Bwahahahaha.

  • Realistically (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dch24 ( 904899 )
    I am a robotics researcher. We focus on completely autonomous systems. Realistically, there are some significant technical problems with just a web-controlled robot. Where will South Korea get the high-bandwidth wireless infrastructure? The robots will only work within range of the towers, and what if the towers are taken out?

    Like it says in the article, they will probably just be remotely-operated robots (most of the time). If anyone had a fully autonomous machine ready for combat, then why the DARPA gra

  • Does that mean they plan to have their robot army ready by 2001, the decade that includes 2010?

    Or are they using the incorrect method of delineating decades? In which case, it means they will have their robot army ready by 2011.

    • No, they didnt say anything about the 'decade of 2010', the article said 'the 2010s'. If someone said it happened 'back in the 50s', would you assume it happened in 1941???
      • The slashdot article clearly states:

        South Korea is planning on developing an advanced line of robots for military and police use by the 2010 decade.

        So I'm not sure what your point is. "50s" is very different to "the 1950 decade." 50s references years that include "5" in the tens position of the decimal system. "The (specific year) decade" is something I have never heard before.

  • Can the S.Koreans really build something like this? It seemed Japan was far more advanced in Robotics.
  • Robot soldiers? This must be to counter what North Korea has [theonion.com].

  • Why is it the Koreans? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @12:00AM (#14507042) Homepage Journal
    It seems there are a few patterns here:

    Japanese make friendly servant robots (to help old people).
    Koreans make battle/guard robots. With weapons. So humans don't have to fight.
    Americans make rescue robots, unmanned aerial vehicles.

    Doesn't this seem a bit odd? Why don't US companies try to make a friendly robot like the Japanese? Why are we so big on search and rescue? Why do the Koreans pour their precious money into killer bots?

    Why don't the Koreans make agricultural robots, so that humans don't have to toil in the fields? If we had those in the USA, we'd have a totally automated farming workforce. And where do the Europeans fit in here? What sort of robots do they want?
    • http://economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm? s tory_id=5323427&no_na_tran=1 [economist.com]

      Why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans
      ...
      So Japan will need workers, and it is learning how to make robots that can do many of their jobs. But the country's keen interest in robots may also reflect something else: it seems that plenty of Japanese really like dealing with robots.

      Few Japanese have the fear of robots that seems to haunt westerners in seminars and Hollywood films. In western popular culture,
    • Well, the pattern that you point out seems reasonable and make sense... :) Japan is one of the countries with the greatest portion of elderly people... South Korea is putting more than 300 thousand sentrymen to watch out for their heavily fortified border with that crazy North Korea, and replacing those sentrymen with the "guard robots" will have a huge positive economic effect.

    • Re:Why is it the Koreans? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @03:25AM (#14507791)
      We (the US) make all kinds of war robots. Things like cruise missilies and missile launching drones are robots too you know.
      • Sure -- but we aren't trying to make a robotic soldier, or anything close to it.

        We do aerospace -- the cruise missles and satellites.

        So far, we haven't done robots that you see before they kill you.

        We are almost their, with the predator drones -- but again, that's aerospace.

        If we had killer robots, instead of sending in a bomb to blow up an apartment with jihadis, we'd send in a swarm of small robots, that would attack them up close. Many, fewer civilian casualties, no US casualties.

    • Re:Why is it the Koreans? (Score:5, Funny)

      by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Thursday January 19, 2006 @09:50AM (#14509102) Journal

      Isn't it obvious? Duh...

      Japanese make friendly servant robots (to help old people).

      Japanese are lonely.

      Koreans make battle/guard robots. With weapons. So humans don't have to fight.

      Koreans are scared.

      Americans make rescue robots, unmanned aerial vehicles.

      Americans are lost.

    • If we had those in the USA, we'd have a totally automated farming workforce

      It's called a combine. You'd be surprised how much one man can do when equipped with one of these amazing devices. Most agricultural farmers in America have one these days. And if they don't, they hire somebody that does.
  • How do you say "drop your weapon and put your hands up - you have thirty seconds to comply" in Korean?

  • Obligatory reference #1 (Score:4, Funny)

    by mezzaninemkii ( 947108 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @12:26AM (#14507144)
    police drone rush kekekekekeke ^_____________^

  • A whole 34 million USD? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alea ( 122080 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @12:38AM (#14507194)
    Through 2011? Well, that should about cover the coffee budget...

    Even if clever scientists and engineers are really cheap in South Korea, I have trouble believing this kind of budget is going to produce more than a particularly hostile Roomba.

    Arghhhhh... It's sucking at my toes!

    Hmmm... now that I think of it... there's definitely a market for that sort of robot.

  • To hell with security, where's the pr0nBots? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chuqmystr ( 126045 ) on Thursday January 19, 2006 @01:25AM (#14507412) Homepage
    Yeah, that's right. I want a little cutie like that one in that goddamned robot chik-flick flick my wife made me watch with the little robot kid,er, AI or Erore does pooh-bear or fried green tomatoes or whatever the hell. I want one with multiple meat ports I can interface. And that's not all, damnit! I want an SLA that states I can send her dirty little rump to the crusher with my choice of "transference" of the best moments and get a tight, nubile and fresh little replacement. It's the least bit all these goddamned machines owe me after so many years of catering to their pithy needs. A gourmet meal, some fine drinks, and never hear "I'm tired, I have headache" after a long one at the data center making certain all that pr0n gets to where it has to go is all I ask for whatever ridiculous third mortgage I'll need to take out to get it. This is America damnit! Where's my screw-bot?!? 'Nuff said.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Wait, am I really the first to welcome our new RoboCop overlords? I wonder why...
  • ... That they're using *our* money to pay for toys for another country?

    I guess we haven't sent South Korea enough over the last 56 years.

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