Marine Corps Wants a Throwable Robot 270
coondoggie writes "The US Marine Corps has a request — build and rapidly deploy more 10lb-or-under robots its personnel can throw into dangerous situations that can quickly gather information without endangering Marines. The throwable robot is part of a family of robots that would range from the 10lb version to one that would act as a central controlling device and weigh close to 300lbs. Marine commanders are demanding ever lighter robots so that troops don't have to offload critical equipment from their rucksacks to accommodate them."
Good idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
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In Soviet Russia, robot throws you!
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Play-time is fun-time!
Weeble? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about a large Weeble [wikipedia.org] with encrypted wifi, cameras and microphones pointing in each direction, including up? Toss it in, monitor it remotely via wifi.
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Something like this...????
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/gallery/2007-01/cop-tech-2010?pos=8
I have never posted on here but always lurk so apologies for the AC post. I was the lead engineer for this little gadget. Here are some details:
The system came with 2 or 4 Dragon Eggs, each on a different channel and 1 video receiver. The band was the 900MHz ISM band. The transmit power was 1W so it was not FCC compliant( so outside US or military sales only, sorry SWAT). It transmitted the 4 views( B&W, NTSC
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don't use wifi, far too easy to jam, OFC any wireless tech can be jammed, but wifi is much more vulnerable than others!Wep is useless so disconnect packets can be injected and wpa has a disconnection on suspicious behaviour policy. A better protocol would have to be fault tolerant encryption, which is generally hard to come by, perhaps even resorting to using several antennas and wave-phase stuff to get through pure blocking
First Prototype (Score:5, Funny)
Oh great (Score:3, Funny)
Just what George Lucas needs to hear about...
U R Doing It Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The robots should be carrying the equipment and throwing each other.
The marines should be making the decisions and dodging the other guys robots.
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Or you could go medieval and build a catapult.
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The problem with the "RPR" would not be the acceleration but rather, the "sudden stop at the end". Making it rugged enough to be useful after that stop would likely make it more then 10lbs, meaning that more -other- equipment has to be left behind if the robot is taken.
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How about a robot that throws the marines. Preferably out of your country. ^^
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Sounds good, who are the unlucky fucks we're landing on?
Re:U R Doing It Wrong (Score:4, Funny)
When I read as far as the header, I thought you were going to say the robots should throw the Marines into the rooms. (And that part of the brain that still retains my old drill instructor's best routines said "makes sense"...).
Has anyone considered infants? (Score:5, Funny)
They're about 10 pounds and very throwable.
Just what we need... (Score:2)
... Type One Autonomous Mobile Swords [wikipedia.org].
Eep!
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I wish. If we had those, we'd never have to bother with house-clearing again!
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Or weed whacking...
Existing solution (Score:5, Funny)
Why not just arm one of these. [shaharazran.com]
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I'm a red dwarf, you insensitive clod!
Mine's gonna be named an awesome backronym... (Score:2)
CHUCK: CHUCK Hates Urban Combatants, Kill!
DEPLOY A SENTRY HERE! (Score:2)
All of this makes me think of what could be an Acme Instant Sentry. You throw a toolbox over, it rights itself, builds up a bit, and in seconds you got a limited capacity automated sentry. If there's room, just add a speaker and program it to say "Hell-looooooooo-hoooooooo? Can-you-come-over-here? There-you-are." *ratatatatatatatatatatat!*
The Marine Corps Should Watch Futureweapons (Score:2, Informative)
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They're asking for a bidding war.
Everyone knows that this technology exists - what the military wants is for multiple companies to create and test their own models within guidelines which are defined by the military, put them through a test/demonstration phase, and offer them a price for the contract. if they just went and bought some of the stuff you saw on Modern Marvels, they'd end up with untested ma
As a former Active Duty Marine, (Score:5, Informative)
I would prefer a *reliable* device that added *as little as possible* to the 70lbs I already carry, that "just works," even after I throw it, drop it, sit on it in sand and gets shot twice. If it still does the job, I'll buy the damn thing myself...
unfortunately, a lot of this tech doesn't work that well, that's why k-bars and bayonets are still issued.
Also, I agree that robots should be carrying gear so I can kick some $given_enemy butt.
CAPTCHA: "uncouth" coincidence?
Unspecified Bonus (Score:2)
Not listed is an unspecified bonus if the device says "Bite my shiny metal ass" after gathering information.
Marvin (Score:2)
Brain the size of a planet...
Life... don't talk to me about life.
So they want a Throwbot, eh? (Score:2)
I'm all for it if it saves lives.
Invent gun holders that can see around corners via telescope and infrared cameras and hold a pistol or rifle so it can be fired around corners.
Then again throwing a Throwbot instead of a Grenade means less innocents are killed that way, what if you have innocents in the other room who aren't armed and are hostages or used as human shields? Throwing a grenade means the innocents die as well, throwing a Throwbot gives you another view to take sniper shots with and only kill th
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Not killing innocents helps avert their surviving kin and friends taking offense and becoming hostiles.
Discriminate killing is useful.
Metric (Score:2, Informative)
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Throwable? That's easy. (Score:5, Funny)
They already have throwable robots. (Score:5, Informative)
There are already throwable robots. The iRobot PackBot is sometimes thrown through a window to get a look inside a house. The USMC would like something a bit smaller, but the concept already works.
Previous urban tactics were to throw in a grenade or demolish houses with artillery and tanks, so there's been some progress.
It Exists! - The Scout from Recon Robotics (Score:5, Informative)
Link has audio! (Score:3, Informative)
Jesus Christ, WARN US when the site auto-plays extremely LOUD audio. I almost shit myself.
The Pokémon generation has grown up... (Score:2)
I am nervous that the kids who grew up on Pokémon are all grown up and in the military now....
Are they going to throw Pokéballs at opposing forces?
Robot - I choose you! (Score:5, Funny)
snakes on a battlefield (Score:5, Interesting)
Seth
I want one, too! (Score:2)
:-D
Re:They should send in a giant robotic dog (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually sounds more like those spider robots from "Minority report." [technovelgy.com]
Although it doesn't sound like they really want a "robot," they just want something they can throw into a room and see what's in there. Just put a durable webcam in a clear hampster ball. Or if you do need it to move around after thrown, put the webcam on a small RC car.
Marines: I expect a good chunk of your R&D budget for this design.
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Obligatory XKCD link [xkcd.com].
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Actually sounds more like a hand grenade [wikipedia.org].
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As my Drill Instructors used to say: "if you can see the grenade, the grenade can see you."
Now, getting the grenade to send streaming video back to the Marine who threw it, that's the hard part.
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There's really no need; the enemy will scream and cry after detonation, revealing their position. Plus they're dead anyway.
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yeah beacuse the US army, don't kill enough innocent civilians and obviously don't need a way to find out if there are women/children in there (cowering or as hostages)!
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To get 72 virgins?
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Look, I don't so much of an issue with the rest of your post, but IMO the statement below shows a clear misunderstanding of the socioeconomics, politics and culture in the areas where these things are occuring - it sounds nice, but means nothing in the real world.
" Simple way to reduce civilian casualties: The civilians stop ALLOWING the terrorists/enemy to hide amongst them, and they will stop dying."
It doesn't make much practical sense either, you're saying that the unarmed, downtrodden families a
RTFA - they want Dragon Runner v.2 (Score:5, Interesting)
The base R&D has been done. They clearly say in the article they want something like Dragon Runner [wikipedia.org] with more capability.
I know a bit about Dragon Runner. Trust me, it's seriously cool and very well engineered. If you don't believe it has the "throwable" part down, watch this movie [cmu.edu].
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Yes, that is seriously awesome. Thanks for the links.
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Early/Mid 90's there were RC cars that were moderately popular, where the body height was smaller than the wheel height, so it looked like:
O=O (my Google skills failed me)
so if it landed upside down, it was exactly the same as right-side up, if it lands on it's edge, you can either have rounded/ball-like rims, or just give it a bit of throttle and it'll right itself again... there's also the tri-wheel designs too... which allows for a larger body size, but roughly the same over-all size, both came in tracke
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Taking the first design you mentioned, the car that works right-side-up or upside down, you could make the two wheeler have the body hanging below the axle, instead of balanced/gyroed on top of it, so that it just naturally balances itself.
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Yeah that's the idea, but you could also have smaller guide wheels to help stabilize it (because weight/pendulum based still limits it's drive power, ie: too much throttle it'll just sit there rotating) so it looks like
O.
and if you used the "launcher" the guide wheels could be spring loaded, so they collapse into the main cylinder but pop-out after it leaves the barrel, which would also be useful for quick 180 degree views (throttle it, flips over but stops because of guide wheels) instead of making it turn
Re:But that's against the law... (Score:4, Funny)
Syntax error (Score:3, Interesting)
You fool! You have two second laws, and one of them's self-referential! No wonder the robots went mad and started killing people!
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Do not feed the elephant.
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Actually, I've always thought #1 and #2 should be switched. Even for general use.
You don't want the machine second-guessing you every moment of every day, you want it to do what you told it to do. If it harms someone because of your order, that's your responsibility. It should never harm someone without an explicit order to, of course, but it also shouldn't say 'I won't do that, because it might harm someone'.
Maybe there's just a possibility, and you are willing to take that risk. Maybe you'll have furt
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There were a few Asimov stories that effectively switched the first and second laws by simply having robots with modified definitions of what "human" meant. Interesting stuff.
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And further ..
3#
4#
4#
5#
6#
6#
Shheew.. Now everyone will think I did it on purpose.. fooled them!
Re:But that's against the law... (Score:4, Funny)
And the other police directives:
Re:But that's against the law... (Score:4, Insightful)
"But that's against the law..."
"Law", unless sufficiently backed by force, is merely an expression of wishful thinking.
Re:10lbs...throwable? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, 10 lbs is heavy, but this would be a first version. That, and the summary says 10 lbs and under. 10 lbs is probably the maximum weight they asked for in their request for proposals.
On the other hand, imagine if they got it down to the size of a tennis ball or golf ball, and it only weighed a couple ounces. You could throw several into an area simultaneously, or throw them at night... I feel like I've seen several sci-fi or action films where the protagonist rolls a little ball with a camera around a corner.
Re:10lbs...throwable? (Score:5, Insightful)
how far can you heave a 10lb weight into a situation that you can't see directly in front of you?
Further than I would want to throw myself if we're talking about into a room with a lot of angry men with guns. Also, I'm not in the same shape a marine would be, I'd expect a marine would be able to throw a 10lb weight further. The article specifically mentions "can see around corners inside buildings, sewers, drainpipes, caves, courtyards" so corners, not distances, and it sounds kind of like they're looking into remote controlled after being thrown.
Yet another rash judgement from someone didn't even RTFA, let alone knows the full story. But lets not let trivial details like facts we don't know stand in the way of our statement that fully half our military budget is completely dispensable.
(For the record, I'm a liberal and also dislike the amount we spend on the military. It's not that I'm biased in favor of dumping all our money on the military, you're just making us look dumb.)
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Mmmmm-kay. Yeah, you sound like a combat veteran who knows what he's talking about. NOT!!
What you actually sound like, is a middle aged has-been who watches to much television and assumes that Hollywood knows combat.
Challenge: Define "shelter" and "cover". Watch a dozen or even a gross of Hollywood productions. Watch carefully for every instance in which the concepts are accurately conveyed, and realistically used.
BTW - you might have RTFA. It's the MARINES who want this 10-poung-or-less-robot, not th
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How a liberal, who generally is in favor of bigger government, can rail against the waste that is endemic in a big government and yet cannot recognize the dissonance between those two desires and grow up is beyond me, but that's an aside for now.
[sigh] Liberals, like conservatives and libertarians and people of just about every other political philosophy, want government to do certain things and not do certain other things. Nobody is in favor of "big government" generally, and people who tell you they're
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How a liberal, who generally is in favor of bigger government, can rail against the waste that is endemic in a big government
If you think liberals are in favor of "big government" for it's own sake, you've really confused partisan slander with reality.
We're for expanding effective programs and cutting the waste. It's only confusing if you don't realize that not everyone thinks that all government spending is inherently wasteful.
What say you put YOUR life on the line, and then tell others they are spending too much to protect you, hmmm?
You're being a simpleton. Not all military spending goes to protecting our soldiers.
Re:10lbs...throwable? (Score:4, Interesting)
As for usefulness, it depends on the application, and how mobile the robot is once it hits the ground. For example, in a firefight situation, a robot might be able to move through the crossfire (perhaps even taking a couple of bullets in the process) in a way that a human could not.
Personally, given that urban house-to-house combat is much more prevalent these days, I'd be more interested in a robot that would have no trouble climbing stairs and turning doorknobs. Better to send a robot into booby-traps than humans...
-JMP
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I'd be more interested in a robot that would have no trouble climbing stairs
Or better yet, leveling the building.
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So you want a dalek?
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Dalek's are -not- robots, they're containers/shells over the organic components of a non human race.
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Supposing that there are people in the room, they won't know exactly where you are. You might be abl
Re:10lbs...throwable? (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot you know about counter insurgency. First of all they generally already know you are there especially if they are enemy combatants. If you approached with a lot of stealth, you wouldn't use a throwable robot if you had one that could scoot in on the ground. You could even just use fiber and peak around. Special ops guys might have that but Marines and regular soldiers aren't usually that stealthy.
Throwing means that you have an obstacle or barrier of some sort. Now, if you are one side of a wall at night and you hear voices on the other do you peak around and say "howdy!"? If they are bad guys are even a farmer with a weapon who is worried about bandits you'll get your head blown off. On the other hand if you just fling some grenades over then you might kill a room full of kids. If you throw a robot in and they are not combatants you'll find out without killing anyone. If they are combatants and throw the robot back then you just toss some grenades in return. They'd probably hope you didn't know for sure they were there so the could surprise you so they might stay very still and quiet and hope they are not detected.
The other situation is that no one is there but the place is booby trapped. Your robot may spot them or even set them off. That's much better than you or your buddies accidently setting them off. Just knowing that no one is in the room can let you to decide to bypass it or to focus on booby traps also being concerned about someone hiding there.
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If they're combatants and you throw a robot first (not knowing who they are yet) I'm pretty sure they'll be throwing grenades in return.
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I'd have to say, well in excess of 23.12 m (75 ft 10.2 in). [wikipedia.org]
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Due to an injury in the late summer I couldn't play football my senior year, so I did Track instead...
As soon as I saw your post, I thought Shotput... 12 pounds, and Discus 4.4 pounds... and they both went pretty far.
A few years later I did some Scottish Highland Games and threw a big rock called the Braemar a 20-26 pound stone, 28 pound weight on a chain and a Telephone pole called the Caber.
The Rock went 25-35 feet, the 28 pound weight gets the advantage of a lever and goes further.
Personally I all for th
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I was thinking it should be put on a sling. A sling bot, then even at five pounds it should get some decent distance. Bonus, if you can hit an enemy combatant with it!
yes, less military spending (Score:3, Insightful)
because the world is a pleasant campfire singalong, and no ones means any one else any wrong
as russia tries to claim the arctic, engages in neoimperialism in the caucasus, as china ramps up its military spending, as myanmar tries to get nukes, as north korea has them, as iran tries to get nukes, as venezuela ramps up military purchases of heavy armament, etc., etc.
yeah, its a world of love and good will. no need for a serious military, you're a genius
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With regards to "bad" countries trying to get nuclear weapons, look at the following scenario:
Iraq - no nuclear weapons, got invaded and Sadam hung.
North Korea - nuclear weapons, didn't get invaded and former president dropped by on a private diplomatic mission.
Now, while it is entirely possible that the reason North Korea hasn't been been merged with South Korea is that they have enough military hardware pointed towards Soul to wipe it entirely off the map, it easily look a bit like this:
Get nuclear weapon
north korea can't feed its own people (Score:2)
the north korean government works as a blackmailing entity: lob missiles over japan, set off nukes... get shipments of food and oil from concerned countries. rather than gee, i dunno, figuring out the korean war is over and engaging in peaceful trade with its neighbors so its able to afford food and oil on its own?
now all of what you said might be true, but i always thought the purpose of a government was to serve it's people. but a nuclear power whose people eat leaves? does that make any sense to you? to
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I've never said that the North Korean leadership does a good job (apart from keeping itself in power). Just that when you look at Iraq as an example, then perhaps getting your hands on some nukes is a good idea.
Or Pakistan. Run (perhaps used to be) by a military style dictatorship with huge tracts of land that are/were used for training ground for terrorists. But there's no point in spreading democracy there. Besides, they have nukes - so it's not like using force would be a good idea either. Who knows wher
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GPP called for the military to be "pared down by 50% for the next 3 years running," by which I assume he means 1/2 of current spending next year, 1/4 of current spending the following year, and 1/8 of current spending the year after that. While I think this is pretty unrealistic (the drawdown costs would be enormous, and wipe out much of the savings) I have to note that we could spend 1/8 of our current defense budget and still have a pretty damn "serious military." This list [globalsecurity.org] for worldwide defense budgets
cutting waste is a noble goal (Score:2, Informative)
i wholeheartedly support it
but the usa only ranks 27th in military spending
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_as_a_percentage_of_GDP [wikipedia.org]
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How is percentage of GDP the relevant measure here? The US is richer than most other countries; we already knew that. No matter how much money we have, the question to ask is "how much should we spend on X to get what we need" (whether X is defense or something else) not "what percentage of our wealth should we spend on X?" If you make ten times as much money as someone else, it does not follow that you have to spend ten times as much money on your house, your car, and everything else.
Re:cutting waste is a noble goal (Score:4, Insightful)
How is percentage of GDP the relevant measure here?
We have more to defend, and a larger stake in global politics/stability?
Bigger stick == better?
Just guessing.
I don't see how spending FOO * Scary Nation Defense Budget BAR makes any sense. What if there are several Scary Nations and Bad Countries?
I think military spending should be greater than the combination of all 'OTHER' country's military spending, but within your means. OTHER being anyone we don't trust right now. Are we spending within our means? ~5%, I guess so. Who is OTHER now? Do you trust them enough to cut back?
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Yes it is. It says a lot about what that countries priorites are.
Spend per person is useless because wealth varies so much. Compare North Korea (poor but aggressive) with Switzerland (rich but pacifist).
of course we can cut waste (Score:2)
but the usa ranks only 27th in military spending
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_as_a_percentage_of_GDP [wikipedia.org]
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how far can you heave a 10lb weight into a situation that you can't see directly in front of you?
How about approximately 15 - 20 meters [wikipedia.org]?
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Um... LEGO beat them to it.
http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Throwbots [wikia.com]
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Can't they just use cats with cameras strapped to their heads?
Yes! Extremely well-trained, obedient cats who will bravely follow instructions to the letter even in the harshest, most dangerous environments...
I like this idea. I am confident that no flaws will be found in it.