Army Terminators Walk Like Men
- By David Hambling
- May 21, 2009 |
- 3:00 pm |
- Categories: Bizarro, Drones
Round four of mankind’s epic battle against the walking, talking, killer machines starts tonight with the opening of Terminator Salvation. But humanoid robots aren’t confined to the movies. Turns out the U.S. military is backing research into robots that act like people, as well.
Today, the American armed forces’ main ground robots, the Foster-Miller Talon and iRobot’s Packbot, look like boxes with caterpillar tracks. It’s a nice, stable design. And it works well — which is why the military has sent thousands of ‘em over to Afghanistan and Iraq.
But these robots don’t easily fit into a world that we humans have constructed for creatures that operate like us. Door handles only work if you have something like a hand — and it has to be at the right height, too. Wheels and tracks get stuck on obstacles that legs just jump over. So it makes sense, sometimes, to shape a machine like a man.
One of the American military’s leading humanoid robots is Petman. Its job will be to testing chemical protection clothing for the U.S. Army. Petman is being built by Boston Dynamics, famous for its alarmingly lifelike BigDog robotic pack mule. Unlike earlier suit-testing robots, which needed external support, Petman will stand — and walk — on his own two feet.
“Petman will balance itself and move freely; walking, crawling and doing a variety of suit-stressing calisthenics during exposure to chemical warfare agents,” the company promises. “Petman will also simulate human physiology within the protective suit by controlling temperature, humidity and sweating when necessary, all to provide realistic test conditions. ”
A sweating robot? I had a flashback to the first Terminator movie:
“The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy. These are new. They look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything….”
Petman needs to precisely simulate human movement, and the makers say it will be “the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person, with natural, agile movement.” The mecha-man is described as “BigDog’s Big Brother.” In fact, his bottom half is simply a pair of BigDog legs.
The program will consist of 13 months of design and 17 months of construction. The finished product being delivered in 2011. (Will they have to deliver Petman, or will they just give him the address and send him off?)
Meanwhile, Bucknell University researchers have received a $1.2 million grant for research and development of military robots, including a 5-foot-tall bipedal walker.
“It would move over curbs, up stairs and around rubble,” says Keith Buffinton, professor of mechanical engineering. “It could be used for surveillance and to gather information in areas you would not want to risk human life.”
The machine is already taking its first steps and is said to be better at balancing than a human. Professor Steven Shooter says they’ll be able to give the robot a head (complete with cameras) and “arm-like devices to assist with balancing.”
It’s unlikely that killer robots are walking among us just yet. But in a few years someone with a rather mechanical gait who refuses to take off his motorcycle helmet may not be quite what he seem.
Bonus feature… and spoiler alert…
There are new non-human Terminators in the new movie as well, including a variety of riderless motorbikes called Moto-Terminators. Once again, science fiction is only just ahead of science fact.
In 2005, one of the competitors in Darpa’s Grand Challenge for robot vehicles was an unmanned motor bike called Ghost Rider.
This was based on a 90-cc dirt bike outfitted with sensors, gyros for steering and video cameras for eyes. The designer, Anthony Levandowski of University of California, Berkeley, said that the two-wheel layout made it more maneuverable than the big Jeeps and trucks fielded by other competitors. It also as kept costs down. The whole thing cost just $150,000, which puts it in the bargain basement for military robotics.
An article in Berkeley Engineering’s newsletter later said that Levandowski “hopes to keep Ghostrider alive by continuing to refine its subsystems, like the obstacle avoidance software, for potential use in unmanned scouting and surveillance operations.”
Of course unmanned craft like the Predator also started out on scouting and surveillance duty — before someone decided to arm them.
[Photo: Bucknell University]
See Also:
- How To: Terminate a Terminator, for Real
- How To: Terminate a Terminator (Updated)
- Killer Ground ‘Bots Out of Iraq: How Come?
- Popular Mechanics: “Simmer Down!”
- Armed Robots Go Into Action
- How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse
- Angels & Demons’ Antimatter Bombs - for Real?
Image: Bucknell University
Any research that could potentially save a soldier’s life is money well spent. Too bad it is not a priority right now.
@baywatersport
Another great way to save Soldiers lives is to not send them into wars they don’t need to be in. Oh and if its Money your concerned about, you wont need to spend it if you don’t send Soldiers into wars they don’t need to be in. But sure robots might save lives too.
Send in the Terminators target Iran!!
@baywatersport
Why don’t we put more research in to education and peace then???
Something that will drive investment and production of military robots is the fact that robots are cheaper than soldiers. You don’t have to feed, house, or pay them and if one is destroyed you don’t have to pay the $250,000 life insurance to the family. It’s sad that it comes down to the economics of the situation but that’s really what they are after not the moral benefit of saving a soldiers life as much as how much money costs to lose one.
@prettynerd87 - economics and morality are not mutually exclusive as your post appears to imply. Every economic decision we make has a moral component. The example of this story is a case in point. If robotics can save lives and money that is a good thing. There is always a cost benefit component when your have finite resources.
Whatever weapon system is developed somebody else will get it and then everyone else will have it if they want it. Meaning the only victory we’ll ever see is when we find a way to get along. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCDBinw-sZQ
@ prettynerd87
Consider also that support for war starts to fade when the U.S. starts suffering casualties. If only robots are getting destroyed I would not be surprised if the U.S. public would support pretty much any and every war.
I’m with factoryidiot. The best way to save a soldier’s life is to not send him to war in the first place. A soldier’s days are numbered the day he enlists.
the measure of man is what he choses to do with his knowledge.
Is it just me or should we not be suffixing robots with -man? Especially not Drillman, Diveman, Bombman etc…
@ the dumb guy that wrote “Why don’t we put more research in to education and peace then?” That sounds wonderful, unfortunately there are other countries that would rather spend their money attacking peaceful nations when they are vulnerable. The best way to deter wars is with military power. This is why there has not been a major war between first world countries since they became armed with nuclear weapons. Besides, how do you invest money in peace? Get some wacky radical sociologist to talk to and try to brainwash 5 year old children? No thank you.
@plemdude I think you’re right, unless we fit one with an arm cannon and the ability to assimilate other robots’ abilities.
@SpottedMarley
” A soldier’s days are numbered the day he enlists.”
Please tell us what educational system failed its community. Or are you just willfully ignorant of the statistics? or just gullible to those media answers “measured in days” BS? Yes it is 14X higher than average civilian life. but are you comparing couch potatoes or highway patrolmen?
/all our days our numbered until we get over it.
How ’bout just putting the skinny legs in metal armor, then the whole thing in an armored can that has a machine gun mounted inside uptop? Like a Bode cartoon!
But I agree FactoryIdiot, we don’t need more war. Spend only on a ‘deterrent’ which means just enough troops to defend our land, a few “Elite” teams for precision strikes and the “MAD” nuclear deterrent. Then spend half the saved money paying down the debt, the debt we don’t cancel (like to elite bankers and foreigners with agendas) and then have the other half in improving education, jobs, infrastructure, etc.
We’d do that, we’d have an invasion all right. A society so prosperous the rest of the world would become “Mexican” and then we could help the other societies improve so they don’t all try to get here.
Awesome. One more threat to humanity: emotion-less drones with thermo-night vision equiped with a machine gun. I hope they’re running Windows for added security
the problem that we are going to have is when goverments decide to use these robots to police the everyday person e.g. maybe the police are looking for a murderer and you look like the suspect the robot believes you to be the suspect you dont stop telling the robot you did not do anything when the robot says to stop he shots and this can happen if robots have A.I. or God forgive us a stupid gun wild 19 year old thinking being a robot controlling cop is like xbox. we as humans need to put a limit on what we are doing.
This robot is the Yobotics M2…. Its 10 years old….WHAT’S THE JOKE….?
WHY ITS MAKING NEWS EVERY WHERE ? THAT’S PLAIN STUPID…. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS 10 YEARS OLD NEWS…. WHAT THEY’VE DONE SINCE 1998?
THAT’S STUPID JUNK TO ENTERTAIN THE MASS STUPID SHEEPS
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