(Credit: Robotic Technology)A robot's potential advantage in autonomy is limited by its need to constantly refuel, but what if the robot could graze its way through a mission, skipping the gas station and foraging for biomass fuel along the way?
The biologically inspired Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) is designed to do just that--find, ingest and extract energy from biomass throughout its operating environment, and switch to conventional or alternative fuels (such as gasoline, diesel, propane and solar) when needed (see PDF).
Robotic Technology of Potomac, Md., and Cyclone Power Technologies of Pompano Beach, Fla., have completed an initial stage in a collaboration that could lead to the world's first grazing robot. The system would obtain energy by "engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior"--in other words, foraging and eating to keep itself going.
It's a tall order. The robot will need to first identify a suitable biomass (wood, grass, paper, etc.) and avoid the indigestible (rocks, metal, or glass). ... Read more
(Credit: University of Leeds)Engineers in England have come up with a product to save a few bob for those who work in semi-dangerous occupations--cement body armor.
The vests combine "super strong" cement with recycled carbon fiber, making the vests tough enough to withstand most bullet calibers, according to researchers at the University of Leeds' School of Civil Engineering.
Currently, top-of-the-line bulletproof vests are made with alumina plates--the raw material used to make aluminum--through a costly process called sintering, which involves heating the material for up to two weeks at 1600 degrees Celsius to harden it.
The cement vest, on the other hand, would offer a cost-effective level of protection for people in semi-risky occupations short of full-on combat.
"By using cement instead of alumina we are confident we can deliver a cost-effective level of protection for many people at risk," said research team leader Philip Purnell. "It should be good enough for people like security guards, reporters, and aid workers who are worried about the odd pot shot being taken at them."
... Read more
(Credit: Signet)Adherence to the Three Laws of Robotics as put forth by Isaac Asimov has been, until now, entrusted to whoever held the joystick. That may change.
A robotics engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed an "ethical governor," which could be used to program military robots to act ethically when deciding when, and whom, to shoot or bomb.
Ron Arkin has demonstrated the system using attack UAVs and actual battlefield scenarios and maps from recent U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan. (videos)
In one scenario, a drone spots Taliban soldiers, but holds its fire because they're in a cemetery--fighting there is against international law.
In another, the UAV identifies an enemy convoy close to a hospital, but limits itself to shooting up the vehicles so as to avoid collateral damage to the hospital. The mindful bot would also house a built in "guilt system," which would force it to behave more cautiously, after making a mistake.
While the work shows promise, it also draws attention to the inadequacy of trying to program machines with morals, especially ones expected to perform in a complex battlefield environment, according to experts.
"Robots don't get angry or seek revenge but they don't have sympathy or empathy either," Noel Sharkey, a roboticist at Sheffield University, U.K., told New Scientist. "Strict rules require an absolutist view of ethics, rather than a human understanding of different circumstances and their consequences."
Arkin acknowledges that it may take a while before we can trust predators and other unmanned killers with life and death decisions.
"These ideas will not be used tomorrow, but in the war after next, and in very constrained situations." Arkin is quoted in New Scientist. "The most important outcome of my research is not the architecture, but the discussion that it stimulates."
(Credit: DARPA)What if the wisdom of Web could be yours, without having to read through it one page at a time? That's what the military wants.
DARPA has hired a company to develop a reading machine to reduce the gap between the ever increasing mountain of digitized text and the intelligence community's insatiable appetite for data input.
BBN Technologies was awarded the $29.7 million contract to develop a universal text engine capable of capturing knowledge from written matter and rendering it into a format that artificial intelligence systems (AI) and human analysts can work with. (PDF)
The military will use the Machine Reading Program, as it's officially called, to automatically monitor the technological and political activities of nation states and transnational organizations-which could mean everything from al-Qaeda to the U.N.
To pull it off, BBN will "develop techniques that can generalize across the linguistic structure and content of diverse documents to extract relations and axioms directly from text rather than relying on a knowledge engineer to encode such information."
"The machine reading system that DARPA envisions is not evolutionary, but revolutionary," said BBN Technologies VP Prem Natarajan. "Such a system could eliminate many of the impediments to stability that our military faces such as a lack of understanding of local customs, and give us the ability to assess global technology developments continuously."
However, BBN also expects the program to enable a plethora of new civilian applications, everything from intelligent bots to personal tutors. The system could provide unprecedented access and automated analysis of the world's libraries, allowing for vastly expanded cultural awareness and historical research, according to the Cambridge, Mass.-based company.
BBN already offers a broadcast monitoring system that automatically transcribes real-time audio stream and translates it into English, creating a continuously updated, searchable archive of international television broadcasts.
"Imagine if the Reading System could be applied to scouring the World Wide Web for good deals on cars one time, and then applied to integrating new findings in genetics to an automated theory of disease," DARPA posits in its bid solicitation.
It should also be able to crank out one a heck of a term paper.
(Credit: IAI)A new kamikaze drone out of Israel is designed to hang about overhead until it spots a target, then crash into it with "pinpoint accuracy" destroying the target, and itself, with 50 pounds of on-board explosives.
While classified as a Loitering Munition, the HAROP comes equipped with many of the usual UAV capabilities: high-performance FLIR and color CCD camera with 360-degree hemispherical coverage, allowing it to transmit video back to its operators just like a surveillance drone.
Like its predecessor the Harpy, the HAROP will be used to take out high-value targets such as air defense radars that transmit a strong pulse. But there's nothing to indicate it can't home-in on a cell phone call from a moving car. Fortunately, the developer, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), has thoughtfully included a Man in the Loop feature that enables the missile to be controlled in real time in case an attack needs aborting to avoid collateral damage.
The HAROP can be launched from a variety of platforms, including a ground vehicle. Launched out the box on a booster rocket, it unfold its wings, starts up an internal-combustion driven pusher propeller, and begins the hunt. Once a target is identified, it can crash "from any direction and at any attack angle, from flat to vertical which is highly essential in urban areas."
IAI has reportedly already signed a $100 million-plus contract to supply the lethal loiterers to an unidentified customer. Throwaway UAVs may do for IAI what disposable razors have done for Gillette.
(Credit: RST)The first instinct when confronted with a radiological explosive device may be to turn tail and run, but the new Demron-W Nuclear/Ballistic Shield affords the opportunity to stick around and save the day.
The Demron suppression blanket provides total protection against ballistics, improvised explosive devices, dirty bombs, spills, and all types of radiological and nuclear incidents, according to Miami-based manufacturer Radiation Shield Technologies (RST).
It acts as a portable shield, tailored to reduce emissions from contained high-energy sources such as Cesium-137, and neutron sources and Americium-Beryllium. It's perfect for covering undetonated radiological dispersal devices, RST says.
The material, described as "liquid metal," was invented by Miami doctor Ronald F. DeMeo, after he "noticed that he was getting kind of burned" while giving X-rays to patients (PDF).
The flame- and acid-resistant shield is made with a patented fabric that consists of a radiopaque nano-polymeric compound fused between layers of fabric and then manufactured into the nuclear-radiation blocking blanket. The outer covering is 1000 Denier Cordura and comes in black or red.
The analysis of a single hair can reveal where a person is from and where they've been, which could allow government agencies to track the travels of international criminals and terror suspects, according to researchers.
Researchers measuring the longitudinal sulfur isotopic variations in a strand of human hair can detect slight changes in people's diets to show where and whether they've traveled, while shedding light on their lifestyle, according to a study published this month in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.
The new method combines a laser ablation system and multicollector inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS), according to the study's lead author Rebeca Santamaria -Fernandez. (Sampling hair for drugs, a common process, uses a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.)
When the laser makes contact with the hair, it generates an aerosol, which when ionized within plasma, enables the spectrometer to provide the exact proportions of the sulfur isotopes. The sulfur variations can then be linked to hair donor's geographical movements. And since hair grows an average of half an inch per month, the data obtained from a mere 2-inch piece can give up an extensive travelogue on its owner's previous whereabouts.
For their research, scientist from the Chemical Metrology Laboratory in the United Kingdom and the University of Oviedo, Spain, collected hair samples from three volunteers; two were permanent residents of the United Kingdom, while the third had spent the past six months traveling in Croatia, Austria and Australia. The "experiment revealed that the traveler's hair indeed showed significant variations in the sulfur isotopes, while changes in the hairs of the two people living in the United Kingdom were minimal, and similar in both samples," according to the study.
British security forces have already expressed interest in the project. The next step is to demonstrate the global significance of the variations, according to the research team, which is already working with hair samples from 150 volunteers.
(Credit: NKEW)A Google Earth interactive Web site called North Korea Economy Watch not only sheds light on that country's economic, military, and cultural infrastructure, but also maps some of its darkest secrets.
The site is intended as a resource for business, policy makers, academics, journalists and others interested in the North Korean economy, according to founding editor Curtis Melvin. Academic in nature, it shies away from editorializing on hot potatoes issues like the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, and starving peasants.
But it's all there for viewers to form their own conclusions. Palatial mansions and vast compounds for Kim Jong Il and other honchos that include pool complexes and even a waterslide, contrast unfavorable with the austerity of the rest of the country.
Locations of interest run the gamut from anti-aircraft emplacements, military bases, nuclear facilities and prison camps ("The Barn' where the USS Pueblo crew were kept) to restaurants (Pyongyang Fried Chicken Restaurant) and items on dating and courting (defectors claim that prostitution is on the rise).
It also shows what is believed to be the mass graves of some of the estimated two million people who starved in the 1995-98 famine.
The site combines the founding editor's own painstaking research with material from independent contributors to deliver what some are calling one of the "most comprehensive mappings of North Korea that publicly exists today." For example, Melvin told the Wall Steet Journal that he spent hours in front of a computer screen just tracing power lines and looking for telltale shadows of electric towers in order to detail the country's electrical grid.
All posts are attributed to allow peer verification and reference, according to Melvin.
(Credit: A0A)Here's a must-have accessory for any soiree off Somalia, the ArmourFloat personal flotation device.
Not only does the Armour Float Ballistic Vest keep even an unconscious wearer afloat, but its new lightweight, hard-plate armor is designed to defeat most assault rifle threats--with no negative effect on the vest's buoyancy, according to Armour of America, a division of Arotech Corporation.
This Underwriters Laboratory-certified PFD is approved by the US Coast Guard, and the Coasties use it as well, according to AoA.
The hardy preserver comes with reflective tape on the shoulders, an emergency strobe light pocket, ammo clip pockets, shotgun shell holders, a large overlapping front, and side panels that provide ballistic protection over the entire chest, back, and shoulders. It's listed as up to NIJ Level IIIA.
"Commercial ship liner sailors are now exposed to hazards similar to Navy sailors, and our ArmourFloat vests can help protect their lives," says AoA's Richard Karst.
Here's one endorsement deal that has Capt. Richard Phillips written all over it.
Afghanistan is a rugged country. How rugged is it? It's so rugged the U.S. Army has commissioned special pants for soldiers fighting there.
The new Army Combat Pants are designed to take whatever Takur Ghar and other Afghan mountain ranges have to hand out, according to the Army.
The new pants feature built-in hard knee pads that adjust up or down and side to side. They are made from 7.3-ounce, fire-resistant twill, (compared with the 6.5-ounce stuff soldiers are wearing now) and sport a reinforced, stretchable seat, perfect for glissading after the jihadis. Larger cargo pockets on the calf of the leg and Velcro flaps to replace the buttons on the back pockets, complete the couture.
The current pants "were not designed for that kind of environment," Jeff Myhre, who is involved with the project told Army Times. "Really the only way to get down (steep slopes) is slide down on their rear end, and sometimes when they are climbing, it's foot-knee, foot-knee to get up to altitude."
The Army began developing the new pants last spring after soldiers complained their standard issues were wearing out too quickly from crawling up and down the country's jagged peaks. Three thousand prototype pairs will be sent over for testing with 75th Ranger Regiment and the West Virginia Army National Guard. The Army could field the new trousers as early as next year.
GI's complain about the free, green pants, et voila! A complete makeover? It truly is Today's Army.
