Robodog: techno-madness?

[soubriquet 0]

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Two_BigDogs_Take_A_Run_At_New_River_Air_Station_999.html

 

"BigDog is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system.

 

BigDog has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog's control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary.

 

Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.

 

So far, BigDog has trotted at 3.3 mph, climbed a 35 degree slope and carried a 120 lb load.

 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is considering plans such as weaponizing the BigDog robots and using them to carry extra gear to free Marines of the burden of extra weight."

 

WTF? Mules can carry 160lbs at an average of 3.5 mph in easy going. They don't need to be steered or require petrol. They have a working life of about 15 years, and if you get really stuck, you can eat them. This is nuts; a techno solution to a problem which doesn't exist.

 

Many years ago on a field trip in the Spanish Pyenees, we were passed by an army patrol packing a heavy machine gun, stand and ammunition on a mule. One of my companions sniggered, but he stopped when I asked him if he would have liked to carry the hmg as well as his personal kit.

[damian 0]

You can send neither a mule nor an internal combustion engine dog into space.

 

Donkeys are stubborn bastards, but they are tough. They served well in Gallipolli in WWI.

 

Today is sci-tech day and the below is incredibly good news. It is also a little bit scary. Imagine if you were just a torso, you could be integrated into a BigDog robot.

 

 Quote:

Matthew Nagle, 26, of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is paralyzed below the shoulders....

With a tiny electronic sensor implanted in his brain, he was able to use a television, a robot arm, and even a computer.

 

"We have the patient imagine that he's tracking a cursor on a screen," he explained. "The patient is able to just think about moving and the cursor will move pretty much in the motion that the hand would take, if you were to imagine, say, moving left or right."

 

Nagle opened e-mail, changed the volume on a television, opened and closed a prosthetic hand and performed basic actions with a multi-jointed robotic arm.

 

The implanted brain sensor making this possible had an array of electrodes that recorded nerve activity in an area typically involved in arm movement. This is the first demonstration that such brain activity persists in paralyzed people. The information recorded by the electrodes was decoded and processed by a computer, allowing nerve firing patterns to be translated into movement commands that drove the devices.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-07-13-voa59.cfm

[soubriquet 0]

Donkeys are stubborn bastards, but they are tough

 

Guilty as charged. Genetically programmed to refuse to obey orders. Amenable softy with a kind word or soft touch.

[damian 0]

You should change your name to Donkey. On the other hand, I quite like ‘a little piece of coal’