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United States Technology

Robots for No Man's Land 391

Posted by michael from the you-have-ten-seconds-to-comply dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "The Stryker is an 18-ton infantry vehicle, already deployed by the U.S. army in places such as Iraq. Right now, it has human drivers. But that will no longer be the case by 2010, when it will be driven by a robot. Today, the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second. 'Its brain -- a 40-pound computer system tucked inside its body -- processes that data, and makes instant judgments on how to act and where to go.' These robots are developed by General Dynamics Robotic Systems, Inc. (GDRSI), which received $185 million last November to build between 30 and 60 automated-navigation prototypes to be used in all kinds of military vehicles. This overview contains more details, references and photographs."
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Robots for No Man's Land More

Robots for No Man's Land

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  • Stryker? (Score:3, Funny)

    by wally mean monkey ( 739201 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @06:57PM (#8139630)
    Where have I heard that name before? Stryker, Stryker, Stryker...
    • You're right, they should have used a more fitting robot name. Sektor, or Cyrax, or Smoke. Stryker sucked... his fatalities were so lame.

    • Re:Stryker? (Score:4, Funny)

      by ad0gg ( 594412 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:19PM (#8139842)
      Billy, do you like movies about gladiators?
    • This new vehicle was obviously named after famed gay porn star Jeff Stryker [jeff-stryker.com].

      It's sort of fitting, really. A large metal penis pointing out the front, looking to fire and deliver it's seed directly up the ass of every foreign male it sees.

      Once again, the U.S. military has proven itself to be chock full of latent homosexuality.

    • Re:Stryker? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 )
      For me, Sands of Iwo Jima comes to mind

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041841/
      Sgt. John M. Stryker

      But actually the name comes from two Medal of Honor citations
      http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/mohiib1.htm

      "Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company E, 513th Parachute Infantry, 17th Airborne Division. Place and date: Near Wesel, Germany, 24 March 1945. Entered service at: Portland, Oreg. Birth. Portland, Oreg. G.O. No.: 117, 11 December 1945. Citation. He was a platoon runner, when the unit assembled near Wesel, Ger

    • scripsit wally mean monkey:

      Where have I heard that name before? Stryker, Stryker, Stryker...

      Disregarding the lame spelling, it made me think of the old Traveller ground combat rules. I may just be showing my age, though...

      Of course, in Traveller, the robotic version would require a 40-tonne computer...

  • Autonomic tank (Score:2, Funny)

    by VAXcat ( 674775 )
    Bolo Mk, I, "Horrendous".
  • Just had to say it

    • Which reminds me of a few weeks ago, when I was still an intern at a small computer store. It was... just before Christmasif I recall correctly. One of our customers ordered something; something specific. I don't know what anymore but that's not very important. Anyways, my colleage and I we're in the store that day when the daily shipment of goods arrived with packages from Ingram Micro, Tech Data, McDos and various other wholesale suppliers.

      Then I noticed my colleage standing still all of the sudden with

    • And so it begins.

      Terminator 5: Skynet Triumphant [angryflower.com]

      The education of Stryker, an 18-ton military monster truck, begins in the warehouse lab of General Dynamics in Westminster, Md

      There, Stryker, one of the U.S. Army's newest infantry vehicles, is fitted with a "ladar" scanner, the equivalent of a mounted pair of eyes that see by emitting 400,000 laser and radar beams and snap 120 camera images every second. Its brain -- a 40-pound computer system tucked inside its body -- processes that data, and m

  • Yes, but will it fit on a frickin' shark? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @06:57PM (#8139638)
    > the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second.

    Yes, but will it fit on a frickin' shark? Is that too much to ask?

  • How long before it's got an autocannon 10, PPC or Gause Rifle?

  • You are perfectly safe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ENOENT ( 25325 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @06:58PM (#8139647) Homepage Journal
    There is no danger of these 18 ton robotic war machines going berserk and killing everyone around them. None at all. Really. You should all feel secure in the knowledge that they were programmed by the lowest bidder.

  • Obligatory quote (Score:4, Funny)

    by senatorpjt ( 709879 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:00PM (#8139661)
    The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.

    • Re:Obligatory quote (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LadyMayhem ( 720913 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:21PM (#8139861)
      as much as this might be just a random quote... it could very well be reality in a coming years. I think eventually will wind up following the path of nuclear weaponry. With no human deaths it would be more an economic case of who could support such a battle; possibility turning war into a rather large costly game of chess. Only once the robotic defenses were broken could anything be achieved.

      Then again, what else is new, thats what we've been doing with people for years... who ever can send bigger better forces wins.

      You would think eventually people could reason out better ways to deal with conflicts than war... that money could be going to a myriad of other things, but no we're making smart tanks (granted the technology could be useful, i just dont agree with the purpous)

      • Re:Obligatory quote (Score:3, Insightful)

        by timeOday ( 582209 )
        You would think eventually people could reason out better ways to deal with conflicts than war...
        Sounds fine, but what if Hitler's chess game were stronger than Churchill's? "Sorry folks, them's the rules... off to the cattlecars."
    • >>The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea... ...or on the borders. This device would be perfect for monitoring the enormous (and easily penetrated) US/Mexico and US/Canadian borders.

      How long before a marine version is developed to patrol the coastal areas?

  • 40-pound computer system (Score:5, Funny)

    by jeffmock ( 188913 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:01PM (#8139678)

    "Its brain -- a 40-pound computer system tucked inside its body --"

    You know it's got to be powerful when compute power is measured in pounds...

    jeff

  • Mimicking human behavior? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ParadoxicalPostulate ( 729766 ) <saapadNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:02PM (#8139683) Journal

    In the future, Stryker will learn more tactical behaviors mimicking a human's, like running and hiding in trees or behind hills in the presence of enemies.

    I wonder, will they teach it to wet its circuits as well?

  • Does war become cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ajiva ( 156759 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:02PM (#8139686)
    Lets say the US has a fully automated robotic army. Ignorning the whole "SkyNet" issue, does this mean making war is now a no brainer? Because if American's don't have to die, do we just beat up whoever we want whenever we want? I for one think that this will change the world more than the Atom bomb did.
    • Good point.
      However, keep in mind that as far as those leaders are concerned, small-scale (less than 1,000) loss of human life is only important if it can sway public opinion.
      Assuming there is no loss of human life, there are still some other factors involved - i.e. money. Developing robots which can reliably replace human infantry will cost huge amounts of money. Reproducing them would be considerably cheaper...I'd be very interested to see a comparison between human troop training costs and the costs o
    • Since these robots get puzzled by a parking sign and get stuck in a loop, maybe that SkyNet issue isn't upon us..
    • I agree that this will drastically change the battlefield, but I think eventually most other countries will adopt similar mechanized robotic armies and "winning" will become more an almost large scale public display of technologically and industrially productive might. The rules of engagement certianlly will change dramatically.

      • scripsit Mephiska:

        I agree that this will drastically change the battlefield, but I think eventually most other countries will adopt similar mechanized robotic armies and "winning" will become more an almost large scale public display of technologically and industrially productive might. The rules of engagement certianlly will change dramatically.

        I have been wondering for a while if we aren't in for a return to 18th-century-style limited warfare fought by professional armies. The trend globally is def

    • Re:Does war become cheap? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cnkeller ( 181482 ) <cnkeller@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:42PM (#8140027) Homepage
      Because if American's don't have to die, do we just beat up whoever we want whenever we want?

      Unless we invent a new type of microchip, we're probably only going to kick ass in countries without access to EMP technology.

      • I fixed your quote. The section you forgot is in bold :)

        Unless we invent a new type of microchip that doesn't depend on semiconductor facilities offshore, we're probably only going to kick ass in countries without access to EMP technology.
      • ... new type of microchip?

        please, what is it going to be off, plastic and wood?

        the solution is to shield it, perhaps it is also time to start building anti EMP technology.
    • Because if American's don't have to die, do we just beat up whoever we want whenever we want? I for one think that this will change the world more than the Atom bomb did.

      Dubya made a point to prove that you can allready beat up whoever you want, whenever you want. His doublespeak term for that is "America defending itself".

      The only thing that will change is that the the internal PR of war will go much smoother with no U.S. casualties. It won't change the foreign policy of bombing the shit out of people a
    • no, because you cant occupy a country with robots. You need people on the ground, working intelligence, getting among the people, all that hearts and minds stuff you hear so much about. Making friends with the natives can NEVER be done by robots. Plus not all the natives are friendly, so there will always be a need for the infantryman or MP on the ground in the streets. Robot armies might be good against conventional armies, but they suck at human to human contact.

      • Re:Does war become cheap? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TKinias ( 455818 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @08:42PM (#8140622)

        scripsit cybercuzco:

        no, because you cant occupy a country with robots. You need people on the ground, working intelligence, getting among the people, all that hearts and minds stuff you hear so much about. Making friends with the natives can NEVER be done by robots. Plus not all the natives are friendly, so there will always be a need for the infantryman or MP on the ground in the streets. Robot armies might be good against conventional armies, but they suck at human to human contact.

        You know, I was just about to post something very similar. It's the standard rebuttal to the airpower fanboys: you can have all the toys you want, but you will always need an 18-year-old with a gun to hold the terrain.

        I just realized, though, that the argument sounds eerily like that made by the horse cavalry officers after WWI. They argued that these new `tank' things were great and certainly had their uses, but there were things horse cavalry could do that tanks never could -- like operating in rough terrain, long-range reconnaissance away from supply lines, etc. I've read essays written by horse-cav folks from as late as the 1950s arguing that the U.S. army was idiotic to have gotten rid of horses altogether, and that the fact the Russians still had horse cav was going to be a big disadvantage to the U.S. in WWIII.

        This is clearly not an exactly analogous situation, but it's something to think about.

        FWIW, old-timers in the Royal Navy made a similar argument about steam power in the mid to late 1800s. Battleships retained sails for a long time, because the idea that a fleet would rely totally on steam seemed inconceivable...

        • Re:Does war become cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @11:50PM (#8148132) Homepage
          That's an unusually insightful comment.

          There's considerable military interest in small, cheap sensor platforms, from robots to "smart dust". Most of this stuff doesn't work, and much of it founders on the problems of how to power the gadgets. But someday it probably will work.

          Quantity has a quality all its own. Even if the stuff isn't all that effective on a per unit basis, it may become possible to overwhelm an enemy with sheer production power. We can't yet release millions of little robots in Afghanistan, all looking for bin Laden. But the first kills by robotic air vehicles have already happened there.

          The future of war in cities and jungles may involve huge flocks of robotic birds. Most just watch. Some kill. All report back and work together.

      • " no, because you cant occupy a country with robots. You need people on the ground, working intelligence, getting among the people, all that hearts and minds stuff"

        Unless you are on one of those operations where "you want the land, but you don't want the people who live there"

        ewwww that sounds kind of familiar...

        So if your robot, autonomous fighting machines slaughter unarmed, innocent civilians, who gets charged with war crimes?

    • do we just beat up whoever we want whenever we want?

      Who's this "we"? The government and the people are not one and the same. Government holds the unique "right" to initiate force as a means to an end, while the common individual does not.

  • Save the hubble... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tarwn ( 458323 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:03PM (#8139690) Homepage
    Ok, so they can build multi-purpose, multi-terrain robots that have to make life or death decisions with automatic weapons, but they can't make a couple to send up on an unmanned probe to fix the hubble? There's something wrong with the math here...

    • Re:Save the hubble... (Score:4, Funny)

      by goatasaur ( 604450 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:09PM (#8139752) Journal
      Compare the popularity of the show "BattleBots" with, say, "Boring Robots that Fix Boring Stuff".

      I think my point is made.
    • The Hubble issue is not settled, there are still people fighting for it. Just today there was this article at MSNBC [msn.com].

      Quit being so pessimistic. :p
    • There have been some good replies already, but I'll throw another one out there.

      When dealing with warfare, no matter how "precision" or "surgical" your attack is, it's still not the same scale as the repair of sensitive optical and electronic equipment. If you shoot something 5cm to the left of your target, you're probably still going to hit your target. If you have a 5 mm imperfection in a lens, you're pathetic. :-)
  • From the article: "Developing a robot is like raising children, researchers say. "
    Hide when they reach puberty

  • What about radio control? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nakito ( 702386 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:06PM (#8139727)
    Wouldn't it make more sense to use radio control by human operators, rather than autonomous on-board robots? Can the on-board robot really deal with every possible circumstance? Does it have enough "judgment" to improvise? Isn't human control simpler and hence more robust?
    • One of the few redeeming features of The Phantom Menace is that it illustrates why having remote-controlled war machines is a bad idea.

      All your enemy has to do is take out the control center (e.g. by bombing your tele-operators into oblivion), or jam the signal and your expensive robot force is worthless.
  • I have always been of the opinion that the more generic the name of a company, the greater its capacity for evil.

    For example, General Motors and General Electric. I don't know if they've done anything bad, but by virtue of their name, they could manufacture all kinds of evilness and no one would be any the wiser. At least they are specific to a particular industry, so one would presume a limitation to their evil: evil motors (tanks, jets, rockets, etc), or evil electrics (electric fences, tazers, etc). Gen

  • Obligatory Comment... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I for one welcome our new robotic warlords!!!

  • Infantry never going away (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tassach ( 137772 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:09PM (#8139757)
    Quoth the article:
    "Well before the end of the century, there will be no people on the battlefield," said Robert Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Management and Technology.
    Dollars to doughnuts says Dr. Bob has never served in the military. Nothing will ever replace a guy with a rifle. Planes, tanks, nuclear weapons, and a whole raft of other innovations were supposed to make the common infantryman obsolete. Guess what, the grunt is still around. Today's infantryman has a lot of tools to make his job easier and make each man more effective, but in the end no matter how fancy your technology it all comes down to a guy with a weapon in his hand standing on a piece of land saying "I'm here to stay". That hasn't changed since the first Australiopithicus picked up a pointy stick, and it probably never will.

    • Re:Infantry never going away (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ParadoxicalPostulate ( 729766 ) <saapadNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:19PM (#8139846) Journal
      Reminds me of Starship troopers.

      Even though they were the least respected and sophisticated class, it was the Mobile Infantry that got things done.

      Heinlein isn't the only one who stuck with infantry in the future. The truth is that nothing we create can replace a man (or woman) in the field.

      And if we do manage to create something that can carry out sophisticated reasoning and creative tactics, it sure as hell won't stick around to work for us.

    • For the immediate future, I agree with you. A 17 yo with a rifle is the one thing we cannot replace. On the other hand, it might just be that with the advances in communications, robotics, etc. that we may both be wrong.

      Consider the military tech in Joe Haldeman's _Forever Peace_. It's an okay work, and I question some of the assumptions - especially the big physics one and the massive handwave to save the world - but the remotely control infantry robots were definitely worth a thought or two.

      Conside

      • AS long as there are people in the world who are intent on doing harm to others, there will be a requirement for somebody to stop them. Human life is indeed irreplacable, and it is tragic but unavoidable circumstance that brave young and women sometimes have to lay down their lives in the defense of thier families, communities, nations, or beliefs.

        If there is nothing in the world that you feel strongly enough about that you are willing to fight and die for it, then I feel sorry for you.

    • Read Starship troopers by RAH, no not the movie, read the book. In the book he basically says exactly the same thing you do.
    • All these "experts" keep saying how wonderful it will be when the robots do all the fighting.

      The problem is the bottom line of war is always killing people. All the talk of surgically destroying a nation's defenses is just sugar coating the truth: we kill soldiers so that we can kill civilians with impunity. When the civilians see that they are defenseless they usually give up rather than die.

      Here's a thought experiment. Assume Canada will never allow itself to be conquered by the US. The US and Can

  • Humorous geeky reference for the not so geeky:
    "...it became self aware on August 29th 1997 2:14 am Eastern Time."

    Humorous geeky reference for the really geeky:
    Horray, we've developed an Ogre Mk. I!

  • Swarm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rjelks ( 635588 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:10PM (#8139771) Homepage
    On a related note [newscientist.com], these military robots use "swarm technology" to mimic a group of ants or other "swarm" animals. Kind of a cool approach to A.I. At least it's not nanotechnology like in the (bad) novel by Michael Crichton.
    • So couldnt you easily defeat them by disabling one, getting it to send out a distress signal and then blowing up the "swarm" when it appears? Or you could just use a giant magnifying glass.
  • I thought there already was a robot in No Man's Land... He was strapped to some guy's back. Robin and Nightwing saw him on their way into the city. Or was he a cyborg? I don't really know. Ironically, I would have to be a bigger geek to say something geeky.
  • Does no one watch Sci Fi movies anymore? I work for a bloody defense contractor and I cannot count the number of times I've said to myself "The author of this BAA has obviously never seen T2."

    People even name projects "SkyNet" and think it's funny!

  • FAQ about Stryker (Score:4, Informative)

    by mrmeval ( 662166 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .lavemcj.> on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:14PM (#8139804) Journal

    http://www.johnringo.com/stryker.htm

    This article/FAQ is very unkind to the Stryker.
  • I can see it now. Battalions of tinfoil-clad troops rushing at the 40-pound-brain monster, sort of like a modern-day St. George and the Dragon, 'cos we'd use all these lightweight modern materials, not field-plate mail...

    At least, sort of like it as long as the dragon was asleep (since the new monster can't see you), but you'd have to be a particularly stupid knight to take on an awake dragon. Hmm. Bill's getting knighted ... hmmm...

    Simon

  • Why The Stryker??? (Score:5, Informative)

    by aluminumcube ( 542280 ) * <greg@nOsPAm.elysion.com> on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:20PM (#8139859)
    For those of you who haven't kept up with the Stryker, it's the latest blundering troop transport hardware that was originally a good idea, but got turned into a scary pile of US soldier killing metal.

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/con gress/ 2003_rpt/stryker_reality_of_war.pdf

    Highlights?

    - Designed to be transportable by a C-130, but can't.
    - Designed for the modern urban battlefield, but too big to make a U-turn on even the widest streets.
    - Designed to face the weapons of our enemies, but the armor cannot withstand Rocket Propelled Grenades (a hugely prolific weapon in Iraq and Afganistan, even now).

    To top it all off, the light tank varient of the Stryker (which the entire Stryker Brigade concept relies upon for support) cannot fire it's weapon if infantry troops are within 200' (the muzzle blast will fry them due to the huge compensator needed) and the cannon cannot be fired off to the side of the vehicle, or the recoil will knock it over. What a great piece of equipment!

    Not to hijack the thread, but this is just another attempt for General Dynamics to get some good press out of a complete piece of shit program that is endangering the lives of the grunts who are forced to work with it.

    • Sounds like the Bradley, which at first was a low cost, armored troop transport. It got hi-jacked to be a bit of everything, in order to bloat budgets and have hangers on. It eventually got a light tank turret, TOW missiles, and the amount of troops it was supposed to carry (it's supposed mission) got lower and lower with each rev. Did I mention the cool armor, which in early revs, happened to burn? See The Pentagon Wars [imdb.com], if you can. Good stuff.
  • picture [ca.gov]

    I like the suit...

  • I don't think that this will happen in 2010... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wbattestilli ( 218782 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:26PM (#8139897)
    but it will happen and an interesting danger arises with this revolution in military tech.

    Currently, governments and militaries are limited by what they can do because they need citizens to power the military machine.

    Once you remove the need for large quantities of citizens two problems arise:

    1. Robots will have no problems killing ANYBODY that it's controller tells it to. In the US at least, millitary coup is improbable because soldiers == citizens and would probably not attack the general population if ordered to do so. Robots don't have families and ethics.

    2. Wars are currently limited by public opition. When our sons and daughters are no longer dying, the public will have much less to worry about when attacking somebody. With robots , we (the US) may have already started fighting with Syria, Libia, Iran...
    • Was anyone else reminded of the Old Star Trek episode where warfare became virtual, and wars never ended because all losses became acceptable?

      Though I'm glad that this will mean fewer American servicemen will be put at risk (I have some friends in the service, some served in Desert Storm) part of the "calculus of war" has been the fear of risking your citizens, and dealing with the political fallout of that.

    • No 2 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MacFury ( 659201 )
      2. Wars are currently limited by public opition.

      Public opinon didn't stop the recent war in Iraq.

      Though, in general I do agree with you. What happens when we get a strung out general who decides to program his bots to kill anything in site.

    • Ah, but there are at least 8 countries out there who possess the hole card... Thermonuclear weapons.

      No robot army, no politician survives a 500kt direct hit.

  • ye know what's sad? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by atari2600 ( 545988 )

    From the Washington Post article here [washingtonpost.com] which is btw the article which is actually referenced in the article that's posted above,

    An unmanned Stryker is part of the military's effort to move more machines into battle to save both money and lives. "Well before the end of the century, there will be no people on the battlefield," said Robert Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Management and Technology.

    The sad part is of course that he didn't say: "Well before the end of the

  • big deal (Score:3, Funny)

    by lonb ( 716586 ) * on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:26PM (#8139906) Homepage
    "...the Stryker has a 'ladar' scanner, which emits 400,000 laser and radar beams and snaps 120 images every second"

    Big deal! The taxi driver I had today is a ladies scanner.. He checks out up to 120 girls per second while driving, plus he talks on the cell phone, listens to some foreign music, and navigates the mean streets of NYC -- all while avoiding the I.N.S. [uscis.gov]

  • It's nice to see much of technological development is still tied to killing machines. Our history is rife with technological advances made in the name of war including much of the work of such luminaries as Da Vinci. Killing is our business and business is good!
  • That design is a dead copy of the old Soviet BTR series of wheeled APCs.
  • Apparently a handful of these machines was brought outside show off their skills by some idiot who couldn't read a weather forecast. Lightning ended up hitting the goddamned platform, shutting down four of the vehicles. The fifth one took off for parts unknown. If anyone sees it be sure to let us know, we would like to dis-as-semble it.

  • pork (Score:5, Informative)

    by 0WaitState ( 231806 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:34PM (#8139971)
    This is the same Stryker that has such thin armor around the enormous wheel wells that machine-gun bullets can penetrate, would kill its own crew if the turret howitzer were fired, and is best taken out via a simple molotov cocktail setting fire to its tires. It is intended to be air-deployed, but is so close to the weight margin that some armor had to be eliminated. In some configurations the Stryker has to be split across 3 planes and assembled on-site. Oh, and the thing is the size of a school bus--just what you want in urban situations requring manouverability, which is supposedly among its missions.

    The Stryker is a mistake--I can see why they'd bolt the robot onto it in order to keep funding going, or to mask the sunk cost on this turkey. I couldn't find the PDF detailing these problems, so try this link: stryker problems [geocities.com] Right now it's most interesting as an example of the strength of momentum some defense procurement contracts have.
  • It can now say:

    -Put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.

    -Shall we play a game?

  • No people, eh? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 )
    "Well before the end of the century, there will be no people on the battlefield."

    "Except," he continued, "those pesky innocent civilians, who have complicated serious warmaking efforts for ages via their hostile acts of living on our battlegrounds. Well, they can now be slaughtered with even greater efficiency by soulless robots in their ever-growing search for weapons of mass destruction."

    "I mean, remember that guy who stopped the tank at Tiennamen by standing in front of it? Ha! Good luck using that t

  • No no no! They've got it all wrong! I mean, it dosen't even have a self-righting mechanism!

    Now this [soton.ac.uk] is more [soton.ac.uk] like it!!
  • And I quote "Stryker can carry additional supplies/equipment to support organic solders for longer operations without requiring external trans assets."

    So either we have

    -Organic Solder, solder normally being a metalic alloy

    or

    -Inorganic Soldiers (Which would require us to separate our organic and inorganic types...

  • Robot TANKS I can understand... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bgarcia ( 33222 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @07:53PM (#8140115) Homepage Journal
    Robot TANKS I can understand. You want to reduce the risk to your own people, and replacing humans with computers to guide such vehicles makes sense.

    But whey would you replace the driver of a PERSONNEL carrier???

  • And when the software fails.....

    Tank to US army mainenance tech.

    "Drop your weapon.
    You have 10 seconds to Comply"

  • Every time I hear about a "roadside bomb" killing our soliders in Iraq, I think "why don't they have automated vehicles to send ahead as decoys?". They could even be remote controlled, they don't need to be autonomous.

    I suppose we will eventually be building Terminators. That is fine, until the enemy gets them as well. By that time, let's home we have
    disarmed and defeated all the dictators and totalitarian states this kind of thing won't be needed.
  • The Stryker is an 18-ton infantry vehicle, already deployed by the U.S. army in places such as Iraq.

    Undoubtedly named after Ted Stryker, who commanded the mission on that memorable day at Macho Grande?

  • Awww (Score:2)

    by jkabbe ( 631234 )
    When I first read the title I thought it was going to be some kind of robot pr0n.

    What are they up to, No Man's Land 11???

  • Laser Radar, not Laser AND Radar (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dashing Leech ( 688077 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @10:14PM (#8141252)
    Army's newest infantry vehicles, is fitted with a "ladar" scanner, the equivalent of a mounted pair of eyes that see by emitting 400,000 laser and radar beams

    Just to correct this, "Ladar" (aka "Lidar", "Laser Radar") does not emit radar signals. It only emits laser pulses and measures the time-of-flight of the light signal (sometimes uses phase shift of laser pulses for better precision). I'm betting the reporter heard "Laser Radar" as "Laser and Radar". Or perhaps they have a separate radar unit.

    I'm also curious about the 400,000 points per second. There are some experimental flash (aka scannerless) ladars that get some pretty good rates, but not that many and AFAIK this isn't one of them. The best I can find on the web is that the Stryker Ladars can get up to 60,000 range samples per second. I'm guessing the 400,000 is actually pulses, but it can take many pulses to make a single measurement depending on the type of ladar and the range resolution.

    • Looks like General Dynamics Robotics is back in business with this new contract. I was looking for a LIDAR for the DARPA Grand Challenge early last year, and the people at General Dynamics Robotics who did their last one had left the company.

      The real problem with imaging LIDAR devices is that you can't make any money building them. Five companies have exited the field in the last decade. There are commercial markets for single-point rangefinders, and for line scanners, but true 3D devices to date have

  • Stryker has limited firepower (Score:3, Informative)

    by dorzak ( 142233 ) <dorzak@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Saturday January 31, 2004 @12:39AM (#8142045) Journal
    Stryker is designed as an in-between vehicle between the Bradley and a tank. Most of its firepower is actually in its infantry dismounts.

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