Military's Robotic Pack Mule Gets $32M Boost 167
coondoggie sends word that Boston Dynamics, maker of the BigDog robot we have been following for a while, has just been awarded a $32M DARPA contract to produce robotic "pack dogs" for the military. "What kind of robot will automatically follow a leader, carry 400 lbs. (182 kg) of military gear, walk 20 miles in all manner of weather, and go 24 hours without refueling? Well, we might soon find out as DARPA has awarded a $32 million contract to build its Legged Squad Support System (LS3) which uses sensors and a GPS to walk along with soldiers across all manner of terrain in any weather without pulling any muscles."
Fuck that... (Score:5, Funny)
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With the way the wars are going one might think "Tenser's Fortunes of War" (abj.6) would be more usefull, but the USmil seems to have a shocking shortage of serious spellcasters at hand.
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Either that or they'd rather carry around a Portable Hole.
Money well spent? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mules also happen to have their own logistics costs, are slower, less capable, and can not reach all the same terrains this robot can.
Yes yes, we've all heard the joke, The Soviets used a pencil, NASA spent millions on inventing the space pen. (More of a myth actually, see: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/613/1 [thespacereview.com])
Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, come on. Do you think the complexity of these robots won't lead to breakdowns and glitches? And how cheap is it to replace a robot vs. a mule? It would be cheaper to add bionics to the mule.
Re:Money well spent? (Score:4, Insightful)
Was reading about mules in the Italian campaign (1943-44). Compared to a legged vehicle, they suck.
There is the food aspect, vets and language. Yes, an Afghani mule for example will need a mule skinner than can speak the mule's native language, Dari or Pashtun (that covers like 90% of Afghanistan's mules).
And if your mules are killed or if you need more, its easier to airlift in some robots than to train or find more mules.
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Yet somehow, against the most advanced technology at the time, a bunch of mule-riding tent dwellers have fucked up the British, the Soviet, the American and the NATO armies time and time again.
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But not with infrared heat detectors. There's probably things a methane sniffer could pick up too, not to mention the acoustic detectors listening for stubborn mules and stubborn pack drivers arguing with each other.
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There's probably things a methane sniffer could pick up too, not to mention the acoustic detectors listening for stubborn mules and stubborn pack drivers arguing with each other.
On the bright side, no acoustic detectors will be required to detect the robotic mule which sounds like a pack of angry chainsaws and can be heard kilometres away even in a thunderstorm. This doubles as a safety feature so that innocent onlookers can safely move out of the way before it passes by, thus avoiding the view of the bizarre twin "half mimes" and the associated ear damage.
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Thank you ever so much. I was just thinking, "It's been a while since I've rinsed nasally", and you helped with that -- except why did it have to be coffee? :)
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I think that would make a great sig.
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Mules are used as pack animals. The USMC and Special Forces use them too.
As for "tent dwellers", have you seen Afghanistan? Someone called it a nation of Alamos, folks there live in cities, towns and compounds with walls think enough to stop artillery.
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Yet somehow, against the most advanced technology at the time, a bunch of mule-riding tent dwellers have fucked up the British, the Soviet, the American and the NATO armies time and time again.
All forces listed by you were "fucked up" only in the same sense as e.g. US was "fucked up" in Vietnam - specifically, when one side uses unconventional warfare, and disregarding traditional laws of war (such as, well, not wearing uniform, using human shields, pretending to be a civilian, etc), and the other side is not willing to respond in kind and is averse to anything but light casualties even at extremely high ratios (e.g. 1 American for 50 Taliban fighters), then you get what you get. But go ahead, a
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It all depends on your objectives. If you want to actually control the territory, then, sure, you need to be careful not to overstep it. If you just want to get rid of "bad guys", and aren't afraid to use scorched earth policy, that works because you don't really care how much the locals hate you - ultimately, there just won't be any remaining. Of course, the territory will then be unusable to you as well.
But we're speaking about Afghanistan here, and who actually needs it? At this point, it's really just h
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But we're speaking about Afghanistan here, and who actually needs it?
I'm pretty sure the Afghans could find a use for it.
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I've read that the US dropped more munitions on North Vietnam in tonnage, than were dropped in the entire European theater of WWII by all sides. If that's the case, your scorched earth theory doesn't seem like it would work, since NVA came out on top of that one (meaning they survived until the American political machine couldn't handle the expense and bad PR).
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A coworker was telling me recently that the schools are trying to reduce teaching about our revolutionary forefathers, because of the tactics they used and how similar they are to the tactics being used against us in the two countries we're terrorizing.
That's pretty sad: our administration wants to distance itself from its found
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I know schools are reducing what is taught about the Founders because a good chunk of them were slave owners and all were white, and thats just not what we teach anymore.
As for the American Revolution using tactics similar to Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Hamas, etc. That just isn't true. There were very limited irregular forces used by both sides, the Loyalists did it a little more than the Colonists did, from what I've read.
There was no murdering civilians who didn't side with the revolutionaries, no beheadin
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Yeah they "fuck up" everyone in the same way the Black Knight won, by refusing to quit; and the other side leaving.
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They did do in the British back in the 19th century, the Soviets took one to the chin, but their ultimate defeat was because of the broader failing of the Soviet Union and loss of the Cold War.
They have not "fucked up" the Americans and NATO, its just a long process to nation build and fight a war.
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And if your mules are killed or if you need more, its easier to airlift in some robots than to train or find more mules.
Any particular reason they couldn't just train up mules at home and airlift them in?
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If you train a mule and you don't need it, it keeps eating anyway, and you can't let up on the training in case you do eventually need it. Then you have to provision the plane that brings it to the front, and scoop the poop after the long trip.
Once you build a mule-bot, you stick it in a box until you need it. It doesn't need fuel until it arrives in theater, and you don't need to hose down your aircraft after bringing it in.
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They run on liquid hydrocarbons. Pour some out from the fuel dump at the motor pool.
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There are few practical problems with your approach:
1. Robots are 10 zillion times cooler than mules
2. Robots cost a lot more than mules, stimulating jobs for workers.
3. Robots breakdown more and when they breakdown they are much more expensive to fix thereby stimulating more jobs for workers.
4. Robots are just way way cooler than mules, what general wants to spearhead the US military's advanced mule airlift program in the 21st century?
I'm sure there are other reasons why your idea won't work, but that's of
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FWIW, robotic pack mules probably taste worse than conventional mules.
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an Afghani mule for example will need a mule skinner than can speak the mule's native language
What, how many commands do mules typically know? One of those keychain voice recorders ought to do if the soldiers really can't remember a half dozen or so new words (which I suppose they can).
Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but the robot will get much cheaper over time if they are being purchased and R&D costs are paid. I would much rather see robotics technology pushed forward then provide a handout to mule breeders.
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I'm glad we agree. Once we tire of our robotic overlords we must engender the mules once again.
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What uses do Mules have other than Grand Canyon tours?
Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes, but if a mule gets shot in the leg, you can't pull out a replacement part and fix it now can you?
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My mule has a prosthetic leg, you insensitive clod!
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Who shot who in the what now?
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No you just replace the whole mule and you may even get fresh meat out of the deal too
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The real reason any self-respecting slashdotter should be for these things is eventually this tech will trickle down into the civilan sector where we can actually start having fun with it.
Badass robots... or farm animals. Hmm, really hard choice.... ;)
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Yes - reliability is a big concern in meatbots vs metalbots - but have you read the earlier poster's comment about this metalbot sounding like a storm of chainsaws? Seems like there are some problems here: doesn't it seem like where soliders want to cover rough terrain on foot (i.e. where they can't airlift by helo or parachute, and can't drive in w/4x4's) that silence is probably real important? Granted donkeys make noise too, but I'm pretty sure it's cheaper to surgically silence a donkey than to engineer
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Mules also happen to have their own logistics costs, are slower, less capable, and can not reach all the same terrains this robot can.
May be, but that's at least ten years out. Having a robot that works as intended under ideal spec'd conditions is one thing, but having a robot that won't break down too frequently on the field and actually work as well as a mule under unpredictable conditions. That will be something else.
That being said, you have to start somewhere. It's good that they're funding this. And it's good that they test this out in the field. It's a learning experience if nothing else. It's important that the military keeps on
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But mules wouldn't line the pocketbooks of various surpanational military-industrial corporations with huge amounts of cash.
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i'll bite.
Mule: Requires food, water, and has the potential to get scared in combat or make noise when it should be stealthy due to being surprised. Also surprisingly vulnerable to lead bullets.
Robot: requires maintenance, can resist bullets, requires recharging, and does not tire.
Lets be generous: Food, shelter, drugs, etc, to keep the mule healthy would be about equal to maintenance on the robot.
I'm being generous here, any sufficiently mass produced and sufficiently hardened military hardware requires s
Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Funny)
Can you eat a robot?
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Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Funny)
Can you put a mule on standby?
That's the default. Waking from standby is the trick.
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Can you eat a robot?
If you have a robotic uprising, can you fix it with a carrot?
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The Cantonese already have
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The civilian applications of this are tremendous too. SAR (search and rescue) support in areas where even motorcycle transport is dicey (Moab, etc), moving portable gear (generators if the mule can carry them) to a desolate area after a disaster. Additional help for hikers to carry stuff to and from a remote camp. A group of hunters can send a robot back to main camp to pick up another set of kegs, so the main partiers don't have to stumble down a trail at night.
Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Funny)
Am I the only one would would like to hop on the thing like a pony and ride it to work every day?
Plus, I could set it to "Terrorize H.R. Mode" and pick it up at the end of the day.
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"...requires recharging..."
BigDog runs on a 2-stroke petrol engine, its limbs are actuated by hydraulics which are controlled by computer. All you gotta do is fill up its tank, no time wasting and infrastructure dependent recharge. Yet another way in which the ever denounced ICE is superior to all battery alternatives.
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You left out the big problem with horses and mules in a larger war: production.
In WWII, the German army got less mobile as the war went on, because horses were getting harder to get, and they didn't have enough trucks. The US and Britain were able to build truck factories fast, and ramp up production to any desired extent in a few years, while the Germans were unable to do that with horses. Mass production pretty much requires standardized interchangeable parts, and you can't take a leg off one horse
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We use mules, but they aren't cheap and require food and water.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7537174&page=1 [go.com]
Re:Money well spent? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mules run on partly celulosic biofuels, which they convert directly into mechanical energy at the point it's needed. They include advanced elastic shock-absorbers which actually return energy for the power stroke. They have autonomous capabilities and vision systems that put any robot to shame.
Robotics is trying to imitate all of these aspects, and is probably making great strides. But if I want to carry something over a mountain pass, give me today's mule over the 8-years-from-now robotic mule any day. Wheels, propellors, jet engines, are a way to beat nature, because evolution isn't very good at those things. But four-legged travel has been optimized by nature (and slightly reoptimized by human breeding to carry burdens). You won't beat it with any foreseeable technology, and you won't make the unforeseeable come any faster with research in this area.
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They have autonomous capabilities and vision systems that put any robot to shame.
A little too damned autonomous, if you've ever met one. I'll stick with the robot. They never spit at me.
Re:Money well spent? (Score:5, Informative)
Manufacturing costs are a lot lower.
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Manufacturing costs are a lot lower.
True, but production time [answers.com] is much longer--in the range of 340 to 342 day per mule
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Really? I forsee the day when the soldier doesn't even have to go into harm's way any more, just send the robot.
Beat that with a mule.
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Wheels, propellers, jet engines, are a way to beat nature, because evolution isn't very good at those things. But four-legged travel has been optimized by nature (and slightly reoptimized by human breeding to carry burdens)
This was my thought. Adding wheels to a flexible "leg" system would be far more energy efficient, stable, and simple than trying to make a full on 4 legged vehicle. I've seen off road vehicles that will go over just about anything using extremely variable hydraulic suspension systems for the wheels. Trying the same things with mechanical legs would have resulted in a painful death for the operators.
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Robotic mules? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, they should have no problem at all finding the mountain wampus now. I just hope the project doesn't get canceled when they run low on smithore.
I would have expected the Brits to do that first.. (Score:3, Funny)
Anyway, if they get John Leeson to do the voice, I'm buying one.
Re:I would have expected the Brits to do that firs (Score:2)
Anyway, if they get John Leeson to do the voice, I'm buying one.
Oh, God, no. If I'm running from some fundamentalist Dalek I'm not going to stop and hold the door for some slow-ass bot to trundle through before continuing my frenzied dash just because the public likes it better than they like me!
This is a weapons platform, not a pack mule. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a weapons platform, not a pack mule. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, even as a pack mule, it's still useful.
I'm sure that mules aren't very effective when encountering combat situations. Something that follows the leader and doesn't run away when under fire would be very useful.
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Apparently you haven't watched video. It's too slow and too loud for any kind of recon. Maybe one day, after many refinements, it will get there but not anytime soon. It does look like a damn fine pack mule though for a small, mobile squad.
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Maybe with $30M they could look in that direction.. but I expect they'll just be doing more "don't fall down" research.
Can it haul the national debt? (Score:2)
So, that's the plan. The robotic mule will be used to haul basketloads of $1 trillion notes.
If I had NASA's resources... (Score:5, Funny)
In the pipeline, and moving right along. (Score:5, Informative)
This has been in the pipeline for the last year, and in fact Boston Dynamics had already won the trade study contract for the Legged Squad Support System, the "LS3". This is the next phase, the contract to build prototypes, which will be field tested.
This isn't a research program, as BigDog was. The program is now in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, which builds prototypes of weapon systems. The next step is volume production and deployment.
So far, DARPA isn't discussing armament. Since the USMC is involved in this program, someone is almost certainly looking at that option. It's attractive as a weapons platform. Since it already has full inertial and GPS sensors, a weaponized version could easily have a stabilized gun, like a tank, so it could fire on the move and hit targets. There's also the possibility of integrating the "automated mortar" developed a few years ago. The "automated mortar" concept is that someone up at the sharp end designates a target, the firing data goes back to the gun, and the gun duly clobbers the selected target. That's what mortar squads do now, but lugging the gear around ties up too many people and slows up the operation. The automated mortar was too heavy to lug around on foot, and mounted on a vehicle, it duplicated existing heavier weapons. The LS3 is just the right size to move that thing around.
So there's the LS3, trailing the squad, when someone spots something that needs to be destroyed. They point something at the target, data goes back to the LS3, and the LS3 quickly launches a mortar round, which arcs over the squad and lands on the target. No more target.
And yes, the annoying buzzing sound will go away. That was just the off the shelf powerplant used in the experimental version. The production version will use a small Diesel engine. (The U.S. military is all-Diesel. Gasoline tankers have no place on the modern battlefield.)
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Should totally name that project Rush as a tribute to Megaman.
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I was looking for a skynet reference in this thread. Haven't seen it yet, but this technology is scary from a skynet perspective. (If not skynet a mad scientist!)
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You're splitting hairs.
A need for destruction doesn't have to be internalized to the target. Imagine that the team's leadership declared that a mission's target was A, B, and C and tells them that those targets need to be destroyed in order to save the day. Now the team is out in the field and they spot target C; as far as the team is concerned, C "is something that needs to be destroyed".
If you pause and contemplate for a while instead, C may very well blow your ass, err, mule up.
Robot miltary dogs should be next (Score:2)
Next stop: Slash.
http://myanimelist.net/character/1317/Slash
(hey, I just wrote a post with "Slash Dot", while being gramatically and contextually appropriate. I should be given UberModPoints or something :-D )
Sounds Low. (Score:2)
And when it fails... (Score:2)
it becomes a 400+ pound burden.
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Re:And when it fails... (Score:4, Insightful)
Soldiers recover, and they are trained for the workout, machines break down and that dog is loud as fuck when it's running even with a muffler...no parts to repair = 400+ pounds of junk, stick with the human soldier.
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Soldiers recover, and they are trained for the workout, machines break down and that dog is loud as fuck when it's running even with a muffler...no parts to repair = 400+ pounds of junk, stick with the human soldier.
That's what some old soldiers said about motor vehicles, around 1939 or so.
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stick with the human soldier.
How bout we let that human soldier decide.
Some personal experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mules are quite intelligent.
I've worked with pack horses, and horses can be incredibly stupid when they've got a pack on their back, but mules are very smart. They're sure-footed
and can sense when the path ahead is too dangerous to travel, and if they don't wanna go, they just won't go.
Mules are intelligent, which means the operator has to build a strong relationship with them, built upon mutual respect and trust. Not that I don't think our soldiers are capable of doing such a thing, but it's something you don't want them doing. Seeing your favorite mules getting blown to bits will be just as traumatic and harmful as seeing your buddies getting killed, maybe even worse, since people often build closer bonds with animals than they do with other humans.
Also, one last thing is that when a mule is feeling cranky and wants to ruin your day, they won't just lash out like a stupid horse. Doc Waters warned us in class that they will target your belt-buckle and wait placidly until you're in range. No laid-back ears, no swishing tail, no sign of anger or aggression. You'll walk up and *KER-POW!*
fahrenheit 451 (Score:2, Insightful)
military vs helping people with disabilities (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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It wasn't one fell swoop, a lot of the engineers at Boston Dynamics are from MIT and were doing leg research there.
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/leglab/ [mit.edu]
Limited use (Score:2, Interesting)
This has to be refueled every day?
It goes 20 miles in 24 hours--or ~1mph? You could outrun it--and the squad that it's supporting, as they'll be tied to it or it'll get lost.
Longer journeys might make it useful, but so much of it's own carrying capacity would be taken up by it's own fuel demands that it still wouldn't be able to go very far. Plus, it'll be big target--take one of these out, and the squad has to leave behind 400 pounds of gear, if it isn't destroyed already. If it can barely walk, it's
The Luggage.... (Score:2, Informative)
M.U.L.E. ? Old idea... (Score:3, Funny)
They had this way back in 1983 and all it took to run was a C64!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.L.E [wikipedia.org].
Answer: a camel (Score:2)
"What kind of robot will automatically follow a leader, carry 400 lbs. (182 kg) of military gear, walk 20 miles in all manner of weather, and go 24 hours without refueling? Well, we might soon find out as DARPA has awarded a $32 million contract to build its Legged Squad Support System (LS3) which uses sensors and a GPS to walk along with soldiers across all manner of terrain in any weather without pulling any muscles."
A camel.
Pfahhhh! (Score:4, Funny)