Despite similar concepts and design, two new robotic exoskeletons designed to assist humans are intended for very different audiences and very different purposes. The first is designed to enhance a person’s strength while preserving mobility. The second is designed to provide mobility to those in which it has been severely restricted. HULC, or Human Universal [...]
Posts under ‘Military and Defense’
The ultimate in portable bomb disposal robots
Today the British Ministry of Defense unveiled a new bomb disposal robot called a “Dragon Runner” that breaks new ground in portability – the system is a mere 14 pounds and small enough to fit in a backpack. Despite its small size, however, it sounds remarkably capable: The sophisticated robot is manoeuvred over tough terrain [...]
DARPA researching cameras that have “visual intelligence”
This week DARPA announced its “Mind’s Eye Program,” an effort to research visual intelligence in machines. More specifically, it will serve to not only enable cameras to recognize objects (an ability some machines are already capable of) but determine interactions between objects it sees, and then use this information to provide a “complete narrative of [...]
U.S. Military calls for robot medics
According to a posting on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer page, the Pentagon is looking for a new robot capable of extracting wounded soldiers from the battlefield with “minimal intervention” from traditional medics. The posting emphasizes the need for an autonomous system in order to “reduce or eliminate [...]
Israel unveils world’s largest unmanned aerial vehicle
Yesterday the Israeli Air Force (IAF) took the wraps off a new unmanned aerial vehicle the size of a Boeing 737, which is capable of staying in the air for up to 20 hours. The “super drone,” known as “Eitan” (Hebrew for “strong”) is also able to take off and land automatically. While most news [...]
Marine Corps successfully tests unmanned, nearly autonomous helicopter
When fighting in rough, difficult-to-traverse terrain (such as that found across much of Afghanistan), the military relies on helicopters to quickly deliver weapons and ammunition to soldiers on the battlefield. Unfortunately, manned helicopters are expensive and make attractive targets for enemy fire. Enter the K-MAX Unmanned Multi-Mission Helicopter, a drone that passed a test devised [...]
Military explores creation of immortal synthetic organisms equipped with an off-switch
I’m trying to figure out if this is really cool, really scary, or both: As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, [...]
GeekDad asks: “When do the machines take over?”
Curtis Silver, better known as Wired’s “GeekDad,” looks at our current level of technological progress, where we’re set to go in the near future, and can’t help but ask when humanity is going to face Judgment Day (well, almost). While that computer was built for a particular function and with the best intentions in mind, [...]
Video games benefit adults, says U.S. Office of Naval Research
We all know video games are a waste of time and rot your brain, right? Not so, says the U.S. Office of Naval Research. In fact, adult gamers can see increased “perceptual abilities,” increased short-term memory, longer focus and expanded field of vision compared to non-gamers. Ray Perez, a program officer at the ONR’s warfighter [...]
Fuel cell to power military exoskeleton for 72 hours
With the extremely heavy packs modern soldiers are expected to carry (upwards of 150 pounds), a robotic exoskeleton that provides support and improves mobility makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, these exoskeletons require a lot of power to function – power that has been provided in the past via gasoline engines or traditional lithium-ion batteries. Gas engines [...]