Robots

Raytheon tailors ‘Iron Man’ suit for warfighters

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U.S. soldiers soon may be suiting up in wearable robotic armor
U.S. soldiers soon may be suiting up in Raytheon Co.’s version of an “Iron Man” wearable robotic armor that the company says will give them the ability to lift heavy objects with little effort while still allowing freedom of movement.

Raytheon’s futuristic suit, known as the Exoskeleton, combines sensors, controllers and other devices that enable the person wearing the suit to easily carry a man on his back or to lift 200 pounds a hundred times in a row without tiring, according to a company news release.

The suit is “essentially a wearable robot that amplifies its wearer’s strength, endurance, and agility,” Raytheon said. The suit is strong but flexible enough to enable the wearer to walk, run, kick and climb normally, as one would do playing soccer or climbing stairs, the company said.

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America’s Chemically Modified 21st Century Soldiers

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Armed with potent drugs and new technology, a dangerous breed of soldiers are being trained to fight America’s future wars.

Amphetamines and the military first met somewhere in the fog of WWII, when axis and allied forces alike were issued speed tablets to head off fatigue on the battlefield.

More than 60 years later, the U.S. Air Force still doles out dextro-amphetamine to pilots whose duties do not afford them the luxury of sleep.

Through it all, it seems, the human body and its fleshy weaknesses keep getting in the way of warfare. Just as in the health clinics of the nation, the first waypoint in the military effort to redress these foibles is a pharmaceutical one. The catch is, we’re really not that great at it. In the case of speed, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency itself notes a few unwanted snags like addiction, anxiety, aggression, paranoia and hallucinations. For side-effects like insomnia, the Air Force issues “no-go” pills like temazepam alongside its “go” pills. Psychosis, though, is a wee bit trickier.

Far from getting discouraged, the working consensus appears to be that we just haven’t gotten the drugs right yet. In recent years, the U.S., the UK and France — among others — have reportedly been funding investigations into a new line-up of military performance enhancers. The bulk of these drugs are already familiar to us from the lists of substances banned by international sporting bodies, including the stimulant ephedrine, non-stimulant “wakefulness promoting agents” like modafinil (aka Provigil) and erythropoietin, used to improve endurance by boosting the production of red blood cells.

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English village to be invaded in spybot competition

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A village in south-west England will shortly be swarming with robots competing to show off their surveillance skills.

The event is the UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) answer to the US DARPA Grand Challenge that set robotic cars against one another to encourage advances in autonomous vehicles.

This village, built for urban warfare training during the Cold War, will host teams of ground-based and aerial robots hunting for snipers, bombs, and other threats (Image: MoD)
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This village, built for urban warfare training during the Cold War, will host teams of ground-based and aerial robots hunting for snipers, bombs, and other threats (Image: MoD)

The MoD Grand Challenge is instead designed to boost development of teams of small robots able to scout out hidden dangers in hostile urban areas.

Over 10 days in August, 11 teams of robots will compete to locate and identify four different threats hidden around a mock East German village used for urban warfare training, at Copehill Down, Wiltshire (see image, top right).

The robots must find snipers, armed vehicles, armed foot soldiers, and improvised explosive devices hidden around the village, and relay a real-time picture of what is happening back to a command post.

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25 Environmental Threats of the Future

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Forget genetically modified crops, the great environmental concerns of the future should be nanomaterials, manmade viruses and biomimetic robots.

So say researchers, policymakers and environmental campaigners, who have identified 25 potential future threats to the environment in the UK, which they say researchers should focus on.

In addition to well-publicised risks such as toxic nanomaterials, the acidification of the ocean and increasingly frequent extreme weather events, the list includes some more outlandish possibilities. These include:

” Biomimetic robots that could become new invasive species.

” Experiments involving climate engineering, for instance ocean ‘fertilisation’ and deploying solar shields

” Increased demand for the biomass needed to make biofuel.

” Disruption to marine ecosystems caused by offshore power generation.

” Experiments to control invasive species using genetically engineered viruses.

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A ‘hospital’ that’s run entirely by robots!

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Washington: The new 5 million dollars medical and surgical simulation training centre located at the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center in East Baltimor, which opened in March, has some very unique new staff members – robots.

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The ‘sim’ centre contains two fully operational ORs, two intensive care units (ICUs), high-fidelity computerized mannequins that mimic physiologic and behavioural response to procedures, and 12 examination rooms where students practice routine exams on actors posing as patients with particular complaints and symptoms.

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24 More Armed Robot Sentries for Base Patrol

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Since 2004, a series of robotic security guards have been roaming the perimeter of the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada — part of a pilot program, to see if unmanned systems can help maintain security at military installations. After 8,000 hours on patrol, the Army has been impressed, apparently. The service is ordering up to 24 more of the “Mobile Detection and Assessment and Response System,” or MDARS, at a cost of $40 million.The diesel-powered robots, in development since 1989, operate “at speeds up to 20 miles per hour and can run for 16 hours without refueling,” according to its manufacturer, General Dyanmics. “Using radio frequency identification tags, MDARS keeps track of inventory, as well as gates, locks and other barriers.”

Next-gen models could include “improved response speed of at least 30 mph… intruder detection while MDARS is moving, and intruder detection out to 1500 meters,” as opposed to 300 meters, today.

The machines could also be armed. MDARS has been tested with automatic rifles and non-lethal weapons. And General Dynamics is boasting that they new versions will have “non-lethal weapons with an engagement range of at least 30 meters.”

Source: wired