Military Robots

choi

Robots go to war | March of the Robots. Robotics: From reconnaissance to bomb-defusal to launching attacks, military robots are on the march, raising knotty ethical quandaries. Economist, June 2, 2012 (in Technology Quarterly).
http://www.economist.com/node/21556103

Note:
(a) The article says, "DelFly, a dragonfly-shaped surveillance drone built at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, weighs less than a gold wedding ring, camera included."

DelFly
http://www.delfly.nl

(b) "On the ground, robots range from truck-sized to tiny. TerraMax, a robotics kit made by Oshkosh Defense, based in Wisconsin, turns military lorries or armoured vehicles into remotely controlled or autonomous machines."

TerraMax
http://www.terramax.com/technology/the_brawn.cfm

Please click the video clip in the right lower corner, which requires Windows Media Player.

(c) "By jabbing the ground with a gas-powered piston, the Sand Flea can leap through a window, or onto a roof nine metres up. Gyro-stabilisers provide smooth in-air filming and landings. The 5kg robot then rolls along on wheels until another hop is needed—to jump up some stairs, perhaps, or to a rooftop across the street."

(i) sand flea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_flea
(may refer to four animals)
(ii) SandFlea - Leaps Small Buildings in a Single Bound. Boston Dynamics (with a video that was published in YouTube.com on Mar 27, 2012).
http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_sandflea.html

(d) "Another robot, RiSE, resembles a giant cockroach and uses six legs, tipped with short, Velcro-like spikes, to climb coarse walls."

RiSE Project. U Penn, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Lewis and Clark Univ amd Boston Dynamics.
http://kodlab.seas.upenn.edu/~rise/newsite/

(e) "Its [iRobot's] latest military robot, FirstLook, is a smaller device that also runs on tracks. Equipped with four cameras, it is designed to be thrown through windows or over walls."

FirstLook. iRobot.
http://www.irobot.com/us/robots/defense/firstlook.aspx

(f) "And a small helicopter drone called the Pelican, designed by German and American companies, could remain aloft for weeks, powered by energy from a ground-based laser."

Pelican. LaserMotive.
http://lasermotive.com/

(g) "In March Britain’s Royal Artillery began buying robotic missiles designed by MBDA, a French company. The Fire Shadow is a 'loitering munition' capable of travelling 100km, more than twice the maximum range of a traditional artillery shell. It can circle in the sky for hours, using sensors to track even a moving target. A human operator, viewing a video feed, then issues an instruction to attack, fly elsewhere to find a better target, or abort the mission by destroying itself. But bypassing the human operator to automate attacks would be, technologically, in the 'realm of feasibility,' an MBDA spokesman says."

Fire Shadow. MBDA.
http://www.mbda-systems.com/prod ... ent/fire-shadow/33/

* Please click the four buttons in the right column.
* There is no video--only animation clips. Click "MEDIA GALLERY" in the top horizontal bar, then enter "Fire Shadow" in the search box and select "video" underneath.

(h) "Could the 'man in the loop' be removed from robotic weapons? The Israel Defence Forces have installed 'combat proven' robot machineguns along the country’s borders. When sensors detect an intruder, the barrel pivots to follow him. A human soldier, watching the scene remotely via a fibre-optic link, decides whether or not to issue a warning (through a loudspeaker) or press the fire button. The robot sentry, the Samson Remote Weapon Station, could function without human intervention, says David Ishai of Rafael, its Israeli manufacturer, based in Haifa. But, he says, switching to automatic mode would be a bad idea—and illegal to boot."

For Samson Remote Weapon Station (RWS). see
Samson RWS Family. Rafael.
http://www.rafael.co.il/Marketing/402-994-en/Marketing.aspx

Click "Samson Family Brochure" in the right column.

* The quotation states "the barrel pivots to follow him." Note "pivot"--the station by itself can not LEAVE the spot.
* There is no video or animation clip.