Darpa's Smart, Mean, Off-Road Drone
By the time you read this, Carnegie Mellon roboticists and Darpa chieftains will be rolling out their latest mechanical warrior: a six-and-half-ton, six-wheeled unmanned behemoth called Crusher. Back in October, I took a look at the bot as it was being built, in a restored brick-and-chestnut mill on the banks of Pittsburgh's Allegheny River. Even as an aluminum-titanium skeleton, the machine left an impression -- something that looked ready to chew up all kinds of terrain. The clever, almost leg-like way the wheels attached would allow Crusher (like its predecessor, Carnegie's Spinner robot) to climb steps bigger than four feet, and tackle slopes with a 40 degree grade. In-hub electric motors, powered by a VW Jetta's turbo diesel engine, wouldn't hurt, either. Carnegie and Darpa will be talking up Crusher's off-road toughness today. And they'll crow about the robot's brains and eyes -- the machine is part of a $35 million, Darpa-backed effort to make robots more autonomous. A few weeks before I visited Pittsburgh, Spinner used eight laser range-finders and four pairs of stereo cameras to help travel 26 miles of tough terrain, completely on its own. Crusher's 18-foot, telescoping mast, packed with sensors, should only make this both more perceptive. But what today's presenters probably won't talk about much is that Crusher is designed to be mean, too. It's an "unmanned ground combat vehicle," a prototype for the military's next generation of armed robots. Crusher has been equipped with a Rafael Mini-Typhoon gun mount, which holds a "simulated" .50 caliber rifle. "We’re developing Crusher," Carnegie's John Bares said in a statement, "to show people what can be done and pave the way for the future." And in that future, the robots can go anywhere, think for themselves, and carry guns. Alan Boyle reports on Crusher's "Hollywood-style rollout." Two Crusher prototypes made their entrance amid music, video and flashing lights — and one of them proceeded over to the center's obstacle course, rolling over wrecked cars and other obstacles... Crusher also demonstrated a tight U-turn maneuver inside a garage.
Showing posts with label DARPA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DARPA. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2010
How Does That Grab Ya?
How Does That Grab Ya?
Ever tried one of those mechanical cranes where you try to pick up a teddy bear? They look easy but they’re next to impossible because mechanical manipulators are so awkward at handling irregular objects. But this week in New Scientist I report on a new DARPA development which will make robots a lot more dextrous. DARPA’s OCTOR (sOft robotiC manipulaTORs) program is building a new type of robot limb patterned after an elephant’s trunk or octopus arm. It’s flexible, fast, and can handle fragile objects and reach into narrow spaces, as well as coping with a range of different sizes, as this 55 Mb video shows The current Octarms use an industrial Pentium processor board and a 24-volt electro-pneumatic pressure system. They are mainly built with off-the-shelf components, with much of the work going into modelling the behaviour of the system and designing software for kinematics (movement control), and the operator interface. The strength of the arm is governed by actuator pressure and diameter. The current Octarm is pneumatic and works at 60 psi, but in principle a 2000 psi hydraulic system would be possible which would be far more powerful. The design is scaleable; small six-inch Octarms have been built, and a 20-foot tentacle is certainly possible - all it would take is funding. A vehicle-mounted Octarm capable of tearing down walls or shifting rubble would be worth seeing… A team including Bill Kier from the University of North Carolina and Roger Hanlon from the Marine Biological Laboratory provided the biological research behind the Octarm. They found that octopus arms in nature have transverse and longitudinal muscles as well as two sets of helically-wound muscles which spiral around the arm, giving the ability to shorten, lengthen, rotate or bend at nearly any angle. The taper – also borrowed from the octopus - means it can reach into narrow spaces, and helps with handling objects of many sizes. Small objects can be grasped with the thin end section of the Octarm, with larger and heavier objects the thicker and more powerful base sections come into play. Existing manipulators tend to me limited in the range of sizes they can deal with because their grippers can only open to a certain width. Hanlon and colleagues are working on further improvements to the Octarm, using a range of biological models for inspiration, so later versions may take advantage of refinements observed in animal systems. The latest demonstration featured an Octarm mounted on a Talon robot carrying out a variety of tasks, including retrieving a dummy and working underwater. Military applications may include reconnaissance (there’s a camera at the end of the Octarm) and IED disposal, but there are host of civil applications where Octarms should be able to outperform existing designs. The Octarm project is another one of DARPA’s Biodynotics – biologically-inspired robotics – programs, and it’s interesting to see how leveraging techniques perfected in nature brings rapid improvements in robotics. It’s also interesting to see how much of this is led by the military. This follows the same path as early computing described in my book Weapons Grade, which shows how the military were responsible for introducing major innovations in both hardware and software including digital electronic computing and the silicon chip. Octarm joins other well-publicized creations like the BigDog prototype for a robotic mule , Carnegie Mellon’s snakebot and DARPA’s robot flying insects and RoboLobster - and I can guarantee more some even more surprising innovations where these came from. Stay tuned!
Ever tried one of those mechanical cranes where you try to pick up a teddy bear? They look easy but they’re next to impossible because mechanical manipulators are so awkward at handling irregular objects. But this week in New Scientist I report on a new DARPA development which will make robots a lot more dextrous. DARPA’s OCTOR (sOft robotiC manipulaTORs) program is building a new type of robot limb patterned after an elephant’s trunk or octopus arm. It’s flexible, fast, and can handle fragile objects and reach into narrow spaces, as well as coping with a range of different sizes, as this 55 Mb video shows The current Octarms use an industrial Pentium processor board and a 24-volt electro-pneumatic pressure system. They are mainly built with off-the-shelf components, with much of the work going into modelling the behaviour of the system and designing software for kinematics (movement control), and the operator interface. The strength of the arm is governed by actuator pressure and diameter. The current Octarm is pneumatic and works at 60 psi, but in principle a 2000 psi hydraulic system would be possible which would be far more powerful. The design is scaleable; small six-inch Octarms have been built, and a 20-foot tentacle is certainly possible - all it would take is funding. A vehicle-mounted Octarm capable of tearing down walls or shifting rubble would be worth seeing… A team including Bill Kier from the University of North Carolina and Roger Hanlon from the Marine Biological Laboratory provided the biological research behind the Octarm. They found that octopus arms in nature have transverse and longitudinal muscles as well as two sets of helically-wound muscles which spiral around the arm, giving the ability to shorten, lengthen, rotate or bend at nearly any angle. The taper – also borrowed from the octopus - means it can reach into narrow spaces, and helps with handling objects of many sizes. Small objects can be grasped with the thin end section of the Octarm, with larger and heavier objects the thicker and more powerful base sections come into play. Existing manipulators tend to me limited in the range of sizes they can deal with because their grippers can only open to a certain width. Hanlon and colleagues are working on further improvements to the Octarm, using a range of biological models for inspiration, so later versions may take advantage of refinements observed in animal systems. The latest demonstration featured an Octarm mounted on a Talon robot carrying out a variety of tasks, including retrieving a dummy and working underwater. Military applications may include reconnaissance (there’s a camera at the end of the Octarm) and IED disposal, but there are host of civil applications where Octarms should be able to outperform existing designs. The Octarm project is another one of DARPA’s Biodynotics – biologically-inspired robotics – programs, and it’s interesting to see how leveraging techniques perfected in nature brings rapid improvements in robotics. It’s also interesting to see how much of this is led by the military. This follows the same path as early computing described in my book Weapons Grade, which shows how the military were responsible for introducing major innovations in both hardware and software including digital electronic computing and the silicon chip. Octarm joins other well-publicized creations like the BigDog prototype for a robotic mule , Carnegie Mellon’s snakebot and DARPA’s robot flying insects and RoboLobster - and I can guarantee more some even more surprising innovations where these came from. Stay tuned!
Funky Drone Down for the Count
Funky Drone Down for the Count
Even in the sometimes-wacky world of next-generation drones, Boeing's X-50A Dragonfly was a bit of an oddball. Helicopter-ish blades "that operated on the same principle as a rotating lawn sprinkler" would spin, to lift the thing off of the ground. Then, the blades would lock in place, forming a wing, so the 18-foot, 1500-pound, turbofan-powered Dragonfly could buzz around fast, like an airplane. Officials at Darpa were hoping that the machine would provide "a high-speed, rapid response capability from a VTOL [vertical take-off and landing] air vehicle with significant range and stealth improvements." But for now, those hopes have been dashed. The program has been axed, Aero-Net News reports. "The decision marks the end of the $51.8 million program, with Boeing using the leftover funds to compile a report on just what went wrong." Right from the start, the Dragonfly was troubled. More standard, VTOL plane combos, like the tilt-rotor Osprey and Harrier jump jet, were tough enough to handle. But the X-50A's "canard rotor/wing" was particularly tricky. In copter mode, it called for "exhaust from the aircraft's turbofan engine [to be] directed up the rotor assembly and through outlets at the rotor tips to cause the rotor to spin," Aviation Week notes. "For fixed-wing flight, the exhaust was directed out the aircraft's tail, causing the rotor to stop spinning and act as a wing, while additional lift was provided by the aircraft's fuselage." The Dragonfly's first test flight -- in December, 2003 -- came a year later than expected. Another flight, fifteen months after, ended disastrously; cross-coupling in the rotor controls caused the drone to crash. A second, back-up vehicle was enlisted. And in December, 2005, the Dragonfly successfully flew. But by April of this year, there was more bad news: another crash. "18 minutes in," Aero-Net News says, "the prototype once again lost control during a transition attempt [from fixed-wing flight to rotor]." DARPA says the second prototype was lost due to poor low-speed control authority, as well as extreme sensitivity to wake strength off the vehicle's rotor. The agency states the accident occurred after rotor wake hit the fuselage, and caused the Dragonfly's nose to pitch up violently -- and in excess of the abilities of the control system to recover.
Even in the sometimes-wacky world of next-generation drones, Boeing's X-50A Dragonfly was a bit of an oddball. Helicopter-ish blades "that operated on the same principle as a rotating lawn sprinkler" would spin, to lift the thing off of the ground. Then, the blades would lock in place, forming a wing, so the 18-foot, 1500-pound, turbofan-powered Dragonfly could buzz around fast, like an airplane. Officials at Darpa were hoping that the machine would provide "a high-speed, rapid response capability from a VTOL [vertical take-off and landing] air vehicle with significant range and stealth improvements." But for now, those hopes have been dashed. The program has been axed, Aero-Net News reports. "The decision marks the end of the $51.8 million program, with Boeing using the leftover funds to compile a report on just what went wrong." Right from the start, the Dragonfly was troubled. More standard, VTOL plane combos, like the tilt-rotor Osprey and Harrier jump jet, were tough enough to handle. But the X-50A's "canard rotor/wing" was particularly tricky. In copter mode, it called for "exhaust from the aircraft's turbofan engine [to be] directed up the rotor assembly and through outlets at the rotor tips to cause the rotor to spin," Aviation Week notes. "For fixed-wing flight, the exhaust was directed out the aircraft's tail, causing the rotor to stop spinning and act as a wing, while additional lift was provided by the aircraft's fuselage." The Dragonfly's first test flight -- in December, 2003 -- came a year later than expected. Another flight, fifteen months after, ended disastrously; cross-coupling in the rotor controls caused the drone to crash. A second, back-up vehicle was enlisted. And in December, 2005, the Dragonfly successfully flew. But by April of this year, there was more bad news: another crash. "18 minutes in," Aero-Net News says, "the prototype once again lost control during a transition attempt [from fixed-wing flight to rotor]." DARPA says the second prototype was lost due to poor low-speed control authority, as well as extreme sensitivity to wake strength off the vehicle's rotor. The agency states the accident occurred after rotor wake hit the fuselage, and caused the Dragonfly's nose to pitch up violently -- and in excess of the abilities of the control system to recover.
Pentagon Seeks Fleet Of Massive DARPA Spy Blimps
Pentagon Seeks Fleet Of Massive DARPA Spy Blimps
Hovering 12 miles up, airships will scan vast expanses
Steve Watson - Friday, March 13, 2009
The Pentagon has announced intentions to launch an entire fleet of giant 450-foot-long airships which will act as a massive airborne radar system providing perpetual surveillance of vehicles, planes and people on the ground.
The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will operate on hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels, floating 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, reports the LA TImes [2].
The airships will be around twenty times larger than the Goodyear Blimp, giving ground operators the capability of monitoring an area hundreds of miles in diameter at a time with surveillance equipment, such as high-resolution cameras, in addition to the football-field-sized radar antenna.
Although very large, the airships will be invisible to both the naked eye and ground radar because of their distance from the earth, hovering around 12 miles above the ground.
The craft would also operate beyond the range of any hand-held missile, many surface-to-air missiles and most fighter planes.
The airship, named ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is the Structure), no doubt after the Ancient Egyptian goddess [3], is being developed under an agreement between the Air Force and DARPA, the Pentagon’s semi-secret research arm.
Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force describes the airship as “constant surveillance, uninterrupted”.
“When you only have a short-time view — whether it is a few hours or a few days — that is not enough to put the picture together.” Dahm said.
The Pentagon has described the project as a tool to be used over urban battlegrounds abroad. But, like DARPA’S”Combat Zones That See [5]” project, there’s no reason ISIS couldn’t float over major cities such as New York or Chicago without anyone knowing.
A similar program known as WALRUS [6]was effectively killed off by Congress in 2006. However, the ISIS program has been floating around (pun intended) since 2004.
“We will apply this technology to track people emerging from buildings of interest and follow them as they move to new locations,” announced DARPA’s Paul Benda at a conference in March 2004 [7]. “Imagine the impact it will have if ISIS tracks the movement of individuals for months. Hidden webs of connections between people and facilities will be revealed.”
In 2006, reports [8] regarding the project resurfaced as DARPA courted defense contractors Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to develop the airships.
The Air Force has signed an agreement with DARPA to develop a demonstration dirigible by 2014.
Hovering 12 miles up, airships will scan vast expanses
Steve Watson - Friday, March 13, 2009
The Pentagon has announced intentions to launch an entire fleet of giant 450-foot-long airships which will act as a massive airborne radar system providing perpetual surveillance of vehicles, planes and people on the ground.
The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will operate on hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels, floating 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, reports the LA TImes [2].
The airships will be around twenty times larger than the Goodyear Blimp, giving ground operators the capability of monitoring an area hundreds of miles in diameter at a time with surveillance equipment, such as high-resolution cameras, in addition to the football-field-sized radar antenna.
Although very large, the airships will be invisible to both the naked eye and ground radar because of their distance from the earth, hovering around 12 miles above the ground.
The craft would also operate beyond the range of any hand-held missile, many surface-to-air missiles and most fighter planes.
The airship, named ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is the Structure), no doubt after the Ancient Egyptian goddess [3], is being developed under an agreement between the Air Force and DARPA, the Pentagon’s semi-secret research arm.
Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force describes the airship as “constant surveillance, uninterrupted”.
“When you only have a short-time view — whether it is a few hours or a few days — that is not enough to put the picture together.” Dahm said.
The Pentagon has described the project as a tool to be used over urban battlegrounds abroad. But, like DARPA’S”Combat Zones That See [5]” project, there’s no reason ISIS couldn’t float over major cities such as New York or Chicago without anyone knowing.
A similar program known as WALRUS [6]was effectively killed off by Congress in 2006. However, the ISIS program has been floating around (pun intended) since 2004.
“We will apply this technology to track people emerging from buildings of interest and follow them as they move to new locations,” announced DARPA’s Paul Benda at a conference in March 2004 [7]. “Imagine the impact it will have if ISIS tracks the movement of individuals for months. Hidden webs of connections between people and facilities will be revealed.”
In 2006, reports [8] regarding the project resurfaced as DARPA courted defense contractors Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to develop the airships.
The Air Force has signed an agreement with DARPA to develop a demonstration dirigible by 2014.
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