OT: Robot for US troops

Wild, but why not just use a mule?

George H.

There are some things a mule just won't do. ;-)

Mules don't store well -- put 'em in a box for a month, and what comes out is a stinky mess that can't carry packs for s**t.

Mules get freaked out when a shell lands near them -- they have this silly-ass notion that they're supposed to live through s**t.

Mules aren't always quiet when you put them away for the night.

Mules have this distinctive smell (not as bad as when you leave them in a box for a month, but still) that tells the enemy "da US Cavalry be HERE!".

I could go on -- do I need to?

Can you train a mule to be led by remote control? Mules will also refuse to to certain things.

-- Les Cargill

Just like kids, but not as stubborn. :)

ttdesign.com

Grin... OK but mules do have certain advantages too. I wonder what is the range of the 'mechanical mule'?

George H.

One of the things the military has to do is to convince 18-year-olds to enlist. Having cool stuff to play with is key.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

_I_ wonder why I didn't see a Briggs & Stratton engine powering the whole thing. 'course, I had the sound turned off so maybe it was there and I didn't hear it.

The enemy won't be unaware of the noise of that POS.

A rickshaw-like wagon with wheels big enough to be pulled over the same obstacles that POS can traverse would work much better.

I bet it's quieter when it's turned off than a mule that's been turned out for the night.

Imagine the choice they would face if it breaks down or runs out of gas. Leave equipment behind, or blow up equipment and attract attention. Either way they abort the mission.

Or simply that DARPA have squillions of dollars to play with, and TOR that encourage them to do way out things. A lot of what they turn out is tinkertoy stuff, come back in 50 years or so and see what they have.

I've done a fair amount of work with DARPA, and per capita, DARPA program managers are the sharpest bunch you'll find anywhere. They're mostly senior professors who go there sometime mid- to late-career for four or five years, and then leave again.

That means they don't have time to get comfortable, don't serve the bureaucracy, and don't have promotions to worry about. What they do have is one to three programs that their name is on from start to finish, and a strong incentive to get them done successfully, on time, and on budget. Being sharp technical people with a lot on the line, they're also very hard to BS--I've watched what happens to people who try, and it isn't pretty. That doesn't make them infallible, but they're very good on average.

If the rest of my tax money were managed as well as the part DARPA gets, I'd be a lot happier.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The lifetime of draft animals in war is very short--weeks to a few months at most. (Centuries of experience all show this--even the Mongols on campaign brought 10 to 20 horses per man.) Plus they need an enormous amount of fodder, far too much for them to carry themselves, as well as a lot of water, which is both heavy and hard to find in a lot of places that wars happen.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

On the other hand, if you are cut off from your supply lines, you can't eat your robot.

-- Paul Hovnanian mailto: snipped-for-privacy@Hovnanian.com

------------------------------------------------------------------ "I wish that all of mankind would give up it's warlike ways and the Earth would become a society of pacifists. That way, I could take it over with a butter knife." -Dogbert.

True, but the converse is not necessarily true:

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

EWWWWWW

Ummm... not the best source of energy available.

Average human weight would be about 80 kg. 75% of the human body is water and about 10% is bone. That leaves 12kg of meat. 1kg of meat is about 2000 nutritional calories, so that yields 24,000 nutritional calories. 24,000 nutritional calories * 1.16 watt-hrs/calorie = 27,840 watt-hrs If this robot needs an average of about 500 watts to move and function, then one human will power it for: 27,840 watt-hrs / 500 watts = 55.6 hrs That's at 100% conversion efficiency, which isn't going to happen. Anyway, that's at least 1 human every 2 days.

The military is working on oxygen based field portable energy generation sources.

It was in the last NASA tech briefs and the military companion magazine. Pretty advanced stuff.

Consumers will never see it.