I'm 21 years old, currently in college getting an associates degree in Plastics Technology. Upon getting my associate's degree next year, I plan to enlist in the United States Army, MOS Military intelligence. Working my way into a government job for department of defense if possible. With the GI Bill, I will return to school part time and get my bachelors in Product Design. My ultimate career goal is to use my engineering degree, plastics degree, and military experience, to allow me to get contracts with a company and design equipment for the armed forces.
Me personally, I am a huge movie buff, and see most action/adventure/comedy movies that come out as my friends can vouch for me. I love military and war history, and read a lot of historical books. I love to shoot, precision rifle shooting, pistol shooting, doesn't matter, anything with a trigger is fun. Besides that, I just hang out with friends. I'm a strong believer in God, and am proud to call myself a Christian.
That about sums me up.
I'm dedicating my profile page to similarities and occurrences between Terminator and our world, relating to Skynet, Killer Robots, and a future for the world that could come to pass. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Israel Eyes Thinking Machines to Fight 'Doomsday'; Article located below;
Israel has been hit in recent years by thousands and thousands of rockets, mortar shells, and missiles. And that could be just a preview of the onslaught Iran may one day unleash. So Israeli military leaders have begun early planning for a new, robotic defense system, armed with enough artificial intelligence that it "could take over completely" from flesh-and-blood operators. "It will be designed for... autonomous operations,' Brig. Gen. Daniel Milo, commander of Israel's air defense forces, tells Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome. And in the event of a "doomsday" strike, Opall-Rome notes, the system could handle "attacks that exceed physiological limits of human command."
Israel already uses a blend of Arrow and Patriot interceptors to handle incoming rockets and missiles. This new command-and-control program would be "superimposed over all those defenses" -- and over new ones to come.
Experts here described the as-yet-unnamed system as a kind of supremely oriented, highly intuitive virtual coach-cum-battle manager whose primary mission would support system operators and commanders during engagements. As such, the super system would help Israeli air defenders pick the optimum timing, sequence and targets for specific interceptors.
Air defense systems today often take a great deal of the work away from the troops who supposedly run them. The machines automatically slew to their targets, lock on... and then await instructions from flesh-and-blood. At least they do, most of the time. Back in October, however, some sort of glitch allowed a South African air defense cannon to spin out of control -- killing 9, and wounding 14.
In "extreme scenarios, where the number of incoming weapons could overwhelm today’s [air defense] systems and their human operators, [Israel's] envisioned super system could take over completely," Opall-Rome writes.
“It will be designed for man-in-the-loop as well as autonomous operations,” said Milo, the officer spearheading the vision within Israel’s user community. “But right now, our emphasis is on algorithms, not autonomy. Man-machine interface is the name of the game, because the more clever we make the interface, the more successful we’ll be in providing operators and commanders the situational awareness they’ll need to make very tough decisions...”
“Our approach cannot be based exclusively on man-in-the-loop, nor can it rely only on the opposite. Rather, we need to build an operational concept and a system that is flexible and situationally dependent,” Milo said.
In the future, and “under very complex scenarios,” Milo said, the envisioned super system would be able to generate a level of supreme situational awareness and snap intuitive capabilities that could surpass the very best wartime commanders.
“We’re talking about something that sees everything and calculates everything and makes decisions that can only be made through a real revolution in BMC4ISR [Battle Management/Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance],” he said. “We’re not there yet, and it could take a decade. But this is our vision and we’re running in that direction.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Army's Robotic, Armed Combat Vehicle: Article located below;
We now know that there are robotic cars smart enough to drive themselves around a city. The next step: give those vehicles automatic weapons, of course.
Enter the Black Knight -- a very early prototype of an "Unmanned Combat Vehicle," developed by arms-maker BAE Systems for the U.S. Army. From the outside, the Knight doesn't look all that different from the armored vehicles used by the American military in combat zones around the world. But soldiers can also get out of the nine-and-a-half-ton Knight, and control the vehicle from afar -- including a custom, one-off 30mm gun and coaxial machine gun.
Or the troops can stay just chill out, and let the thing drive itself. The Knight uses "advanced robotic technology for autonomous mobility," according to BAE. "This capability allows the Black Knight to plan routes, maneuver on the planned route, and avoid obstacles - all without operator intervention."
Black Knight participated in several BAE Systems demonstrations in January 2007 at Ft. Knox, KY. While the Bradley [Fighting Vehicle] Technology Demonstrator was engaging an enemy target from cover in a support by fire position, the Black Knight was able to autonomously move to a covered position and observe the target, using its sensor package to provide battle damage assessment data back to the Bradley. This covered position was forward of the Bradley, a less tenable position for a manned vehicle to occupy. If the enemy target needed to be re-engaged, the Black Knight could effectively neutralize the target, but the command to fire would always be made by a remote Soldier and only after the data necessary to make positive identification is received.
Last month, a set of South African remotely-operated 35 mm guns spun out of control, and killed nine soldiers. The Black Knight basically operates under the same principles -- taking that South African weapon, and making it mobile. And radio-operated. What could go possibly wrong?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armed Robots Go Into Action: Article located below;
There's a good piece in this month's National Defense magazine on the deployment of the first armed ground robots in Iraq. These are tele-operated rather than autonomous machines, giving ground troops a way of extending their presence into dangerous areas without exposing themselves to fire. The three SWORDS robots, which tote M249 light machine guns and are remotely controlled by a soldier through a terminal, are with the 3rd Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade. After three years of development at ARDEC, the robots were formally approved for combat use in June. Their exact whereabouts and missions are classified, but Zecca confirmed that they have been used in reconnaissance tasks and street patrols. He didn’t know if their weapons had been fired. .... Saitta, who also served in the Marines as an armor officer, said armed robots and their operators need to become organically part of a unit to be effective. Just as a TOW missile crew supports tanks, the robots and their operators should be fully integrated into Stryker brigades.
The robots could prove their worth in urban areas with blind corners or curves and little intelligence of what lies beyond, he said.
One skeptic knowledgeable about military robots questioned whether this new weapon would make a long-term impact.
Insurgents will attempt to defeat them just as they have with the military’s new counter-roadside bomb technology. The three robots could last weeks rather than months in the field, said the source, who declined to be named because he is still involved in the military robot community.
James Canton, chief executive officer of the Institute for Global Futures and an expert on military technologies, said SWORDS is a relatively simple machine and just the cusp of where the military is going with robots. The coming robot army will change the military world both tactically and strategically, he predicted. These first SWORDS 'bots are fairly primitive, but the users seems to like them. And faster and more agile machines giving the user a better situational awareness are not far away. As with many weapons systems from biplanes to UAVs, what we see here is a machine originally meant for other purposes with a weapon bolted on. But if it works, I predict the v2.0 will have armor, additional weapon options and a whole range of other kit built into it.
There are some provocative ideas, such as the idea that instead of 2,000 soldiers and 150 robots, a future unit might have 150 soldiers and 2,000 robots. Read the full article here.
Early versions of the iRobot Warrior X700 "are slated to be ready by the second half of next year," according to Army Times' Kris Osborn. And unlike previous offerings from iRobot -- which tended to be on the light, bordering-on-flimsy side -- the Warrior will weigh up to 250 pounds. It'll be able to lug a 500-pound payload, and carry 150 pounds with a newly muscular arm. Which will mean the machine is more than buff enough to pack heat.
“We’re looking at urban warfare... It can be deploying weapons systems. It can be doing re-supply operations, taking ammo or water to troops who are pinned down, perimeter security and building clearing,” Helen Greiner, iRobot chairman and co-founder, tells Army Times.
“Right now, it can go 10 miles per hour. When we finish the development, it will be able to do a four-minute mile,” said retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Joe Dyer, iRobot’s president of the government and industrial division. “You are starting to see the first robot that can really haul your pack and be not only a partner but be a stronger and faster partner.”
Unlike other armed robots -- which are entirely remote-controlled -- the Warriors are "being engineered with advanced software, giving them the ability to perform some battlefield functions autonomously."
“The software says, ‘Hey, robot, get back up yourself.’ If you lose [communications], right now you have to go get the robot,” Dyer said. “A capability they are building into PackBot is if you lose comms, go back to where you could talk last and re-establish comms on your own.”
At the same time, a key dimension to the Warrior X700 is its ability to protect soldiers by firing weapons such as a machine gun or 40mm explosive round.
“The Warrior has the stability and the engineering to be a weapons platform,” Dyer said. One Warrior variant is outfitted with an electronic firing system with four small barrels able to shoot as many as 16 rounds a second when firing simultaneously. The robot-mounted weapons shoot as far as 800 meters, according to officials at Metal Storm, the Brisbane, Australia-based company that makes the firing system. [Uh oh -- ed.]
“We have an inducted firing system which electronically creates an electric field that ignites the primer or the sensor,” a Metal Storm official said. “What it means is it is totally electronic. There are no moving parts apart from the rounds themselves. They can be sealed so it is resistant to weather conditions.”
Being fully electronic, it marries in well with a robotic platform and an electronic fire control, the official said.
“What we are focusing on at the moment is 40mm, so we’re dealing with high-explosive grenades or air-burst rounds. We also have less-than-lethal rounds and [improvised explosive device] disruptor rounds,” he said. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/roomba-maker-un.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A real life Cyberdyne, is Terminator coming true? Website located below;
http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/index.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Armed Robot Groomed for War: Article located below;
The company behind the only armed robots in Iraq is rolling out a new model of gun-toting machine, built from the start for combat. DANGER ROOM has exclusive pictures and footage.
During the early days of the Iraq war, the roboteers at Foster-Miller modified their bomb-disposal machines, to have them carry machine guns, grenade launchers, or rockets.
After years of safety testing and modifications, three of these deadly SWORDS ("special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system") robots were recently sent to Iraq.
But even now, safety concerns (among other reasons) have kept those machines from firing a shot in combat. But Foster-Miller is already rolling a new model of armed robot -- one that's comes with additional extra, built-in precautions, and has been designed from the beginning to fight.
MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) features new software controls, which allow the robot's driver to select fire and no-fire zones. The idea is keep the robots from accidentally shooting a flesh-and-blood American. A mechanical range fan also keeps MAARS' gun pointed away from friendly positions.
The robot is also equipped with a GPS transmitter, so it can be seen on -- and tap into -- the American battlefield mapping programs, just like tanks and Humvees. These "Blue Force Trackers" have been credited with dramatically reducing friendly-fire incidents during the Iraq war. MAARS comes with an extra fail-safe, which won't allow it to fire directly at its own control unit.
Nor does the robot always have to carry a gun. A mechanical arm can be swapped "in a couple of minutes" for the weapon, according to MARRS program manager Charles Dean, a retired Army Lt. Colonel. Which means the robot could be used for "inspecting IEDs, opening doors, even dragging casualties."
The tracks can also be removed, and changed out for wheels; better for urban operations, perhaps. Combined with a lower center of gravity, Dean believes the MAARS will be about 50% faster than its predecessors, which rumbled over streets at 5 miles per hour. Here's a short of video of MAARS in action:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/tt-tt.html
Disclaimer: I claim no rights to any photos, videos, articles, or websites on this page. This is a blog, where I am consolidating known information from across the web relating to real life issues of robitics and AI related topics.
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“The software says, ‘Hey, robot, get back up yourself.’ If you lose [communications], right now you have to go get the robot,” Dyer said. “A capability they are building into PackBot is if you lose comms, go back to where you could talk last and re-establish comms on your own.”
