War On You: Breaking Alternative News

The military has long been interested in unmanned ground vehicles that can haul soldier equipment or scout perimeters. Equally important, the vehicles must be simple and intuitive to operate.

Over at the Flash Blog, Lee Brimelow has an interesting scoop on how an XBox 360 interface was designed for the R-Gator, an unmanned vehicle prototype John Deere and iRobot first unveiled in 2004. Software firm T8DESIGN built the Adobe Integrated Runtime interface for the R-Gator; Brimelow has some images of how it looks on screen.

In addition to hauling gear or supplies, the R-Gator could also be used as a sentry. Brimelow says the vehicle could be equipped with a system called REDOWL, or Robot Enhanced Detection Outpost with Lasers, a sniper detection system that uses acoustic sensors and cameras to zero in on hostile gunfire.

The military has already opted for XBox and PlayStation-style controllers on robots like the PackBot, a small, portable robot that has already seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve tried out the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, a next-generation version of PackBot, and it’s similarly easy to master the controls. Thousands of these smaller robots are already in the field.

Designing and controlling larger unmanned vehicles, however, is a somewhat trickier proposition. The military has experimented with the General Dynamics “Mobile Detection and Assessment and Response System,” or MDARS, a system that has been in the works since 1989. The U.S. Army has developed a six-wheeled robotic vehicle, Lockheed Martin’s MULE, as part of its Future Combat Systems program, but the future of FCS is uncertain following recent budget cuts. The R-Gator is more of an off-the-shelf solution: it’s based on the M-Gator, a golf-cart sized military utility vehicle.

[PHOTO: iRobot]

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