Creepy Dog Robot Planned for the US Military
It's been a long time coming, but the BigDog, a robotic pack mule, has just won $10 million in Pentagon funding. The robot, covered way back in 2004 by Danger Room's Noah Shachtman, is designed to carry equipment for soldiers. The petrol-engined quadruped will supposedly run and jump with its load, negotiating obstacles up to a meter (3.3 feet) high and two meters wide. As you can see from the video, the BigDog is pretty noisy, but worse than that, the naturalistic movement really creeps me out. It's like an AT-AT crossed with a rickshaw.Normally I am a big fan of DARPA, but when the rest of the world is wondering what type of empire the US is becoming, is it really wise to be building the forerunner of an AT-AT?
via Wired
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2 comments:
Wow, what a horrible combination of industries, wouldn't it make more sense for it not to have to carry it's own fuel supply. At least make it solar. Our government needs to stop spending so much money on WAR.
fides,
A solar powered, or battery operated version is an interesting idea.
In general I agree with you that I wish the US spent less on the military, but with DARPA much of the research is applicable outside of warfare. This little contraption could be the forerunner of many peaceful applications such as helping those that are disabled.
As long as the American public wants to spend lots of money on defense, I just hope as much as possible goes to DARPA and other research and technologies that can be used outside of the defense department.
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