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The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

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Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#101

Post by momokoko »

These are general purpose US funding of research which is done under the "Military spending" banner for various reasons.

I understand how people outside the US might not understand this, but it always surprises me complaints about "military spending" from educated Americans that don't understand these are actually enormous investments by the US government into general applied science.

The Army did not spend millions of dollars on a giant walking robot. The US government, by way of military spending, invested in research of the things required to build such a machine.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#102

Post by bigiain »

robomartin wrote: post #18

I have many books on on robotics and AI from Stanford and MIT from that era, back when I started to get deeply involved in the field. My son is about a year away from graduating with degrees in CS and Robotics. He was quite surprised to realize that much of what he is learning today isn't new at all. Tremendous work was done decades ago in both domains. Put simply, you can only get so far with neural networks when yo…

> I don't think there's anything in a Roomba that did not exist in the 1980's other than far greater computing power at a very low cost.

High energy density batteries as well.

My off-brand Roomba clone uses 4 18650 lipo cells @40-50g each, a total of ~40WHr for under 200g.

That 40WHr would need about 1kg of lead acid battery, or maybe 7-800g of NiCad battery.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#103

Post by hencq »

ghaff wrote: post #53
Firehawke wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely this. With the culling of most corporate R&D groups over the last 20-30 years, DARPA pie-in-the-sky research projects seem to be one of the last real sources for investigating anything that can't be immediately and quickly monetized.

How much real research, as opposed to early-stage product development, has ever happened at corporations? We can easily name a few specific examples (Bell Labs, Xerox PARC) presumably because they weren't the norm. (And there were doubtless some others at companies that weren't as aligned with what's thought of as today's tech industry such as DuPont.)

You might enjoy the book "The Entrepreneurial State" by Mariana Mazzucato makes a similar argument that a lot of innovation is actually driven by the state, because they can afford to invest a lot in research without an immediate payoff. The author mentions DARPA in particular as a great example of the US stimulating innovation that then later benefits companies. For example, while the iPhone is a great piece of innovation, it built on innovations made possible by state funded research.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#104

Post by Meph504 »

hutzlibu wrote: post #58
Animats wrote: post #23

Oh, that thing. Back when I was into legged locomotion, I found out more about that machine than I ever wanted to know. The designer was really into four-bar linkages. The leg mechanism is set up so that one actuator moves the leg in X, one in Y, and one in Z, with a four-bar linkage encoding that into the leg position. This simplifies the control problem, while complicating the mechanics. I suspect they wanted to be…

About the timber harvester: I assume better here is meant from a economical perspective, because from a ecological perspective the walkers are superior, as they do not devestate the ground so much. But that is sadly not really a issue for most wood production, but I could imagine, with rising awareness for the forests, market demand for not so intrusive wood harvesting(along with advances in the field in general) cou…

Most timber today isn't harvested in natural forest, they are effectively tree farms, they have a 10 to 20 year growth cycle and since all the trees planted are harvestable, they basically clear cut the land, burn it, off cycle growth as needed, and do it again.

In those instances, there is no ecological consideration as the whole area basically gets wiped out.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#107

Post by twothamendment »

gdubs wrote: post #72
Animats wrote: post #23

Oh, that thing. Back when I was into legged locomotion, I found out more about that machine than I ever wanted to know. The designer was really into four-bar linkages. The leg mechanism is set up so that one actuator moves the leg in X, one in Y, and one in Z, with a four-bar linkage encoding that into the leg position. This simplifies the control problem, while complicating the mechanics. I suspect they wanted to be…

That timber harvester looks amazing . As I commented below, the weight distribution is a pretty appealing aspect for minimizing the impact on soil. Though, unclear how much better it is then the tank treads which also do a pretty good job distributing weight as far as I know? Super cool though. Would be a nice way to selectively take out trees without tearing up a whole area for access, etc.

It isn't just about weight distribution.

My yard is a forest. I have a mini excavator with tracks and I can sneak in and out of places without disturbing things too much - as long as I don't have to turn sharp (and the ground isn't too wet). I think the walking machines might have an advantage there. The tracks can only slide sideways when you turn, that tears stuff up.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#108

Post by andrewflnr »

d2v wrote: post #68
Anon4Now wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel for you, but military spending is a massive federal jobs program. Each job created has a job multiplier effect, creating additional jobs in the surrounding area. Manufacturing jobs producing military equipment have a much bigger job multiplier effect. So if you were to wave a magic wand and half military spending overnight, the economic impact would be disastrous, and many more people would be in dire economic…

Couldn't we use that money to create jobs that have a more meaningful impact on people's day to day? Invest in alternative energy, fixing our infrastructure, improving public transit, etc... Put that investment in technology into technology that is more productive instead of the nth iteration of some piece of military technology that we'll never use. I want that sweet high-speed rail, baby!

That would cool, but it would be a multi-year, probably multi-decade process. Not overnight.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#109

Post by na85 »

melling wrote: post #16
gojomo wrote: post #2

Only millions? Amazing! To actually deliver a physical, one-of-a-kind, working vehicle of that scale & novel function, for low-digit millions, seems pretty impressive to me - especially if the effort documented enough of their choices/discoveries/limitations to help inform later efforts.

yeah, a single M1 Abrams tank costs over $4 million, and we have 9000 of them. DARPA R&D money always feels like money better spent than a lot of other military spending. We get future dividends, often civilian.

I dunno, when you consider the design intent of the Abrams (operating environment, crew protection, etc.) 4 million seems like a reasonable price tag to me.

Whether the US Army needs 9000 tanks is a separate discussion though.

Re: The US Army spent millions developing giant, six-legged walking trucks in 1980s

#110

Post by danans »

Animats wrote: post #23

Oh, that thing. Back when I was into legged locomotion, I found out more about that machine than I ever wanted to know. The designer was really into four-bar linkages. The leg mechanism is set up so that one actuator moves the leg in X, one in Y, and one in Z, with a four-bar linkage encoding that into the leg position. This simplifies the control problem, while complicating the mechanics. I suspect they wanted to be…

Bah. That thing's got nothing on the Onceler's tree harvester:

https://youtu.be/5cXntJFWv5U

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