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Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

military.com

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Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#101

Post by gozur88 »

dingaling wrote: post #50
homerowilson wrote: post #2

There are these things called "mules." They're quiet, can carry about 200lbs., and can refuel themselves as they go by eating grass and drinking water...

> and can refuel themselves as they go by eating grass and drinking water... Try finding 30 litres of water and 8 kg of grass ( plus a portion of salt ) per mule per day , minimum, in the mountains of Afghanistan. To move 90 kg of payload? There are many more efficient methods.

>Try finding 30 litres of water and 8 kg of grass ( plus a portion of salt ) per mule per day, minimum, in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Is it any easier than finding diesel fuel?

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#102

Post by LeifCarrotson »

grogenaut wrote: post #92
jonmrodriguez wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you have to power it to have it hold still Is it common to work around this by supplementing the electric motor with a disc brake? Depending where you want to be on the tradeoff between complexity vs energy-efficiency, you could use a hydraulically-powered disc brake in order for the brake to not need power except during state transitions.

Thought about this for a bit. I'm betting it's used. The deal with brakes is the ratio of the friction applicable by the brake and the lever distance of the compared to the lever arm it's stopping. I'm watching a movie so I'm not going to do the math right now but I think the size of disc rotor you could get on say a mule's knee joint versus the lever arm length of say a lower leg might cause problems either with the…

Many robotics applications use ballscrew linear actuators. These contain a cage of ball bearings in a spiral around a ball screw, and they move a given distance for each revolution. You can apply a braking force to the ball screw, which will have a large mechanical advantage over trying to brake against the joint itself.

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#103

Post by jonathankoren »

wavefunction wrote: post #58
greglindahl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a "random alternate convention", it's a highly used convention that you aren't familiar with. I wasn't familiar with it, either, until I moved to the Silicon Valley. Now I see it all the time.

It's a ridiculous "convention" and it's dubious what you mean by "highly used." Using Roman numerals for anything is a waste of everyone's time.

I strongly suspect that the page's etymology is wrong -- or more precisely -- not entirely correct. The Latin word for "thousand" is mille, which why the numeral for a thousand is M.

No one would be so asinine to mix numeral systems. Same thing with percent, which originally was rendered as "per-cent", as in "per hundred".

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#104

Post by jonathankoren »

robbiep wrote: post #64
greglindahl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a "random alternate convention", it's a highly used convention that you aren't familiar with. I wasn't familiar with it, either, until I moved to the Silicon Valley. Now I see it all the time.

There is no Roman numeral m only M, so if they are sticking with convention shouldn't it be capitalised?

Probably because it's not a numeral, but rather an abbreviation for mille.

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#105

Post by jcrawfordor »

wavefunction wrote: post #58
greglindahl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a "random alternate convention", it's a highly used convention that you aren't familiar with. I wasn't familiar with it, either, until I moved to the Silicon Valley. Now I see it all the time.

It's a ridiculous "convention" and it's dubious what you mean by "highly used." Using Roman numerals for anything is a waste of everyone's time.

There exists a world of finance outside of Silicon Valley. M and MM to indicate thousands and millions are a finance convention, not an SV one, people in SV just happen to talk about finance a lot. Anyone in finance would be familiar with it, and given that the amount here is a dollar amount, the use seems perfectly fair.

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#106

Post by melted »

hoodoof wrote: post #69

Government probably gets better bang for its buck by mounting a pistol onto each of 1,000 flying drones that only cost $300 per unit. That's an army I'd be unenthused about facing.

Except the ones made by their contractors would be $30k apiece for the same thing.

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#107

Post by [deleted] »

melling wrote: post #41
Lambdanaut wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's just a principle thing. The founders built Google on a policy of "Don't be evil", and war-robots may be considered evil depending on your own perspective.

My point is that you are still building war-robots, you just aren't getting paid for it. The military will just pay someone else to build the military version. In 2015, we made great progress in identifying a person with a gun: http://www.bidnessetc.com/59108-microsoft-corporation-beats-... Bet this technology soon makes it into drones.

[deleted]

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#108

Post by marktangotango »

rtkwe wrote: post #83
Someone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sell it to a country that has the technology level needed to copy it. Russia and China likely would be interested; they might not want to do business with the Taliban directly, but might be willing to buy them through a middle man, say Pakistan. It is fairly common for countries to let other powers take a look at technology that lands in their hands (sometimes before returning it to them). See for example https://en.…

A lot of the ability of the Boston Robotics robots is in their software thought which is much easier to lockdown via encryption. The rest is the hydraulic mechanism which is not easy but is the best known part of what the BR robots do.

Concealing algorithms and executable code is actually very difficult, consider that to run, a program must first be decrypted. Also consider the decades long war between crackers and proprietary software creators. Obfuscating algorithms has been the subject of quite a lot of academic research.

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#109

Post by varjag »

orionblastar wrote: post #80
varjag wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes more energy per mile for a walker versus a car, so apparently batteries are ruled out so far. Solar is not an option in practical transportation. The energy yield per surface area is way too low.

So then no AT-AT or AT-ST walkers because of the same problems. Better stick to tanks instead.

Tanks are not exactly solar or battery driven either, am not quite sure what is your point.

Re: Marine Corps Shelves Futuristic Robo-Mule Due to Noise Concerns

#110

Post by grogenaut »

marktangotango wrote: post #108
rtkwe wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the ability of the Boston Robotics robots is in their software thought which is much easier to lockdown via encryption. The rest is the hydraulic mechanism which is not easy but is the best known part of what the BR robots do.

Concealing algorithms and executable code is actually very difficult, consider that to run, a program must first be decrypted. Also consider the decades long war between crackers and proprietary software creators. Obfuscating algorithms has been the subject of quite a lot of academic research.

I was thinking more along the lines of thermite
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