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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

#31

Post by davidw »

thinkcontext wrote: post #27

I wonder at what price point the civilian market could support these? There must be a fair number of applications for resupply where humans (sherpas), actual animal mules or helicopters are required, ie, forestry, National Park rangers, science, recreation, etc.

> forestry, National Park rangers

In most areas where these guys operate, actual mules are probably cheaper, and can be refueled with locally available forage. Not to mention they're more suitable for that kind of environment.

Perhaps more 'extreme' environments where that forage is not available would be more suitable?

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

#32

Post by Lambdanaut »

melling wrote: post #30
Lambdanaut wrote: post #9

These are the "Big Dog" mules being built by Boston Dynamics, who was recently acquired by Google. Google has been against militarizing the robots since acquisition, so they're no doubt happy to have this contract dropped. To be clear, this doesn't mean the project is shelved, it means the contract with the Marine Corps is shelved. Google will be able to focus more directly on civilian uses for the mules from here on…

Why are they against militarizing robots? It pays the bills. They could start with consumers or business but it's harder to build a market. This makes it harder to fund further development. Once the technology is developed by anyone for non-military use, transitioning to the military is easy. There's not some magic that prevents consumer developed technology from reaching the battlefield.

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.

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

#33

Post by Animats »

jt2190 wrote: post #18

For those who don't understand the U.S. military funding process: This is being shelved because there isn't money to continue work, not because of a fundamental problem with the technology. [1] It's more of a "We'd LOVE to give you this cool thing... Too bad we don't have any money to work on it. Oh well!" [1] The article mentions that they built a quieter version of the robot that carried less. More interesting were…

BigDog's power pack was originally a constant speed gasoline engine driving a hydraulic pump and an electrical generator. That's the noisy engine in the earlier videos. The LS3 was supposed to have a new, quieter power pack developed with a small variable-speed Diesel engine. That was subcontracted out by Boston Dynamics. This is as good as it ever got: [1] It still sounds like a dirt bike.

The hydraulic system used is very controllable but not particularly efficient. There's no energy recovery and no springyness; it's brute-force hydraulics. That was reasonable for an experimental machine, but not acceptable in the production product. Atlas, the BD humanoid, has the same problem. It's too similar to BigDog, and weighs about 330 pounds. Schaft, Google's other humanoid robotics company, uses water-cooled electric motors, like Tesla. You can enormously overload electric motors for a few seconds without hurting them, and if you have cooling and temperature monitoring, that works fine. This is probably the way forward for anything smaller than a pony.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arIJm2lAfR8

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

#36

Post by thinkcontext »

davidw wrote: post #31
thinkcontext wrote: post #27

I wonder at what price point the civilian market could support these? There must be a fair number of applications for resupply where humans (sherpas), actual animal mules or helicopters are required, ie, forestry, National Park rangers, science, recreation, etc.

> forestry, National Park rangers In most areas where these guys operate, actual mules are probably cheaper, and can be refueled with locally available forage. Not to mention they're more suitable for that kind of environment. Perhaps more 'extreme' environments where that forage is not available would be more suitable?

Not arguing but I'm curious what the total cost of ownership of a mule is. Handlers, stabling, feed, medical care, waste, etc. And all that is on a year round basis, you can't just stick it in the garage in the off season. Not to mention a human required to accompany it to the destination.

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

#37

Post by OldSchoolJohnny »

hellofunk wrote: post #17
Thriptic wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can eat them in times of scarcity. The robotic ones aren't nearly as tasty.

Speak for yourself. Diets motivated by iron deficiency are a real thing.

Although in modern times it's almost ridiculously hard to avoid added iron in food these days due to enforced fortification based on outdated ideas from the 1940's.

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

#39

Post by JabavuAdams »

jt2190 wrote: post #18

For those who don't understand the U.S. military funding process: This is being shelved because there isn't money to continue work, not because of a fundamental problem with the technology. [1] It's more of a "We'd LOVE to give you this cool thing... Too bad we don't have any money to work on it. Oh well!" [1] The article mentions that they built a quieter version of the robot that carried less. More interesting were…

That may be, but the application never really seemed reasonable. I say this as someone who loves almost anything robotic.

The technology is amazing and will no doubt find use elsewhere.

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

#40

Post by ceejayoz »

melling wrote: post #30
Lambdanaut wrote: post #9

These are the "Big Dog" mules being built by Boston Dynamics, who was recently acquired by Google. Google has been against militarizing the robots since acquisition, so they're no doubt happy to have this contract dropped. To be clear, this doesn't mean the project is shelved, it means the contract with the Marine Corps is shelved. Google will be able to focus more directly on civilian uses for the mules from here on…

Why are they against militarizing robots? It pays the bills. They could start with consumers or business but it's harder to build a market. This makes it harder to fund further development. Once the technology is developed by anyone for non-military use, transitioning to the military is easy. There's not some magic that prevents consumer developed technology from reaching the battlefield.

> Why are they against militarizing robots? It pays the bills.

Because money isn't everything?

> There's not some magic that prevents consumer developed technology from reaching the battlefield.

That doesn't mean you're required to actively help it along.

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