News - Events - Tradeshow Calendar
| Event Name |
Industry |
Start Date |
End Date |
Location |
City |
State |
| UAV Summit West |
Military Robotics |
November 7, 2011 |
November 9, 2011 |
Town & Center Resort |
San Diego |
CA |
| Maritime Homeland Security Summit West |
Military Robotics |
November 7, 2011 |
November 9, 2011 |
Town & Center Resort |
San Diego |
CA |
| Border Technology Expo |
Military Robotics |
November 7, 2011 |
November 9, 2011 |
Town & Center Resort |
San Diego |
CA |
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Telepresence: The killer app for robots? |
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Unmanned systems build cars, collect intelligence, and defuse bombs. With the exception of toys and relatively simple systems like the vacuuming Roomba, ordinary people rarely have contact with robots and certainly would never think of buying one. What is the “killer app” that will be so attractive that the average person simply must buy a robot? Some think it will be telepresence.
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The Unmanned Farmer |
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When most people survey one of America’s 2.2 million farms, they see fields of wheat,
rows of corn, and herds of cattle. Developers of unmanned systems see expanding
markets. Robots are being built for picking, grafting, cultivating, weeding, spraying
pesticides, planting, timber cleaning, feeding stock, and even egg inspection.
Superficially, unmanned agricultural systems seem counter–intuitive. Farm workers are
among the lowest paid in America. Why build expensive robots to replace people who
barely make minimum wage?
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The Incredibly Shrinking UGV |
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In the early days of the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, US forces had no effective countermeasures against Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the single biggest cause of combat deaths. To fight the IED threat, our armed forces turned to Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV).
It’s hard to remember now, but UGVs barely existed 10 years ago. The Defense community abandoned the traditionally leisurely pace of decades-long weapons development and quickly flooded combat theaters with thousands of UGVs. In 2011, the world’s governments are projected to spend $702 million a year on UGVs. Below is a chart comparing a few UGVs.Read More |
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War and depth: Why your battlefield robot needs 3D |
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View to a war
One way that modern warfare mirrors contemporary life is the dependence on Video Display Terminals. All of us have heard stories of warfighters remotely operating unmanned systems while staring at flickering images on computer monitors. Even manned vehicles are sometimes driven by personnel who use computer screens, so as not to expose themselves to hostile fire.
Depth perception
Ordinary computer displays lack depth perception, a key source of visual information. This may not matter in many situations, but it does adversely affect the operator’s ability to navigate dense, cluttered areas as well as their performance of delicate work, such as manipulating Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).
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AMREL @ Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference 2011 |
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AMREL’s Technology Suite at the Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference was a big success. While they learned about the latest advances, participants ate, drank, networked, and just had a good time. Here are pictures of some of the people and technologies.
Below is a gallery of images from AMREL's Technology Suite @ GRCC 2011. as well as from the showroom floor.
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Autonomous Military Robotics: Risk, Ethics, and Design |
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magine the face of warfare with autonomous robotics: Instead of our soldiers returning home in flag-draped caskets to heartbroken families, autonomous robots—mobile machines that can make decisions, such as to fire upon a target, without human intervention—can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions: from tunneling through dark caves in search of terrorists, to securing urban streets rife with sniper fire, to patrolling the skies and waterways where there is little cover from attacks, to clearing roads and seas of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to surveying damage from biochemical weapons, to guarding borders and buildings, to controlling potentially-hostile crowds, and even as the infantry frontlines.
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Autonomy, Situational Awareness, and the User Interface Part 2 |
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Part 1 of this series speculated that, contrary to widespread expectations, increased autonomy would make the operation of unmanned systems more difficult, not less. Part 2 explores this hypothesis with David Bruemmer, a well-known authority on autonomy.
Do you trust your robot? I voiced some of my concerns to a recognized expert on situational awareness and autonomy, David Bruemmer, Vice President of Research and Development at 5D Robotics, a software company that designs user-friendly, intuitive functionality for unmanned systems. He confirmed my suspicions that increased autonomy doesn’t necessarily simplify the operation of unmanned vehicles.
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Autonomy, Situational Awareness, and the User Interface Part 1 |
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Autonomy is coming:
The US Army has announced plans to increase the autonomy of its Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). "We are moving along that spectrum from tele-operating to semiautonomy where you can send a robot from point A to point B without any intervention," said U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Thompson, project manager with the Robotic Systems Joint Program Office
This should not come as a surprise to anybody. Conventional thinking has held that increased autonomy for all unmanned systems, not just UGVs, will reduce operator workload and allow robots to fulfill their promise of force multiplication.
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A Few Thoughts on ISR & Unmanned Systems |
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The C4ISR explosion:
The need for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) is a major force driving the tremendous growth in unmanned systems. C4ISR systems constitute approximately 5% of many national defense budgets. One estimate of global C4ISR market in 2010 is $63.6 billion.
Changing our thinking
Broadly speaking, the ISR components (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) are sensor systems that collect raw data for the C4 components (Command, Control, Communications, Computers), which analyze and distribute the processed information. The fact that ISR and C4 are often combined into a single acronym not only highlights their interdependency, but also how rapidly advancing technology is blurring the
distinctions in which these issues have been traditionally discussed.
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Network-Centric Warfare: Dead or Alive? |
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One of the guiding principles for the defense community has been network-centric warfare. Most, if not all, weapon systems developed in the last decade have been evaluated by thisstandard.
Recently, the Department of Defense announced the closing of Networking and Information Integration (NII), an office closely associated with network-centric warfare. With the past elimination of Future Combat Systems, the Office of Force Transformation and other highprofile
endeavors, some are wondering if the emphasis on network-centric warfare is waning.
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This article about clichés and unmanned systems provoked an interesting discussion in AUVSI's group on the LinkedIn social network. We collected them and have posted them for you at the link below.
Reaction |
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I don’t know about you, but I am sick of certain clichés about unmanned systems and combat. It’s just my opinion, but some commonly repeated statements confuse, rather than clarify. Here are a couple of my "favorites."
"The use of unmanned systems in combat will destroy the warrior ethos."
I’m sure you’ve heard this. "They’re cowards, these so-called ‘soldiers’ who strike from afar. A real man confronts his enemy face-to-face. These new weapons should be banned."
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Multiple or Single Assets? |
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The direction for unmanned systems and all of the Defense community is clear; we must do more with less and do it faster. We need to create the best possible systems for tomorrow’s needs as soon as possible. One niggling little problem: what does tomorrow look like?
For example, do we develop unmanned systems with multiple assets or a single asset? Which payload configuration will be desirable for the future warfighter?
The obvious answer would seem to be, the more the better. Take the case of Sensitive Site Exploitation (SSE). Soldiers would love to have a robot that can enter a potentially dangerous house and clear it with non-lethal stun grenades.
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A breakthrough in the early acquisition of unmanned system’s innovations is creating opportunities for new companies. At the Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference in Miami, “…in just a span of 15 minutes, I saw $18 million worth of orders placed,” reported Michael Castillo, Senior Application Architect (Robotics).
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"Our solution is going to save lives," proclaims Michael Castillo, Senior Application Architect (Robotics) for AMREL. "Right now, control systems are a big headache for robots in theater. At least 42 separate Operator Control Units (OCUs) are used to command robots in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vast majority controls only a single type of unmanned system and cannot be modified to control others."
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AMREL's OCU Solution at Robotics Rodeo - Fort Hood, Texas |
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American Reliance Inc. (AMREL), developer of rugged mobile computer solutions, will demonstrate its revolutionary modular OCU solution at the Robotic Technology Observation, Demonstration and Discussion (RTOD2). Staged by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and III Corp, the RTOD2 will be held from August 31 to September 4 at the Robotics Rodeo in Ft. Hood, Texas.
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