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Uncommonly Sensible

Keeping the "anal" in analytical... (While trying to remain civilized)

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Location: United States

Monday, August 27, 2012

Technically speaking...

I work in the defense industry and have been following the development of various new technologies in addition to those that I work on personally.

Specifically, for the purposes of this post I'm referring to a number of autonomous systems (unmanned, robotics) of interest; a few of them are showcased below.

First are a few items by QinetiQ, from their website.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Zephyr®: a high altitude long endurance UAV that can support payloads for surveillance or communications.

In July 2010 it set the world record for the longest duration unmanned flight by flying for 14 days, reaching an altitude of over 70,000 feet.

Robotics

Dragon Runner™: a small unmanned ground vehicle, which can be carried in a pack, enables users to see around corners in urban environments and can be customized in the field.

MAARS®: a modular ground robot system capable of providing force escalation options from non-lethal to lethal for a measured response to combat situations.

TALON®: powerful and man-portable, TALON is the fastest robot on the market (easily keeping pace with a running soldier). It can cope with virtually any terrain and has a very high payload capacity for all-weather day/night sensor packages.

The iRobot company is probably best known for the "Roomba" automated vacuum cleaning robot, but they also produce several tactical systems.

110 FirstLook™: a small, light, throwable robot that provides hasty situational awareness, performs persistent observation and investigates confined spaces.

310 SUGV: (Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle) is a tactical mobile robot that gathers situational awareness in dangerous conditions for warfighters and public safety professionals.

510 Packbot®: a tactical mobile robot that performs multiple missions while keeping warfighters and first responders out of harm’s way.

710 Warrior®: a big and powerful robot that carries heavy payloads.

The best thing about these systems is the fact that if they get destroyed by whatever means, it prevents the loss of life...

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