What Has DARPA Got In Mind for This Creepy Robot?

Hey, check out this video of DARPA's possible follow on to BigDog (at least that is what I think..) the Cheetah. Treadmill test show a speed of 18 mph. It can reach these speeds by mimicking the physiology of the fastest land animal, the Cheetah. Though clearly not as robust as BigDog, so supply material is not its main purpose and DARPA isn't elaborating on what the military applications are - but at those speeds, it sure would be good at running things down.......

New Satellites For Old!

Putting a satellite in orbit is massively expensive. Far from getting cheaper as the tech aged, the cost however still hovers around 10k for every pound launched. Estimates have it that there are roughly 300 billion dollars of hardware in geosynchronous orbits with a large portion of this total non functioning hardware.

DARPA is hoping to lower satellite cost significantly. How they plan to do that is elegant in it's simplicity. DARPA wants to harvest the dead hardware, which is more than likely 90% functional, for parts and build new satellites in place.

Here is what the Dvice article wrote:

• That 90% of stuff represents a lot of useful and expensive hardware. (the most useful) is the satellite's antenna, which represents the single biggest contributor to both functionality and launch cost. What DARPA wants to do is send a harvester satellite called Phoenix up to (harvest) things like antennas and solar panels from dead platforms and turn them into operational ... satellites. Tiny new controller modules called "satlets" will ride along with the harvester and be used to create new brains to get the ... parts all working together properly, effectively creating an entirely new satellite.

Now there is something I can get behind!

Complete article here

DARPA Falcon HTV-2 Deemed Sucessful

Remember the Darpa Falcon HTV-2 mach 20 test plane that the Pentagon lost control of? Well in an ongoing effort to put a positive spin on, DARPA has concluded that the Falcon HTV-2 which controllers lost contact with 20 minutes into the flight, has been rated a successes. DARPA reports that after contact was lost, the test vehicle flew 3 minutes making a controlled decent into the ocean. Now I don't want to call BS on this, but...3 minutes? From what 80 thousand feet? With the control surfaces locked and not in powered flight...well look, it takes a balloon over 9 minutes to fall from 60...So isn't that bs already? as for controlled entry into the ocean? Sounds like a euphemism for crashing to me... So what they really are saying it seems it took 3 minutes to crash into the ocean? ok, well that is the last I am going to mention this...It just seemed so strange that they would put such an obvious spin on this thing, just makes me suspicious... ehhhh....

Pentagon's Falcon HTV-2 Goes Missing on Test Flight

Ground controllers lost contact August 11th with the Pentagon's Falcon HTV-2 Hypersonic test platform, which is capable of speeds in excess of 20x the speed of sound, less than 30 minutes into its test flight.

Launched atop of a Minotaur IV rocket made by Orbital Sciences Corp. at 7:45 a.m. local time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, DARPA controllers announced at around 8:22 local time, engineers “lost telemetry” with the aircraft. Controllers said later that day that the HTV-2 had "transitioned" to mach 20 where it continued to fly for an additional nine minutes under full control and telemetry, until, as it was put, an anomaly caused loss of signal..... don't you just love euphemisms?

Even though this could be viewed as a failure, this test flight was 3x longer than the previous 9 minutes of operation before the test bed drone crashed into the Pacific.

The Pentagon's HTV-2 test plane's design will allow a non-nuclear response to threats anywhere in the world, within one hour.

As crazy as a 1 hour anywhere in the world hypersonic bomb might seem, It wasn't the Bush administration's first choice. Rearming nuclear tipped Trident missile submarine with conventional explosives was.

Darpa seeks an underwater plane

Remember the Bond car that was also a sub? How about Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's flying subs? Well Darpa have put on their wild idea caps and have asked for a feasibility study on guess what...yep a flying sub. If your in doubt, here is the government site that is asking for proposals for just such a device.

From the Fedbizopps.gov Darpa site: DARPA is interested in a feasibility study and experiments to prove out the possibility of making an aircraft that can maneuver underwater.

From Network World: The agency's Submersible Aircraft research project is exploring the possibility of making an aircraft that can maneuver underwater with the goal of revolutionizing the US Department of Defense's ability to, for example, bring warfighters and equipment to coastal locations or enhance rescue operations. DARPA said that the concept being evaluated here is for a submersible aircraft, not a flying submarine.

Darpa has gone so far as to set up preliminary specs for said Uplane: here is a partial list.

• Flight: The minimal required airborne tactical radius of the sub-plane is 1000 nautical miles.
• Loiter: The platform should be capable of loitering i for up to 3 days .
  
• Payload: The platform should be capable of transporting 8 operators, as well as all of their equipment, with a total cargo weight of 2000 pounds.

<- more on the DARPA proposal ->

Tufts Scientists to Develop Morphing "Chemical Robots"

Scientists at Tufts University have received a $3.3 million contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop chemical robots that will be so soft and squishy that they will be able to squeeze into spaces as tiny as 1 centimeter, then morph back into something 10 times larger, and ultimately biodegrade.

Today's rigid robots are unable to navigate complex environments with openings of arbitrary size and shape. They are stymied by, say, a building whose only access points may be a crack under a door or a conduit for an electrical cable.

The robot design is inspired by the team's findings on both the neuro-mechanical system of the Manduca sexta caterpillar. The Tufts chembots will copy some of the performance capability of Manduca, including its flexibility, climbing ability and scalability – from hatching to the end of its larval stage, the caterpillar grows 10,000 fold in mass using the same number of muscles and motor neurons.

According to Dr. Mitchell Zakin, Ph.D., DARPA program manager for the ChemBots program,

“DARPA’s ChemBots program represents the convergence of soft materials chemistry and robotics. It is an entirely new way of looking at robots and could someday yield great technological advantage for our armed forces.” Read full article

Darpa working on power exoskeleton

Backpacks are a mainstay of soldiers, hikers, firefighters and others who have to lug heavy loads, often over rough terrain where wheeled vehicles cannot traverse. But hauling them can be quite the chore, limiting wearers' mobility, especially over long distances. Scientists at M.I.T. Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group have, with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), developed an exoskeleton that promises to not only lessen the load of weary travelers but also to advance research that will ultimately lead to robotic limbs that improve the strength and mobility of amputees.

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post


image: Courtesy of the MIT Media Lab

StarWars type Binoculars on Darpa drawing board

In a new effort dubbed "Luke's Binoculars" -- after the high-tech binoculars Luke Skywalker uses in Star Wars -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is setting out to create its own version of this science-fiction hardware. These binoculars will add a strange and powerful new weapon in their arsenal: a pair of high-tech binoculars 10 times more powerful than anything available today. To be able to achieve this level of power, Darpa hopes to integrate technologies that have been in laboratories for years, ranging from flat-field, wide-angle optics, to the use of advanced electroencephalograms, or EEGs, to rapidly recognize brainwave signatures. The defense agency wants the binoculars to have a range of 1,000 to 10,000 meters, compared to the current generation, which can see out only 300 to 1,000 meters, also the binoculars are supposed to provide a 120-degree field of view and be able to spot moving vehicles as far as 10 kilometers away. The most far-reaching component of the binoculars has nothing to do with the optics: it's Darpa's aspirations to integrate EEG electrodes that monitor the wearer's neural signals, cueing soldiers to recognize targets faster than the unaided brain could on its own.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders