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!"<p>[1] The article mentions that they built a quieter version of the robot that carried less. More interesting were problems about how to maintain the things (from training mechanics to supplying replacement parts) and how to integrate them into current training. (How/when to use? Advantages? Disadvantages?)<p>[2] For those of you interested in the U.S. Military's use of Mules in more recent times: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/15/riding-high" rel="nofollow">http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/15/riding-high</a>
These are the "Big Dog" mules being built by Boston Dynamics, who was recently acquired by Google.<p>Google has been against militarizing the robots since acquisition, so they're no doubt happy to have this contract dropped.<p>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 out.
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...
Can anyone in robotics weigh in on whether new approaches like pneubotics / otherlab [0, 1] make Boston Dynamics' super heavy/noisy/expensive robots irrelevant or not? That's what Saul Griffith has been saying at least [2], I'd like to hear an impartial take on it<p>[0] <a href="http://www.pneubotics.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pneubotics.com/</a><p>[1] <a href="https://otherlab.com/projects" rel="nofollow">https://otherlab.com/projects</a><p>[2] "[...] we're the only game in town." 21:00 onwards <a href="https://youtu.be/gyMowPAJwqo?t=1263" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/gyMowPAJwqo?t=1263</a>
why do they need this. What are they carrying? Are marines supposed to go without resupplies for weeks/months where they would need an additional robot mule to carry everything?
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.
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.
I'm having a hard time seeing why you couldn't take something like a fat bike, and put an electrical assist motor on it, and have troops use that, mostly by pushing it. If you run out of battery, it still works 100% except now you have to push all the weight (or pedal, which could also be used to charge the battery). Gotta leave in a hurry? Use the bike, or just throw it away. Slash the tires and it's pretty much useless for the enemy.<p>Probably < $1,000 wholesale in off the shelf parts. Def. less than $40mm. Easily carry 100lbs of gear.
These will be turned into mounted auto targeting gun platforms if they haven't been already. This is the 2nd time reading about this topic so the DOD PR team is in full spin. This might be a intelligence counter-measure to show the world 'see we dont want to use this tech!' when in reality it has been taken over into black ops world.