By now, you’ve probably heard of the robotic vehicles that are being put to the task in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unmanned drones fly miles above terrorists, spying and even dropping missiles. Robots trained in bomb disassembly have been a huge help to the US army so far. The best thing about robotics automation is that it protects human life and is therefore very cost-effective. However, there are many more surprises stemming from robotics technology that have yet to be unveiled. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International conference in Washington DC let us in on a few of these futuristic vehicles.
“The good thing about this system is you don’t have to send a marine out and risk that life,” Captain James Lee said of his bomb-disassembling and reconnaissance mission robotic vehicles. The machines may cost $100,000 a piece, but they’re fairly durable, especially considering that duct tape and common materials can be used to patch them. The Packbot Scout Robot (developed by Robotic Systems JPO) quickly takes apart a bomb, saving an entire Humvee full of soldiers. The Dragon Eye and Raven B unmanned aircraft patrols the battlefields, even in adverse weather conditions. The Stalker (developed by Lockheed Martin) is especially keen for silent night operations, while the Golden Eye can hover for three hours, assessing the scene. The unmanned Predator drone is one of the most highly-touted autonomous robots used by the US military today.
Civilian robotic vehicles are also being developed for a number of uses. Sonar robotics technology is capturing never-before-seen images of deep sea beds with the Synthetic Aperture Sonar. Farmers use these vehicles to check on their crops. Forest rangers count trees and monitor wildlife in remote regions of their parks. Surface water vehicles are skimming the coasts, while underwater devices are recovering old shipwrecks and AWOL lobster traps that have fallen loose, thus threatening endangered marine animals.
The next batch of robotic vehicles set to be unleashed may surprise you. Seven hundred ton Caterpillar trucks are being developed by scientists from Carnegie Mellon University, enabling the trucks to move 240 tons of material from mining operations. Over the next five to ten years, the automated trucks are expected to debut, saving time and money. With a shortage of drivers, this new robotic innovation will likely hit the ground running.
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