Guarding mil­i­tary bases can be a lousy job — long strec­thes of mind-​​numbing bore­dom, punc­tu­ated by flashes of intense dan­ger.
A per­fect gig for a robot, in other words.
So Eglin Air Force Base in Florida is try­ing out a set of drones to watch its perime­ter, the AP notes.
One robot being tested is a Jeep-​​size, four-​​wheeled vehi­cle that has been equipped with radar, tele­vi­sion cam­eras and an infrared scan to detect peo­ple, vehi­cles and other objects. It car­ries a breadbox-​​sized mini-​​robot that can be launched to search under vehi­cles, inside build­ings and other small places.
Another robot is fash­ioned from an off-​​the-​​shelf, four-​​wheeled all-​​terrain vehi­cle, giv­ing it added ver­sa­til­ity because a human also can ride it like a nor­mal ATV. Both vehi­cles can be remotely oper­ated from lap­top com­put­ers and can be equipped with remotely fired weapons, like an M-​​16 rifle or pep­per spray.…
The vehi­cles can be pro­grammed to patrol spe­cific areas and then alert an oper­a­tor by radio if they find some­thing sus­pi­cious. They have loud­speak­ers and micro­phones for ques­tion­ing intrud­ers and the oper­a­tor can pick from a vari­ety of lan­guages. (via Gizmodo)
THERE’S MORE: Wanna talk about a really dan­ger­ous job? That’d the bat­tle­field medic. They’re plucked, usu­ally unarmed, into the mid­dle of a warzone’s hottest spots. Then they’re told to focus on the bleed­ing G.I. on the ground — not the guys shoot­ing at him.
Over at iRo­bot — the com­pany behind the drone vac­uum clean­ers and the PackBots that sol­diers are start­ing to carry around in their ruck­sacks — researchers are work­ing on a robot that could han­dle some of a medic’s duties.

If a sol­dier is wounded and under heavy fire, a medic may not be able to safely reach that sol­dier within the “golden hour” imme­di­ately fol­low­ing injury. This presents a stark choice between allow­ing the wounded soldier’s con­di­tion to worsen or plac­ing the medic in grave dan­ger to reach that casu­alty — poten­tially lead­ing to the death of both sol­dier and medic.
Bloodhound will save warfight­ers from this lethal dilemma. The Personal Status Monitors and smart uni­forms being devel­oped by the Army will detect when a sol­dier is wounded and alert a medic of the soldier’s GPS loca­tion. If the sol­dier is under fire, the medic will deploy a Bloodhound. Bloodhound will use directed frontier-​​based explo­ration to nav­i­gate autonomously across unknown ter­rain to the casu­alty. While the robot nav­i­gates to the sol­dier, the medic will be free to treat other casu­al­ties or dis­patch robots to other loca­tions.
When Bloodhound arrives at the wounded sol­dier, it will notify the medic, and the medic will exam­ine the casu­alty using the robot’s sen­sors. Bloodhound’s diag­nos­tic sen­sors include video cam­eras, an elec­tronic stetho­scope, and two-​​way audio to com­mu­ni­cate with a con­scious casu­alty.
After deter­min­ing the extent of the casualty’s injuries, the medic will be able to treat those injuries using Bloodhound’s med­ical pay­loads. Potential pay­loads include devices to stop bleed­ing (inflat­able ban­dages, fib­rin ban­dages, liq­uid fib­rin sealants, Factor VII), intra­mus­cu­lar auto-​​injectors (which can deliver mor­phine, adren­a­line, and nerve agent anti­dotes), and advanced diag­nos­tic devices. Using these pay­loads, the medic will be able to sta­bi­lize the casualty’s con­di­tion until a medic can arrive or the casu­alty can be evacuated. (via Engadget)