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Home » Drones » Robo-​​Mule Gets Wheel, Leg Blend

Robo-​​Mule Gets Wheel, Leg Blend

Click this link, peo­ple. It’s the Amazon page for David Hambling’s Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-​​Tech World. David, a mil­i­tary tech writer for New Scientist and oth­ers, has his first story for us, below. And it’s really good. Let’s encour­age him to write more, by send­ing him up the Amazon sales charts.
mule_log_reduced.jpgGadgets are get­ting smaller. Materials are get­ting lighter. But the mod­ern foot sol­dier is lug­ging a big­ger load than ever. The U.S. Army is hop­ing to take some of this weight off with a new-​​fangeled beast of bur­den. The Future Force Warrior program’s Robotic Mule will be able to go wher­ever the infantry go, car­ry­ing sup­plies and ammu­ni­tion and giv­ing them some­where to plug in their recharg­ers.
One approach to the Mule is to build a four-​​legged robot very much like the bio­log­i­cal ver­sion — or some sort of wheeled equiv­a­lent. But there is another way, and this is where Danny Hillis of Applied Minds comes in. Hillis is best known for devel­op­ing the par­al­lel pro­cess­ing that under­lies most mod­ern super­com­put­ers, but has been active in many dif­fer­ent fields. His idea is to develop some­thing that is part wheel, part leg, com­bin­ing the strengths of both. It’s not a mat­ter of rein­vent­ing the wheel so much as repack­ag­ing it.
“Nature doesn’t gen­er­ally use wheels,” Hillis explains, “because although they are good for smooth sur­faces, there are few smooth sur­faces in nature. In fact we spent a great deal of effort build­ing flat sur­faces for wheels to roll on. It would be bet­ter to have a wheel which could go on any sur­face.“

Robot legs
are com­plex and inef­fi­cient — typ­i­cally they rely on dynamic sta­bil­ity, which means that a legged robot falls over when power turned off. Hillis built a large robot dinosaur for the Disney organ­i­sa­tion, and says that the amaz­ing thing is that it walks at all.
mule_wired_quarterview.jpgThe new alter­na­tive would be as sim­ple and cheap as a wheel but with the all-​​terrain capa­bil­ity of legs. Hillis is very cagey about the con­fig­u­ra­tion — evi­dently there have been sev­eral dif­fer­ent ver­sions and the pic­ture shows one pro­to­type. The ulti­mate design may be com­pletely dif­fer­ent.
Shi-​​Ping Hsu, Director at Northrop Grumman’s Futures Laboratory, is col­lab­o­rat­ing on the project. He points out that a wheel/​leg hybrid should be able to give a much lower cen­tre of grav­ity than the usual large wheels used for rough ter­rain, mak­ing it much more suit­able for mil­i­tary appli­ca­tions.
If suc­cess­ful, the wheel/​leg hybrid could have all sorts of uses for both pow­ered and unpow­ered vehi­cles. The robotic mule and its rela­tions will be the first ben­e­fi­cia­ries, but it could give to a new gen­er­a­tion of all-​​terrain vehi­cles. Eventually every­thing from elec­tric wheel­chairs to baby bug­gies may be able to nego­ti­ate all sorts of obsta­cles that are impos­si­ble today with the aid of the new hybrid.
Hillis would not be drawn on when the wheel/​leg project would be com­pleted, but hinted that the design would be suf­fi­ciently sim­ple that it could very read­ily be adapted and could spread quickly.
Can you really improve on a design that’s been around for thou­sands of years? “I’m not say­ing that we do have the solu­tion,” says Hillis, “but we might have a solu­tion.“
– David Hambling
(Images cour­tesy of Applied Minds)

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October 14th, 2005 | Drones | 170385 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2005/10/14/robo-mule-gets-wheel-leg-blend/Robo-Mule+Gets+Wheel%2C+Leg+Blend2005-10-14+16%3A41%3A45dupont You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. Naraa Haras says:
    October 14, 2005 at 4:31 pm

    Looks like a robotic leg, but sim­plier. Start out with a sim­ple lever that swings on a pen­du­lum, give it par­al­lel sup­port, such as the four ‘legs’ shown above and you have a very sim­ple four-​​legged crea­ture. Lessons learned from this design can lead to improve­ments like addi­tional lift in the form of an artic­u­lat­ing ankle, or knee and thigh, or per­haps the pri­mary leg sup­port itself length­ens, although that has its own prob­lems. Another prob­lem with the above design is rota­tion. The ankle or hip would be needed to allow the machine to pivot.
    In the end we end up with four legs, each con­tain­ing a hip, thigh, knee, shin, ankle, and foot with increas­ing com­plex­ity as the design matures. Now, I’m not a naysayer, I just don’t think this sort of design is an end, but an early evo­lu­tion­ary step. Nature doesn’t use wheels or cre­sents in propul­sion prob­a­bly for a good rea­son: flex­i­bil­ity.
    That said, it is good to see that some smart peo­ple are tak­ing a dif­fer­ent tact and design­ing some­thing sim­ple that work now with the inten­tion to add com­plex­ity later rather than tak­ing enor­mously com­pli­cated and under­pow­ered, fully-​​articulated limbs into the field.

    Reply
  2. Alaric Weigle says:
    October 14, 2005 at 6:17 pm

    Hmmm, what about the “Twheel” and sim­i­lar con­cepts?
    http://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2​0​0​5​/​0​1​/​0​3​/​a​u​t​o​m​o​b​i​l​e​s​/​0​3​c​a​r​s​.​h​t​m​l​?​e​x​=​1​2​6​2​4​9​4​8​0​0​&​a​m​p​;​e​n​=​f​8​f​4​2​0​d​f​5​c​a​1​2​6​1​d​&​a​m​p​;​e​i​=​5​0​8​8​&​a​m​p​;​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​=​r​s​s​nyt
    http://​www​.tech​nov​elgy​.com/​c​t​/​S​c​i​e​n​c​e​-​F​i​c​t​i​o​n​-​N​e​w​s​.​a​s​p​?​N​e​w​s​N​u​m​=​176
    http://​www​.tech​nov​elgy​.com/​c​t​/​S​c​i​e​n​c​e​-​F​i​c​t​i​o​n​-​N​e​w​s​.​a​s​p​?​N​e​w​s​N​u​m​=​309

    Reply
  3. jack says:
    October 14, 2005 at 8:52 pm

    Nature doesn’t use wheels at all, and not just because they are not suited to all sur­faces. How would a wheel spin­ning on any kind of axle get nutri­ents? What kind of con­nec­tor would it take to link a spin­ning wheel with its “life’s blood”? Imagine, then, a dog with wheels instead of feet. What would keep the wheels alive? A sure case of avas­cu­lar necro­sis before the poor dog even got its wheels on the ground. Just a thought!

    Reply
  4. Wembley says:
    October 15, 2005 at 6:11 am

    The Creative Minds project was orig­i­nally called “Leg pairs as vir­tual wheels”, and they’re clearly try­ing to com­bine a walk­ing, rolling gait.
    Biologists point out some instances of wheels in nature, but they are under­stand­ably rare, and its the whole crea­ture rolling rather than hav­ing wheels underneath.

    Reply
  5. Gods iPod says:
    October 15, 2005 at 6:14 pm

    Indeed nature DOES use wheels. And your assump­tions are cor­rect, as evo­lu­tion would never pro­duce a wheel. Not only are wheels found in bio­log­i­cal organ­ism, but rotary motors with for­ward and reverse gears. Clearly some­thing that did not evolve. There is a Designer. He can be known.
    http://​www​.idthink​.net/​b​i​o​t​/​w​h​e​el/

    Reply
  6. jtw says:
    October 16, 2005 at 12:07 am

    Worthless Idea.
    If he wants to com­pare his robot with nature he should at least use the most affec­tive mech­a­nism that life on Earth uses. THERE ARE NO ANIMALS THAT USE FOUR LEGGED WHEEL LEG COMBINATIONS. THIS GUY NOT ONLY MISREPRESENTS HIS IDEA, THE IDEA SUCKS.
    His robot is too cheap to use bipedals or sup­port itself on four legs and be able to move so this par­ral­lel pro­cess­ing nobody “hacks it” and uses his lit­tle pvc pipe sci­ence project and calls it an inno­va­tion.
    The guy is an idiot and his robot sucks.
    He prob­a­bly stole the idea from a fifth grader anyways.

    Reply
  7. DonB says:
    October 16, 2005 at 12:31 am

    OMG, Do you have any idea who you are call­ing an idiot? The guy who designed the pro­to­type we see above is a cer­ti­fied genius. I’ve seen and read about his inven­tions for years. He is even in the process of devel­op­ing a clock that will run for 10,000 years! He’s built a 13 foot tall walk­ing robot that is the Largest walk­ing robot built to date I believe. All I’m say­ing is that is a PROTOTYPE. The end game will prob­a­bly be much more advanced and robust. You are the idiot sir. Not the man who is actu­ally build­ing and invent­ing a robot (which you’ve only seen a pro­to­type of).

    Reply
  8. jtw says:
    October 16, 2005 at 3:20 am

    lol it is not hard to build a 13 foot tall walk­ing robot. I can build a 14 foot tall robot, am I a genius?
    A clock that will run for 10,000 years? Big deal its called solar power.
    Its a lit­tle robot that is slow, cheap, and dumb. All it does is swing its legs around so it can climb over a 1 foot obsta­cle. BIG DEAL.
    An impres­sive robot is one that can beat a human in any­thing and every­thing.. that includes run­ning, jump­ing, gym­nas­tics, lift­ing, and gen­eral mobil­ity.
    ELSE THIS IS JUST A CHEAP SCIENCE PROJECT I CAN MAKE IN MY GARAGE.
    I wouldnt say this guy has proven he is all that qual­i­fied or inno­v­a­tive in mak­ing robots. He prob­a­bly has 100000X more money then I do, with 100000X less inno­va­tion and ideas then I could come up.
    Spare me, half the junk that gets posted on this web­site is just that–JUNK. And 8/​10 times it is also a waste of money on top of being a piece of use­less junk.

    Reply
  9. jtw says:
    October 16, 2005 at 11:37 am

    What is so hard about it? We know tons about anatomy. Our com­put­ers are fast enough to make it work. Sure maybe the arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence might not be per­fect but given the effort the robot would walk and run but just might be dumb.
    I HIGHLY DOUBT mak­ing a “Mule” robot in my back­yard would make me rich. Its called an ATV and they are already read­ily avail­able on the mar­ket. And well I dont htink it would be all that worth­while for me to stick a cam­era and lidar on the front of it and make it autonomous.
    Now mak­ing a bipedal robot com­bat sol­dier would be worth­while but I dont have the money. And the peo­ple who do have the money dont have the right vision.
    And yes a 14′ robot that can walk is not hard to do. It is pretty sim­ple, might cost a few thou­sand dol­lars in junk­yard scrap and motors but it would be easy to do.
    And mak­ing a human­like robot com­bat sol­diers is NOT THAT hard. Making the actual robot would be easy, pro­gram­ming it and giv­ing it suf­fi­cient life and logic to move its limbs and bal­ance itself would be the hard­est part.
    I dont care enough about this coun­try to want to spend my own money doing it either. They spit on the 2nd Amendment, they spit on our pri­vacy rights, and they allow for­eign coun­tries to buy large parts of the coun­try. I could care less about the “United States of America”.
    Now I know why my State of Rhode Island didnt attend the con­sti­tu­tional con­ven­tion and was one of the last to rat­ify the con­sti­tu­tion out of the orig­i­nal 13 states. A cen­tral­ized fed­eral gov­ern­ment with too much power obvi­ously does not work and we are pay­ing the price. Now we have half the rights we did in the 1800’s and early early 1900’s. The supreme court and con­gress are trai­tors. And the peo­ple in this coun­try are com­mu­nist wel­fare sup­port­ing under­achiev­ing idiots.
    Screw them and screw you. Go about your piti­ful lit­tle life and stop post­ing on the inter­net like you know what your talk­ing about.

    Reply
  10. jk says:
    October 16, 2005 at 4:24 pm

    This guy for real?
    mak­ing com­bat­hu­man­like robot com­bat sol­diers is NOT THAT hard?
    it’s just recently that any­one has been able to get a robot to walk dynam­i­cally, and jog, and that was at the cost of mil­lions of dol­lars and over a decade of research. you know, the AISMO. it’s slower than real peo­ple, more expen­sive to make, weaker, and likely has a very short bat­tery life.
    the right vision is mak­ing a com­bat humanoid robot? we already have some­thing that does every­thing it could do bet­ter: peo­ple. it’s all about spe­cial­iza­tion. it’s best to make a machine that can do one thing bet­ter than any­thing else could, than one that can do any­thing, but do it worse than a per­son.
    You sound like one of those retarded 12 year old anime fans who insist that a gun­dam would be the best weapon for war, and that we could make one with cur­rent tech­nol­ogy.
    and we have half the rights we did in the 1800’s?
    wtf? how about blacks and women being able to vote? that not good enough for you?

    Reply
  11. jtw says:
    October 16, 2005 at 5:08 pm

    because other peo­ple are idiots you think every­one else is?
    ASIMO is some japan­ese low tech kids toy. I dont con­sider that an advanced robot. Sorry.
    I am 23 and I think anime is for gay peo­ple.
    About our rights, read the 1934 National Firearms Act, Read the 1986 “Gun Owners PRotection Act”, Read the Patriot Act(the orig­i­nal). Read the new coop­er­a­tion with Mexico and Canada. Read about intel­li­gence shar­ing with other coun­tries. Go out to the pub­lic and see how you get searched by the police when­ever they feel like it even though our con­sti­tu­tion says we are sup­posed to be safe in our per­sons and pos­s­e­sions from unrea­son­able search and seizure. Read about RFID and what the gov­ern­ment is fund­ing it for. Read about GPS implants and what thay hope to do with it. Read about the laws that infringe on our first amend­ment for speak­ing about revolt and every­thing evil the gov­ern­ment does so they can spy on us once we do it. Read about how we allow our goods to be made by slave labor in EVIL coun­tries that enslave their peo­ple. Read about our coop­er­a­tion between our Military and other coun­tries. Read about how we allow for­eign defense indus­try to oper­ate within the coun­try. Read about all the junk we buy from over­seas for our Military. Read about all the aid we give to Israel.
    There are hun­dreds of things that PISS me off about the coun­try. It all went to shit in 1934 and has got­ten worse and worse.
    If I could wage my own war I would. It is my con­sti­tu­tional right as a mem­ber of the RHode Island unor­ga­nized mili­tia to fight ene­mies for­eign and DOMESTIC. And there are LOTS of domes­tic ene­mies.
    I am only 23, I have awhile to go. But I can guar­an­tee I am leav­ing this planet with a bang. For san­ity and the love of my fam­ily.
    I cant STAND most peo­ple in this coun­try. They are either dumb and make their liv­ings doing some­thing that ben­e­fits soci­ety ZERO (like umm accoun­tants and tele­mar­keters). Or they are depen­dant on the gov­ern­ment and live in POVERTY. Or they go through their life in a use­ful field but with poor edu­ca­tion and lack of intu­ition and vision and basi­cally do NOTHING to progress sci­ence and research.
    THere are smart peo­ple yes. there are peo­ple that share my ideal of free­dom yes. But MOST of the peo­ple dont know their his­tory, dont care about their free­doms, think its ok for the gov­ern­ment syn­di­cate to do what it does.
    And the amount of for­eign trash that live here wav­ing flags and speak­ing for­eign lan­guages is dis­gust­ing. YOU ARE AMERICAN OR YOU ARENT. IF YOU WANT TO FLY THE FLAG OF BRAZIL OR MEXICO GO THERE AND DO IT. Fake amer­i­cans.
    We sup­pos­edly have some of the best schools, well from what I see only a small per­cent­age of col­lege grad­u­ates ever do any­thing pro­duc­tive. I mean if we grad­u­ate 100,000+ Computer Engineers, where the heck are all the com­puter com­pa­nies? I mean I dont even think that there is a SINGLE COMPUTER MOTHERBOARD MANUFACTURER IN THE UNITED STATES. Where do all these col­lege grad­u­ates go? What are all the elec­tri­cal engi­neers doing? It obvi­ously isnt robotics..

    Reply
  12. Carl Summers says:
    October 16, 2005 at 6:20 pm

    This guy is at best a troll. He’s taken a news item about robots for mil­i­tary use and turned it into a dis­cus­sion about… some­thing else. Ignore him, post about the arti­cle or related ideas, and let him go out with a fizzle.

    Reply
  13. doug says:
    October 16, 2005 at 6:30 pm

    Hey jtw– cool down man.
    I think you need to find a pol­i­tics blog. What you say about America is not untrue. I can under­stand where you are com­ing from.
    But — you still are a lit­tle nive about tech. The stuff this guy does…i.e. the 13″ robot dinosaur — it’s so high tech that if it felt an eggshell under it’s foot it would back up real quick before break­ing it. It’s not just a heap o’ junk that walks.
    Read up on this guy before you diss him. You seem to read up on any­thing else :)

    Reply
  14. jtw says:
    October 16, 2005 at 6:36 pm

    Ok Carl Summers then tell me.
    What mil­i­tary use does this robot give?
    Autonomous cargo haul­ing?
    Do you think the robot pic­tured in this arti­cle is going to fol­low a sol­dier in a com­bat envi­ron­ment and carry gear?
    1) It prob­a­bly cant move much faster then 1MPH.
    2) It prob­a­bly cant get over any obsta­cle half its height where a sol­dier can climb many obsta­cles.
    3) It doesnt look to be autonomous but rather self pro­pelled and guided by the sol­dier.
    4) It doesnt have enough energy to oper­ate for long amounts of time.
    5) If it does have enough energy, it doesnt have enough power to carry any sig­nif­i­cant load + main­tain energy in stor­age for any decent amount of time.
    So what is the big deal about this thing? It prob­a­bly runs off gas any­ways and is just con­tribut­ing to the death and destruc­tion of the planet not only by fight­ing wars but by con­sum­ing nat­ural unreknew­able resources.
    And a APC would be much bet­ter any­ways because it can carry more, is multi use, is just as unstealthy as robo mule, and prob­a­bly con­sumes the same amount of resource to oper­ate over­all. It is more eco­nomic to build 1000X APC’s then it is to build 10000X robo mule’s. 1X APC can facil­i­tate 10X sol­diers, 1X robo mule can facil­i­tate one sol­dier so ther­fore you need to build 10X more. And you prob­a­bly are extin­guish­ing more resources build­ing 10000X robo mule’s then you extin­guish build­ing 1000X APC’s.
    So I dont see the use of it.
    A self pow­ered exoskele­ton would be more worth­while. Because not only can it carry gear, it can be equipped with armor to pro­tect the sol­dier and allow the sol­dier to carry and equip larger weapons that he nor­mally would not be able to carry or oper­ate as an indi­vid­ual in the flesh and bones with no mechan­i­cal aid.
    Applied Minds, more like Wannabee Minds look­ing for .gov money because they cant make a liv­ing in the real world.
    I think we already started field­ing these things any­ways, thought I seen it on the Military Channel “Star Wars Weapons of the Future” pro­gram.
    What a joke that show was, we are in sad shape.

    Reply
  15. zac says:
    October 16, 2005 at 8:18 pm

    viva la rev­olu­cion! yeah, we’ll see how this over­funded crap will work when the bat­tle is on a muddy hill­side, after some mor­tar rounds land nearby and a sniper catches this turd walk­ing (?) around.

    Reply
  16. jtw says:
    October 16, 2005 at 9:32 pm

    It wont be until 2010 until the Army decides it invents the idea of an anti mor­tar sys­tem. 30 bil­lion dol­lars later we might actu­ally get one.
    We prob­a­bly have some guy man­ning the pha­lanx and dont actu­ally have a fire con­trol sys­tem for it. And we prob­a­bly only have them guard­ing bases.
    We dont need RPG and mor­tar pro­tec­tion for our troops, they are expend­able. Lets send them out on patrol despite the fact we cant detect explo­sives and have no pro­tec­tion from enemy indi­rect and direct fire besides our vehi­cle armor.
    BRILLIANT.
    We have all the right peo­ple mak­ing all the right deci­sions *bangs head into wall*..
    Nevermind a counter sniper sys­tem, we devel­oped audio tra­ian­gu­la­tion, we dont need any­thing else. Our lit­tle anten­nas on the top of our vehi­cle will tell us when we got shot after the fact. What else could you ask for!
    We dont need unmanned gun plat­forms we will ride around with our upper body stick­ing out man­ning a machine gun and hope our micro­phones and 1″ armor pro­tects us from snipers, RPG’s, mor­tars and IEDS’s.
    And if we need stuff, we can rely on ROBO MULE to be right behind us (only if we take atten­tion to pull it around).
    I can tell money and brain­power is well used in the Military.
    Stingy with the research money though, I guess the more you suck and the more stu­pid you are deter­mines how much money and atten­tion you get.

    Reply
  17. jtw says:
    October 16, 2005 at 9:57 pm

    And im pretty sure that big robot could only detect an egg under its foot in con­trolled exper­i­ment. But is it really that hard? I mean put a sen­sor on its foot like a pres­sure pad. Slowly have the robot lower its leg and if the sen­sor pad sends back a sig­nal, stop the leg.
    Hardly inno­v­a­tive and hardly remark­able.
    What obsta­cles could it over­come? I never seen it over­come any obsta­cles. IM sure it was all care­fully staged any­ways.
    Lets give the guy money because he built the ulti­mate junk­yard wars con­trap­tion! Awesome and he only had years to do it and unlim­ited prod­ucts to choose from!
    Genius? LOL

    Reply
  18. sw says:
    October 17, 2005 at 12:38 am

    Hey jtw… tell your mom I said that if she doesn’t reign her son in, I’m going to be bring­ing the nip­ple clamps with me

    Reply
  19. jm says:
    October 17, 2005 at 9:03 am

    The crude, juve­line com­ments above are scary. You folks are a sad exam­ple of what (lit­tle) passes for wit in America today.

    Reply
  20. stephen russell says:
    October 17, 2005 at 9:47 am

    Combine Wheels & Legs:
    Wheels for smoother sur­face & faster speeds, Legs for Mtns etc ter­rain.
    Legs can Retract into Main Body for Wheel Mode Use.
    Very doable.
    Alas, vehi­cle would need 2 engines or mod­ifed 1 engine for Wheel Mode & Leg Mode.
    & gyrosta­bal­izer for Leg Use Mode.
    Other Robo Mule mar­kets:
    Exploration
    SAR
    Heavy car­goes
    Recon role
    Mapping
    MedEvac.
    Robo Mules can be air­dropped into sites unlike WW2 era mules for China Burma Theatre.
    I dubb the Robo Mule the StillWell Vehicle.
    Gen Joseph Stillwill from China CBI.

    Reply
  21. Depressed by Dorks says:
    October 17, 2005 at 1:19 pm

    Well, I guess defensetech has the same prob­lem as other tech web sites — dorks like jtw and rick­ey­dickey who have all the knowl­edge, clar­ity and cer­tainty of ado­les­cents. Interesting how things get com­pli­cated as peo­ple grow up and acquire some insight and expe­ri­ence. Like any other 15-​​year-​​old fanat­ics, they are best ignored and kept under sur­veil­lance by their mom­mies or the police.
    As a first-​​time vis­i­tor, I appre­ci­ate the efforts of some other com­menters to refo­cus on the topic of the post, since that is really what brought (most of) us to this site in the first place. It’s hard because dorks are so annoy­ing, fanatic, insis­tent, pre­ten­tious, self-​​important, grandiose, intol­er­ant, inac­cu­rate and flam­ma­ble. Often wrong, as they say, but never in doubt.
    Anyone who has been in the mil­i­tary will imme­dately rec­og­nize the value of a “mule” type device. What you can do in the field often depends on what you can bring with you. Good idea. Keep work­ing on it.

    Reply
  22. Lisa says:
    October 17, 2005 at 2:32 pm

    Spooky how the trolls come in.

    Reply
  23. George says:
    October 17, 2005 at 2:40 pm

    TJW, Obviously you know noth­ing about tech­nol­ogy. You may be using some big words but that doesnt mean you know what they mean, and if you had fully read the arti­cle which im guess­ing you dont like to read, then you would have seen that the robot pic­tured was only a pro­to­type, imag­ine how many light­bulbs were made before one was per­fected, so why cant it be the same with this? Trial and error is a big part in some­thing like this. This guy could have a major break through here, and i dont see him spend­ing your money so SHUT UP.

    Reply
  24. glen says:
    October 17, 2005 at 5:06 pm

    i’ll buy a por­tion of that ticket… i imag­ine your mommy and daddy will put up the rest!

    Reply
  25. jer says:
    October 17, 2005 at 5:19 pm

    I have an idea. Why not use a read­ily avail­able prod­uct that does the same thing. Carries a cou­ple hun­dred pounds. Its envi­ron­men­tally friendly, it has low level AI to fol­low a sol­dier and try to stay alive. It needs no gaso­line or elec­tric­ity. Its called a mule and it cost less than $1000 and in a pinch you can eat it.

    Reply
  26. James the witch says:
    October 17, 2005 at 11:40 pm

    LISA — good call, no GREAT call.
    LOL
    James

    Reply
  27. James the witch says:
    October 17, 2005 at 11:42 pm

    jtw
    i think you are mak­ing a lot of sense, truly.
    i also see some value, though, in the use of some type of robotic or proto-​​robotic device that could con­vey much like a pack animal.

    Reply
  28. doug says:
    October 18, 2005 at 12:46 pm

    Hey jtw -
    i think you miss the point.
    It is the prin­ci­ple of the mule, the idea, not the tech­nol­ogy that makes it good.
    An idea does not have to be com­pli­cated to be good :)
    Why would politi­cians in europe not be able to under­stand eng­lish? England is in europe. I bet they can :) And about 90% of the peo­ple over here have some grasp of the eng­lish lan­guage. Hey, even the mex­i­can peo­ple do. You note I say over “here”. Yes I am European :D
    Most english/​American peo­ple do not have a grasp of a sec­ond language…am I try­ing to make a point? I do not think so. I know.

    Reply
  29. nathan says:
    October 18, 2005 at 4:19 pm

    i like the self pow­ered exoskele­ton idea that jtw men­tioned ear­lier. i’ve thought about it before and i think it would be a great advance­ment to the mil­i­tary. i dont think this mule is very effi­cient, although its a start for some trial and error. i do not believe the fin­ished prod­uct will be any­thing like what is shown.

    Reply
  30. Spandroid says:
    October 20, 2005 at 5:28 pm

    How about Investing in elim­i­nat­ing all need for wartime devices and schemes? It is inter­est­ing that robot­ics inno­va­tions are often devel­oped pri­mar­ily for mil­i­tary appli­ca­tions. I under­stand the impor­tance of load car­ry­ing, it is just sad that new con­cepts are devel­oped first for security/​defense=($$$)
    then enter­prise=($$),
    then con­sumer=($) or some­times
    that mid­dle grade of health care/​subsidies, for tak­ing care of the peo­ple who got shot fol­low­ing a robotic mule around in the first place. What good is that for a start­ing point? Investing in health-​​care that re-​​enables humans right from the start would do the great­est good.

    Reply
  31. Bubba says:
    October 21, 2005 at 1:05 am

    Hey JTW,
    Did you know the selec­tive ser­vice is look­ing for you? Oh, don’t worry about the mule. Everyone else will be get­ting one. You can take your RTV. During com­bat, you may want to shut its noisy engine off so you can sneak past the opo­si­tion by push­ing it rather than get­ting caught! When you are in clear grounds, you may still want to keep an eye out for sharp objects on the ground as you just have one spare tire. When your RTV does get canned, maybe you can bor­row one of those robotic mules to carry your RTV back to the heli pick up point so it can be hauled away to a shop in the near­est base.

    Reply
  32. Bubba says:
    October 21, 2005 at 1:24 am

    RTV? Well, it is the Reckless Terrain Vehicle
    The robotic mule could be the real All Terain Vehicle

    Reply
  33. Ben says:
    October 21, 2005 at 7:34 am

    Ye of lit­tle faith? What the hell? Not every­thing is going to work, not every­thing is NOT going to work. It’s just an idea, used to be that you could have one with­out some­body jump­ing down your throat and scream­ing at you like a crazy mon­key. Science fic­tion at it’s fini­est has spoiled us. So we end up with a whole bunch of peo­ple with higher stan­dards then we’re at right then. Let’s just take things one step at a time, not every­thing is shit, and an idea is just a idea for cry­ing out loud! If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and that’ll be enough jus­ti­fi­ca­tion instead of you hav­ing your smug pride that you knew it wouldn’t work first. Geeze, things don’t have to be taken so damn seri­ously! Indeed, I’m some­what dubi­ous about the relevence of a robot muel but it’s still just an idea and peo­ple have them all the time. Peace & Chill, please?

    Reply
  34. stimcaps says:
    October 25, 2005 at 4:17 pm

    Nice video of a sim­i­lar project:
    Whegs:
    http://​bioro​bots​.cwru​.edu/​p​r​o​j​e​c​t​s​/​w​h​e​g​s​/​w​h​e​g​s​.​h​tml
    http://​bioro​bots​.cwru​.edu/​p​r​o​j​e​c​t​s​/​w​h​e​g​s​/​W​h​e​g​s​I​I​-​I​C​R​A​2​0​0​4​.​mov
    Mini-​​whegs:
    http://​bioro​bots​.cwru​.edu/​p​r​o​j​e​c​t​s​/​w​h​e​g​s​/​m​i​n​i​w​h​e​g​s​.​h​tml
    http://​bioro​bots​.cwru​.edu/​P​r​o​j​e​c​t​s​/​w​h​e​g​s​/​I​C​R​A​m​i​n​i​w​h​e​g​s​_​w​e​b​.​mov

    Reply
  35. Sister Mary Cartwright says:
    November 8, 2005 at 12:17 pm

    jtw, as an robotic/​mechatronic engi­neer I can safely say you sound like a child try­ing to nego­ti­ate with a judge. On the other hand, as a human being I can safely say you are one of those peo­ple with an aver­age to low I.Q. who fully believes in their supe­rior intel­lect (means you think your smart), and backs it up with ridicu­lous rhetoric. Also you are prob­a­bly an as.s.hole. excuse my French.

    Reply
  36. 4IDSPC says:
    March 24, 2006 at 7:38 am

    cor­rect me if im wrong but from read­ing u all com­plain, why r u com­plain­ing?? u know when defence tech­no­lagy affects u then give some input. what do civis know about what this robot has to do??? what u saw jar­head the movie so now all of a sud­den ur an expert on what things are like in any type od field today??

    Reply
  37. Nick says:
    April 15, 2007 at 4:43 am

    Whoever thinks this “robo­mule” has a log­i­cal future for use for any­thing but a rock­ingchair, has the intelegence of a mule’s back­side. For use as a means of weight trans­fer, you did not rein­vent the wheel, you com­pli­cated it. This robo­mule (“rock­ing”) mule is the dumb­est thing I ever heard of. Plrase go and get your head exam­ined, so you can find where the lit­tle voices come from. You know the lit­tle voices that tell you that “this is not the dumb­est thing you ever heard of” too.

    Reply

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