Most of Defense Tech’s new crop of bloggers are loaded with security or technical experience: former platoon leaders, missile defense engineers, homeland defense analysts, insider magazine editors. Steven Snell, on the hand hand, is just your average, garden-variety maniac. But I’m loving this Brit’s snarky wit. And I’m hoping this is the first of many posts for the site.
Not since the Beastie Boys Intergalactic video have I been this excited about robots fighting.
Defense Tech has detailed the Pentagon’s numerous efforts to deal with a possible rumble in space before. As you may have guessed, they’ve been trying to cram everything from exotic micro-satellites to combat-ready marines into orbit. But even the blue-sky research brains at DARPA are behind the times when it comes to the coolest thing since naked Counter-Strike.
New Scientist’s tech blog reports:
A mini-satellite carrying several small humanoid robots will (hopefully) be launched into space in October 2010. Once safely in orbit, the satellite will release its robotic passengers, who will proceed to fight each other in the vacuum of space.
That’s what organizers of ROBO-ONE, the annual Japanese robot fighting tournament hope to see in just a few years. The official ROBO-ONE site (<a href=“http://www.excite.co.jp/world/english/web/?wb_a href=“http%3A%2F%2Fwww.robo%2Done.com&wb_lp=JAEN&wb_dis=2″>translated) describes the competition as a “grapple athletic meet by the two-legged robot”. In short, its not your usual arena match with competitive dad wrenching the controls from his teary-eyed child mid-battle.
Is any of this actually possible? And will it be before my robot learns his own moves ? Frankly, maybe. Let’s face it, robots fighting in space is pretty Rumsfeld . And if you combine the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s recent achievements and the popularity of home made robot kits in Tokyo, we could be watching a very good scrap.
– Steven Snell
You’re right about ROBO-ONE not being one of the typical duke-it-out-in-the-ring battles. The robots do fight, of course, but only the top 32 out of a field of 130+ entries are selected. The first day of the multiple day competition, the robot developer has to demonstrate his creation in front of a panel of expert judges and a large audience. They only get 2 minutes with no extra time or specially allowances.
Typically the judges are looking for characteristics and developments that advance the state of the art. For the March competition here in Tokyo, Maeda-san’s OmniZero.2 put on an amazing demonstration and literally ran away with the first place score. You can see how the robot performed in this video we took during the contest: http://www.robots-dreams.com/2006/03/roboone_9_omniz.html
It’s really surprising to see how far the performance of the ROBO-ONE class robots has come over the past two years. Will they actually be able to accomplish their stated goal of staging the competition in space? I wouldn’t bet against them.
“demonstration of the robot’s capabilities included putting it to sleep, waking up, running, jumping, posing, and visual object tracking.“
Why does a robot get points for running? OMNIZERO.2 will only be able ti wiggle in space. I want to see mini thusters and lasers!
Show me how they’re going to pick up the pieces and I’ll be impressed. Orbital debris cleanup, another profit opportunity in space.