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Google bought robotics company Boston Dynamics a little over two years ago. Now, a potential customer for the hulking "BigDog" quadruped pack mule is balking due to noise concerns:
The US military's flirtation with robotic pack animals looks set to end: the Marine Corps has halted further testing of the BigDog contrivance from Google stablemate Boston Dynamics.
BigDog, aka the Legged Squad Support System, has been under development at a cost of $32m, with the goal of making a four-legged machine capable of carrying 400lb (181kg) of supplies. The final design did just that, but painted a target on the troops it was supporting.
"As Marines were using it, there was the challenge of seeing the potential possibility because of the limitations of the robot itself. They took it as it was: a loud robot that's going to give away their position," Kyle Olson, a spokesman for the Marine's Warfighting Lab, told Military.com.
BigDog's carrying power wasn't disputed, and the robot dealt well with clambering over rough terrain without a human controlling it during the 2014 Rim of the Pacific war games. But the power needed to do all this required a petrol engine, which was so loud that the enemy could hear soldiers approaching before they saw them.
Boston Dynamics did develop a smaller, electric-powered robotic dog called Spot. This was also tried out by the Marines at its massive Quantico base in Virginia, but Spot could only carry 40lb (18kg) of equipment and needed a human to guide it.
Two YouTube videos accompanying the article.
Related: Pentagon Scientists Show Off Robot And Prosthetics
Marines give Google's latest robot a tryout as "working dog"
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 30 2015, @04:44PM
Spider drones [wikia.com]
It seems there are a lot of ideas that could complicate a combat environment if a suitable power source can be found.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday December 30 2015, @05:20PM
Or even if not.
That's what makes the press release weird, like its false to keep a project quiet.
So the big dog is useless for stealth assaults and stealth recon. So? Its not like the US military only has those two missions.
Its not a stretch to analogize it to the US Army denied working on a new sniper rifle because its not terribly useful in ultra close quarters like clearing buildings and can't be fired from a tank, so I'm sure they'd never buy a new sniper rifle. Sure.
The most interesting application I can think of for the big dog isn't infantry anyway. Armor people think drones are useless because their tank rolls at 30 and the stereotypical unclassified drone rolls at like 5 and can't handle obstacles and has short range, but a small pack of big dogs could drink from the giant tank's gas tank without affecting range much and suddenly your tank is literally un-ambush-able because every time you drive around a street corner the pack runs ahead first and sniffs paws and looks in every 55 gallon drum, pile of refuse, building window, cardboard box, digs up all the suspicious dirt piles with their paws, etc. Imagine the effect on logistics of "convoys can no longer be ambushed" at least not by anything smaller than mortars or air. The Rhodesians used to toss mines in water puddles, and a pack of big dogs, if big enough, could literally run a mine detector over every rain puddle if the pack is big enough.