[iwar] [fc:A.Battlefield.Bot.That.Won't.Die]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-21 08:02:41

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 08:02:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:A.Battlefield.Bot.That.Won't.Die]
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Wired News

A Battlefield Bot That Won't Die 
By Elliot Borin 
2:00 a.m. Aug. 21, 2002 PDT 

It's called, appropriately enough, the Spinner, a six-wheeled turtle of
an unmanned ground combat vehicle that can -- unlike any other of its
species -- be turned on its back and still keep on truckin' over
virtually any terrain navigable by tanks 10 times heavier and
considerably slower and less mobile.  "We expect it to become the
resupply and reconnaissance workhorse of the UGCV fleet," says John
Bares, director of Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics
Engineering Consortium (NREC ), which is coordinating the building and
testing of the Spinner under a $5.5 million grant from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 

"At the bottom of its range it can work like a mule at benign things
like resupply and unarmed reconnaissance.  Working up the range (of its
capabilities), it can offer direct assistance to soldiers in the
battlefield and perform armed recon missions."

The Spinner is a melting pot of fresh and evolutionary technology.  Most
prominent is a unique traction-and-suspension system designed by Timoney
Technology , an Irish company specializing in mobility platforms. 
Powered by high-torque, water-cooled electric motors at each
independently suspended wheel, the six 1.2-meter-diameter run-flat tires
can motor the 15-passenger-van-size UGCV over obstructions previously
surmountable only by tanks and other massive tractor-treaded vehicles. 
Should the vehicle be upended by an obstacle or concussion, an
electronic rollover sensor will trigger a computerized hydraulic system
to reposition the wheels, raise the upside-down vehicle to its normal
ride height and continue its mission.  At the same time the wheels are
being relocated, the unit's interior bay will rotate to correctly orient
the cargo -- a crucial factor if the payload happens to consist of
smaller vehicles or other wheeled devices that need to be rolled out to
be unloaded. 

Think of an upside-down turtle able to invert its legs to resume walking
with its shell still upturned and to rotate its head 180 degrees so it
can see the terrain it's plodding over.  To carry the turtle analogy a
bit further, the composite-hulled Spinner will be encased in a multipart
Boeing-built carapace consisting of folding buffers designed to protect
it from impacts at speeds up to 20 kph (12.5 mph).  The Spinner will
also be one of the first UGCVs to use an ultra-sophisticated hybrid
propulsion system based on a diesel-fuel turbine engine feeding
electricity to a massive high-performance lithium-ion power pack. 
According to Bares, two major objectives were presented to engineers at
PEI Electronics, designers of the Spinner's battery pack and
power-management system: versatility and fuel efficiency.  The Spinner
will be able to self-select from three operating modes -- silent
(battery only), turbine-only or mixed.  Fuel efficiency will be enhanced
through the use of such mechanisms as channeling braking energy into
electricity to charge the batteries. 

Fuel economy is crucial in a variety of military applications, Bares
notes.  It takes an estimated seven gallons of fuel to deliver one
gallon to the front lines.  Think of the Gulf War and all the tankers
stretched across the desert.  The Spinner's fuel economy has tremendous
downstream implications.  If research on the cognitive colonization of
robots now underway at the Carnegie Mellon Field Robotics Center is
successful, multiple Spinners may someday be used as an unmanned task
force in which each unit is programmed to specialize in a particular job
-- such as scouting a route, loading material or acting as an armed
escort for unarmed payload-carrying Spinners.  Currently working with a
full-scale rolling test bed, engineers at NREC expect to have a
functional prototype of the Spinner ready for 12 months of field trials
by year's end.  Though design of the computer brain that will control
the Spinner's brawn is still in the concept stage, engineers envision
that the operationally autonomous vehicle will be mission-programmed by
land- or aircraft-based tele-operators. 

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