Drone Wars

[Continuity]

Frequency-hopping, spread spectrum, narrow-band, 'squirt' radio tech pretty much covers the job of protecting mil-grade comms.

[Southpark Fan]

RoboJelly, The Unmanned Underwater Vehicle That Uses Water For Fuel
Peter Murray | June 11, 2012 | Singularity Hub

This is a unique device.


Photo: A researcher watches RoboJelly, an unmanned
underwater vehicle that swims like a jellyfish and uses
hydrogen from water as fuel.

'But we shouldn’t assume RoboJelly is being developed purely for the good of science. It is in fact a product of a $5 million grant from the US Navy’s Undersea Warfare Center and the Office of Naval Research. And Virginia Tech is developing RoboJelly’s propulsion system, other universities are fitting it with an array of sensors. But why a jellyfish? Why not just attach a propeller to a Sensorbot? Because something that looks like native sea life stands a much better chance of swimming under the radar. And with an inexhaustible energy supply, a fleet of RoboJellys could provide round-the-clock surveillance in the precarious waterways of the world.'

Think they will share that inexhaustible energy supply?



Latest News:
"UFO" spotted on Beltway was a military drone
Bailey Johnson | June 4, 2012 | CBS

'The aircraft was a Northrop Grumman X-47B, to be exact. The drone was en route to the Patuxent Naval Air Station in southern Maryland. Drivers noticed the unusual craft on I-270 and on the Beltway around D.C.'


Update:
X-47B Completes Cali Flight Testing, Moves to the East Coast
June 14, 2012 | Defense Tech

[whej]

I personally will have a great deal of fun knocking these little toy pieces of crap from the skies if they appear over my home. Paint balls will be the real fun though. Targeting their on-board cameras and geo-location devices. Plus if they are wireless, jamming their frequencies to cause them to fall from the sky. Should be great fun

I don't think they're going to be allowed at all do to major privacy and safety concerns. The minute one of these battery powered POS's takes to the sky and then drop on somebody due to a malfunction (see above) it will all come to an end... IMHO LOL

[Southpark Fan]

For Coca and Poppy Extraction?

K-MAX cargo UAS exceeds expectations in Afghanistan test
July 26, 2012 | Defense tech


Credit: Humanpl.us

'Marine Corps and Navy aviation leaders have fallen over themselves praising Lockheed Martin’s cargo resupply unmanned aerial vehicle (CRUAS) in its first test deployment to Afghanistan that ended this summer. Naval Air Systems Command shipped two of Lockheed’s Kaman K-MAX helicopters to southern Afghanistan in December 2011. It deployed with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron (VMU) 1 from December to May 2012 with a team of Lockheed contractors to help fly and maintain the unmanned helicopter. The K-MAX remains in Afghanistan where VMU-2 is now operating it with Lockheed’s help.'

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Marines take lead on unmanned cargo
August 14, 2012 | Defense Tech


Photo: Oshkosh truck
Credit: Defense Tech

'The Marine haven’t waited for the Army or Air Force to take the lead on unmanned aerial drones or unmanned trucks when it comes to delivering cargo.

The Corps announced the completion of their first test of multiple unmanned trucks simulating a cargo convoy using Oshkosh trucks. The test took place at Fort Pickett, Va., from July 24 to Aug. 5. Marine Corps leaders said the next step is an operational test in Afghanistan.

Marines and Lockheed Martin contractors are already flying an unmanned cargo helicopter in Afghanistan where it has exceeded expectations. The K-MAX has flown over 4,500 pounds of cargo and at least 500 sorties since the Marines deployed the cargo helicopter in December 2011. Marine leaders recently chose to extend the K-MAX’s deployment for the third time out to March 2013.'

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BigDog - The Most Advanced Rough-Terrain Robot on Earth
July 29, 2012 | Boston Dynamics

BigDog in Action


'BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics robots. It is a rough-terrain robot that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by an engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog has four legs that are articulated like an animal’s, with compliant elements to absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule; about 3 feet long, 2.5 feet tall and weighs 240 lbs. BigDog's on-board computer controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system keeps it balanced, navigates, and regulates its energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a gyroscope, LIDAR and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine functions, battery charge and others.

In separate tests BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, climbs a muddy hiking trail, walks in snow and water, and carries a 340 lb load. BigDog set a world's record for legged vehicles by traveling 12.8 miles without stopping or refueling.'

That's Impossible: Real Terminators


Related: Botropolis

Related: DARPA’s New Challenge

Related: HNC Software Inc

Related: Cortronic Neural Networks with Distributed Processing
Patent#: US6366897 - http://www.google.com/patents/US6366897

'A cortronic neural network defines connections between neurons in a number of regions using target lists, which identify the output connections of each neuron and the connection strength. Neurons are preferably sparsely interconnected between regions. Training of connection weights employs a three stage process, which involves computation of the contribution to the input intensity of each neuron by every currently active neuron, a competition process that determines the next set of active neurons based on their current input intensity, and a weight adjustment process that updates and normalizes the connection weights based on which neurons won the competition process, and theirconnectivity with other winning neurons.'

Related: http://www.network54.com/Forum/84302/thread/1286010930/last-1291945253/Danny+Casolaro+was+correct!++BCCI,++Iran+Contra++and+PROMIS+SOFTWARE+DEALS+were+linked
Copy and Paste into your Browser

Understanding Speech: The founder of HNC, Robert Hecht-Nielsen speaks


Related: The INSLAW Octopus

Related: Fair Isaac Corporation

CIA/USDOJ and Stolen INSLAW Promis Spy Software


Danny Casolaro murdered into silence?

[Southpark Fan]

DARPA Funds a Robot that Moves Like a Worm, But Why?
Tina Casey | August 10, 2012 | Clean Technica

'DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, is the financial force behind a new biomimicry robotics project from MIT. The end result is Meshworm, a small, soft robot that looks like a moldy lint sock, moves like an earthworm, and holds its own under various stressors, even when “bludgeoned with a hammer.

Meshworm has the ability to survive a frightening degree of misuse, and that provides one clue into DARPA’s interest in the new technology. As described by writer Jennifer Chu, the field of soft robotics is of growing interest to engineers. With little or no need for bulky hardware, soft robots are more durable and lend themselves to miniaturization more easily than their mechanical counterparts. In terms of military purpose, soft robots like Meshworm could be air-dropped, launched or thrown over relatively long distances, land without damage, and set about crawling silently around, squeezing through tight openings and conducting surveillance.

That kind of unobtrusive mobile robot could also be useful in environmental monitoring, among other applications in the civilian world.'

Related: The Future of Soft Robotics

Related: Video Friday: Scary UAVs, Friendly Exoskeletons, and Cheetah Gets a Tail

Related: Ground to Air Laser Based Power Transmission to a UAS

Related: Boeing Team Demonstrates Expanded Control of Unmanned Aircraft Swarm

***

Flexible Robot Comes with Camouflage
Conor Myhrvold | August 16, 2012 | Technology Review

'The remarkable flexibility and color-changing capabilities of the cuttlefish, an animal renowned for its ability to change shape and appearance to hide from predators, are one step closer to being replicated in robots.'


Photo: A new flexible, color-shifting “soft robot” showing microfluidics networks
Credit: S. Morin, Harvard University

[Southpark Fan]

Dozens Of Underwater Drones Deployed To The Waters Of Iran
Peter Murray | August 11th, 2012 | Singularity Hub


Photo: Seafox
Credit: Singularity Hub

'What to do when international talks begin falling apart? Send a fleet of unmanned submersibles in preparation for a waterway showdown. As US talks with Iran over their nuclear program began to sour and the possibility of sanctions against the country rose, Iran responded by threatening to cut off the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway and the only way into and out of the petroleum-rich Persian Gulf. The US responded in turn, the LA Times reports, by sending dozens of SeaFox unmanned submersibles to the region to seek out and destroy mines in the strait.

Each SeaFox is outfitted with an underwater television camera, homing sonar, an explosive charge, and is controlled through an optic fiber tether. None of the submersibles, however, return from a successful mission as they end, not only with the destruction of the mine, but the craft itself, each costing about $100,000. The SeaFox can sniff out both submerged and surface mines.

The SeaFox is the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) made by the German company Atlas Elektronik. It measures about 4 feet long and weighs just under 100 pounds. Their small size enables them to be deployed from helicopters, small rubber boats, or dropped from minesweeping ships. Its maximum operational depth is about 300 meters and it can run for around 100 minutes without having to return and recharge.'


Photo: Facing sanctions, Iran has once again threatened to
choke off the Strait of Hormuz, the only way into and out
of the Gulf for oil tankers.
Credit: Singularity Hub

Iran's conventional capabilities are formidable. Iran has had this capability for almost 10 yrs. Capability to wipeout land targets for just as long. So why the urgency now? The reason they use these sneaky devices; like the SeaFox, in the first place. The Persian Gulf is perhaps 100 miles wide and very shallow with only a narrow channel of usable (ship displacement limitations - perhaps 50 miles wide) waterway. The size and proximity of this channel to Iran make the 3M80/Kh-41 MOSKIT [SS-N-22 'Sunburn'] so deadly. Probably the best anti ship missile ever built. "The Russian SS-N-22 (Sunburn), which technical journals and experts have termed the most effective and lethal anti-ship weapon extant., is far cheaper to produce than a fighter plane or a missile destroyer, cruiser or aircraft carrier." The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload (I am convinced Iran already has tactical nuclear weapons), or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles, more than twice the range of the Exocet. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.1 speed (two times the speed of sound) with a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes “violent end maneuvers” to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system. Should a US Navy Phalanx point defense somehow manage to detect an incoming Sunburn missile, the system has only seconds to calculate a fire solution –– not enough time to take out the intruding missile. The US Phalanx defense employs a six-barreled gun that fires 3,000 depleted-uranium rounds a minute, but the gun must have precise coordinates to destroy an intruder “just in time". Although the Navy has been phasing out the older Phalanx defense system, its replacement, known as the Rolling Action Missile (RAM) has never been tested against the weapon it seems destined to one day face in combat. Keep this in mind when certain parties go on about Iran's nuclear futuristic light show needing to be shut down. When in reality they can sink every vessel in an aggressor's Navy with the push of a button. There are newer versions of this anti ship missile (SS-N-30), but the Sunburn is most adequate for sinking ships and inflicting major damage to land based targets. Watch for a Black Op on the waters of the Gulf and its approaches. We can all directly blame the Tinderbox that the MidEast has become (one just has to look at Egypt - the Muslim Brotherhood is running the show in Egypt now (maybe it works?) - the US/NATO have not a clue what they are doing!) on 9/11, W Bush (and the entire Cabal) and US policies and actions since. Where is the ICC? Americans will not learn just what their government has done until their wells are dry, they forgot to buy gold and their gas is 12-20$ a gallon.


Photo: The 3M80/Kh-41 MOSKIT [SS-N-22 'Sunburn']
Credit: http://clifylq.livejournal.com/18222.html

[Southpark Fan]

Update: Pentagon helps build Meshworm reconnaissance robot
9 August 2012 | BBC

Engineers have created a robot that mimics a worm's movements - crawling along surfaces by contracting segments of its body.

'The technique allows the machine to be made of soft materials so it can squeeze through tight spaces and mould its shape to rough terrain. It can also absorb heavy blows without sustaining damage. The Pentagon's Darpa research unit supported the Meshworm project, suggesting a potential military use. Work on the machine was carried out by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in the US, and Seoul National University in South Korea.'


Source: Disinfo
'Created by researchers at MIT and elsewhere with support from the Pentagon’s experimental DARPA unit, the meshworm’s movment appears eerily organic– it slithers along by morphing and contracting portions of its body. Its design enables it to travel silently and to withstand physical trauma undamaged. Imagine waking at night to find one crawling across your floor, or on your chest then it bites injecting its majic:'




DARPA's Soft Robot: Now You See It, Now You Don't



This is not a drone, but very cool:

Новые технологии: New Technologies


Новые технологии представляет компания Displair (подробнее: http://www.displair.ru/). Это новые воздушные дисплеи, которые доказывают: технологии из фантастических фильмов "Железный человек", "Особое мнение" и "Звездные войны" стали реальностью.

In English (almost):

New Technology is the company Displair (details: http://www.displair.ru/). This new in air display shows: Technologies from science fiction movies like "Iron Man," "Minority Report" and "Star Wars" have become a reality.

[Southpark Fan]

Robot learns ‘self-awareness’
August 24, 2012 | Kurzweilia

“Only humans can be self-aware.”


Photo: Who’s that good-looking guy? Nico examines itself and its surroundings in the mirror
Credit: Justin Hart / Yale University

'Another myth bites the dust. Yale roboticists have programmed Nico, a robot, to be able to recognize itself in a mirror.

Why is this important? Because robots will need to learn about themselves and how they affect the world around them — especially people.

Using knowledge that it has learned about itself, Nico is able to use a mirror as an instrument for spatial reasoning, allowing it to accurately determine where objects are located in space based on their reflections, rather than naively believing them to exist behind the mirror.

Nico’s programmer, roboticist Justin Hart, a member of the Social Robotics Lab, focuses his thesis research primarily on “robots autonomously learning about their bodies and senses,” but he also explores human-robot interaction, “including projects on social presence, attributions of intentionality, and people’s perception of robots.”

Recently, the lab (along with MIT, Stanford, and USC) won a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create “socially assistive” robots that can serve as companions for children with special needs. These robots will help with everything from cognitive skills to getting the right amount of exercise.

Hart’s specific goal in this program: enable Nico to interact with its environment by learning about itself, and using this self-model, to reason about tasks — mainly ones for humans.'

Related: Researchers Hack Brainwaves to Reveal PIN Numbers, Other Personal Data

[Southpark Fan]

Apple rejects app for tracking US drone strikes
Steven Musil | August 30, 2012 | CNet

Drone+, which tracks media reports of casualties and maps locations of drone strikes, was rejected by the App Store for "objectionable" content.

'Apple has rejected an iPhone app designed to keep track of fatalities caused by US drone strikes for its "objectionable" content.

The company withheld App Store approval for Drones+, an app that sends text messages to iPhones whenever the media reports casualties resulting from a drone strike and shows users the locations of drone strikes on a Google map. (See brief video demonstration below.) Apple has rejected the app three times this summer, the most recent of which cited App Store guidelines that prohibit "objectionable" content, according to Josh Begley, the app's creator.'

[Southpark Fan]

Brain-Controlled Quadcopter Drone Takes Flight in China
Nathan Olivarez-Giles | August 31, 2012 | Wired


Photo: Researchers at Zhejiang University in China have developed a way to control a quadcopter drone using brainwave-reading technology
Credit: Zhejiang University via YouTube

'Researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, have posted a YouTube video demonstrating a mind-controlled quadcopter drone. By wearing an EEG (emotiv electroencephalography) headset, Zhejiang’s researchers claim they can pilot a quadcopter by thinking “left hard” to take off or land, “left” to rotate the quadcopter clockwise, “right” to fly forward and “push” to fly up.

A user who clenches while wearing the headset will steer the quadcopter downward, while blinking will shoot photos from the on-drone camera. The EEG headset sends commands via Bluetooth to a laptop, which then sends them to the quadcopter by way of a Wi-Fi connection. The quadcopter also streams its view back to the laptop over Wi-Fi, to give its pilots a better view and more precise control.'

Related: Mind-controlled legs give paralyzed people hope of walking again

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Universal soldier: Pentagon eyes limb-regenerating super-troopers?
13 August, 2012 | RT

'The US military’s future technology division is reportedly eyeing tampering with soldiers’ genes, allowing them to go for days without food or sleep and re-grow limbs lost in battle or due to landmines. ­Scientists at the Pentagon's high-tech Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency hope to find a way to affect certain genes to make the human body do amazing things, like using body fat more efficiently, says British newspaper Sunday Express...

Another possible chilling breakthrough is a drug that can make people go for hours without sleep and stay alert, Professor Joel Garreau, of Arizona State University told the tabloid...

There is also a project to make soldiers regenerate lost limbs.'

[Southpark Fan]

Cloak Blade: Inherently Stealthy Micro-Copter
in U.S. Navy | September 25, 2012 | Public Intelligence

'The following presentation accompanied a recent demonstration of the Cloak Blade, a micro-copter developed by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory under contract from the U.S. Navy. The Cloak Blade is a “octo-rotor UAV intended to operate at sea to provide ships with pop-up over the horizon situational awareness using first person streaming video. The UAV will investigate contacts of interest at 10-30 nautical miles range with two to four hour mission endurance and a ceiling of more than 3,000 feet. The UAV can be flown by AES-encrypted wireless or autonomous flight controls and can maneuver evasively to avoid small arms fire. The demonstration model is currently equipped with commercial off-the-shelf sensors including Hero HD and Sony 300 digital zoom video cameras providing real time full motion video.”'

PDF: Presentation

[Southpark Fan]

Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Steaming Ahead
David Hambling | Aviation Week

'Drone warfare has been mostly “efficient” in killing innocent civilians, including children, according to a study by Stanford University and New York University:

According to the new study, just one in fifty victims of the CIA programme of “targeted” drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas are known militants, while between 2,562 and 3,325 people were killed in Pakistan between June 2004 and mid-September this year – of whom between 474 and 881 were civilians, including 176 children. (The News International (Pakistan), Pakistan. CIA Annihilation From The Air: Drone Warfare’s Invisible Dead, September 26, 2012)

Obscuring the devastating effects of US drones killing innocent civilians around the world, it is with a touch of rather inappropriate humor and enthusiasm that the military consulting company Strike Fighter Consulting speaks highly of the US Navy’s new Unmanned Underwater Vehicles in its recently published article, Unmanned Drones Take to the Seas.'


Photo: Manta test vehicle
Credit: Naval Undersea Warfare Center

'Underwater drones seem to constitute the perfect weapon to be used in acts of provocation.'

[Southpark Fan]

This is getting out of hand. I do not want these devices over my head. The trigger happy US airforce was bad enough before this new technology.

Military Test: Drones Could Refuel Themselves Mid-Air
Staff | 05 October 2012 | TechNewsDaily

'US military flight tests have shown how drones could handle midair refueling by themselves, without human pilots. That raises the possibility of automated "flying gas stations" topping off robotic aircraft over future battlefields.



The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently flew two modified RQ-4 Global Hawk drones in close proximity to simulate midair refueling. The Global Hawks, huge drones with 131-foot wingspans used for high-altitude surveillance, flew in formation with less than 100 feet separating the refueling "probe" on one and refueling "receiver" on the other during a two-and-a-half hour flight test.'

***

Related: Living in Fear of Drones

[Southpark Fan]

The creepshow never ends...

Deadlier drones are coming
David Axe | September 23, 2012 | Global Post

How smarter robot warplanes now in development could attack targets on their own.

'"Advances in AI (artificial intelligence) will enable systems to make combat decisions and act within legal and policy constraints without necessarily requiring human input," the Air Force stated in its 30-year plan for drone development. The flying branch said it is already working to loosen those policy constraints, clearing a path for smarter, more dangerous drones.

The prospect of even bloodier robot-waged warfare has some experts pleading for a ceasefire, or at least a pause in the pursuit of lethal technology. They say the technology is moving faster than our understanding of its possible effects, and leaving no time to find answers to the moral questions posed by the technological advances.

...

In the past 11 years, the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency have steadily built up a globe-spanning robotic strike force involving hundreds of missile- and bomb-armed Predator and Reaper UAVs, plus thousands of human controllers based in the US and abroad. An Air Force planning document from 2011 shows the current force of around 250 armed drones more than doubling in the next decade.

Military drones tend to operate out in the open in war zones such as Afghanistan. The CIA focuses its robot attacks in countries where the US prefers to keep a low profile — Yemen, for example. They usually fly from airfields in the same regions as their target zones, a constellation of overseas drone bases — some of them top-secret — arrayed in a geographic swathe from Afghanistan to Pakistan south to Yemen, Ethiopia and the Seychelles, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. But the frontline robots are supported by a vast infrastructure of US bases used for training, remote piloting and image analysis. A June report by the internet-based nonprofit watchdog group Public Intelligence, identified no fewer than 64 current and planned military drone bases on American soil. And drones are spreading within the US government as well. Once strictly military and CIA assets, UAVs have begun flying with Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security.

Modern military UAVs debuted in the mid-1990s with the advent of smaller computers and stronger satellite links. But the real growth in the drone arsenal occurred after 9/11, as escalating counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns demanded better ways of finding and killing militants.

Drones were cheaper, could fly longer and were smaller and therefore less obtrusive than manned aircraft. Plus, there was no onboard pilot at risk.'

[Southpark Fan]

Watch Darpa’s Rescue Robot Jump, Climb and Dodge Obstacles
Spencer Ackerman | October 24, 2012 | Wired



'This is the Pet-Proto, a cousin of the PETMAN humanoid robot manufactured by Boston Dynamics, makers of the headless BigDog robo-mule. Darpa released video of its athletic prowess on Wednesday as part of the next phase of its latest grand challenge, an effort to vastly expand the capabilities of robots so they can help repair meltdowns at nuclear plants, rescue people trapped in collapsed buildings, and assist with other disaster-mitigation efforts.

The skills that the Pet-Proto performs in the video are somewhat indicative of what Darpa wants out of its Robotics Challenge, announced in the spring. Contestants will have to go beyond the state of the art: Darpa will make the competing robot designs drive cars; walk over an uneven, debris-strewn surface; climb shaky industrial ladders and catwalks; use power tools to break through a concrete panel; find and close a valve near a leaky pipe; and replace a piece of industrial machinery like a cooling pump. There’s a reason Darpa calls these things challenges. At the end of a 27-month gauntlet of tests, the winning team will get a $2 million prize.'

Related: The CIA's Declassified Robotic Spy Critters

Video: Smart Trash Can

***

Video: Cyberdyne HAL Robot Suit and Cybernics research

***

Watch a Robotic Navy Boat Shoot Missiles for the First Time Ever
Spencer Ackerman | October 26, 2012 | Wired

'Killer robots have officially gone out to sea. For the first time, the Navy has fired missiles from a remote-controlled boat, as shown in the video above.

The firing came as part of a test off the Maryland coast on Wednesday. Six of Rafael’s anti-armor Spike missiles got fired off a moving inflatable hulled watercraft, aiming for a floating target about two miles away. The missile firings and the boat’s controls were all handled remotely by Navy personnel on shore at the Navy’s Patuxent River base.

It’s the “first significant step forward in weaponizing surface unmanned combat capability,” Mark Moses, the Navy’s program manager for the armed drone boat project, tells Danger Room. Sure, the U.S. military has no shortage of armed robotic planes and — soon — helicopters. But it doesn’t have weaponized drones that patrol the seas, either above it or below it. The Navy’s early experiments with robotic submarines are for spying and mine clearance, not for attack. Until this week’s tests at Pax River, the Navy didn’t have a robotic surface vessel capable of firing a weapon — the fulfillment of a goal the Navy set for itself in 2007.'