jharper@uunet.UU.NET (Jerry Harper) (01/19/89)
Can anyone give me information on the US military's attempts to build a robotic vehicle - I think it travels(ed?) at ten miles per hour and weighed more than five tons. Are there general reports available on the military and AI? Thanks for any information. jharper@euroies.uucp Jerry Harper: Educational Research Centre, Dublin 9, IRELAND.
floyd@smoke.BRL.MIL (Floyd C. Wofford) (01/20/89)
The October 1988 issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE includes an article entitled,"Expert System Technology for thr Military: Selected Samples".
jon@june.cs.washington.edu (Jon Jacky) (01/24/89)
The US military robotic vehicle project is called the Autonomous Land Vehicle,
or ALV. It is one of the application projects of the $100-million-per-year
Strategic Computing Program, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA). The prime contractor is Martin-Marietta, and many other
firms and university research labs are involved.
I don't know how much it weighs. I've seen photos and it looks a bit like
a bakery truck, but instead of just four wheels total it has a whole row
of large wheels --- at least four --- on each side.
The DARPA Strategic Computing Program was announced in 1983. There was
a very ambitious plan which said that the ALV would be traversing off-road
at something like 40 km-per-hour by 1989, or something like that. I believe
the performance has been far short of that goal. I've read of some of the
trials, in which the ALV was supposed to creep along a groomed track at
a couple of km per hour. It had trouble staying on the track; at one
demonstration --- the first to which the press was invited --- it ran off
the road. I haven't seen much about it since. There were supposed to
be experiments in which large obstacles would be placed on the track, and
the ALV was supposed to go around them. I never heard how they turned out.
I attended AAAI-87, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence
meeting in Seattle, Washington state, in July 1987. At a panel discussion on
Strategic Computing, Rod Brooks, a robotics expert at MIT who is familiar with
the program, said that better research on robotic vehicles was being performed
outside the ALV program than within it, and at lower cost.
More about the ALV and the DARPA Strategic Computing Program appear in my
chapter in the book COMPUTERS IN BATTLE: WILL THEY WORK? edited by David
Bellin and Gary Chapman, published by Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1987.
Other chapters in that book also discuss military applications of AI.
Here follows a bibliography of some of my sources on the ALV:
- Jonathan Jacky, University of Washington
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1. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Strategic Computing,
New-Generation Computing Technology: A Strategic Plan for its Development and
Application to Critical Problems in Defense. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, Arlington, VA., Oct. 28, 1983.
2. Michael Rogers, Birth of the killer robots, Newsweek, June 24, 1984, p.
51.
3. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Strategic Computing First
Annual Report, New-Generation Computing Technology: A Strategic Plan for its
Development and Application to Critical Problems in Defense . Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, Arlington, VA., Feb. 1985.
4. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Strategic Computing Second
Annual Report, New-Generation Computing Technology: A National Strategy for
Meeting the National Security Challenge of Advanced Computer Technology .
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, VA., Feb. 1986.
5. Klass, P. J. DARPA envisions new generation of machine intelligence
technology. AVIATION WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, April 22, 1985, 46 - 54.
6. Adam, J.A. Technology '86 - aerospace and military. IEEE Spectrum, Jan.
1986, 78 - 79.
7. DARPA's pilot's associate program provides development challenges. Aviation
Week and Space Technology, Feb. 17, 1986, 45 - 52.
8. Judge, J.F. SCP gets high marks at midterm. Defense Electronics, May
1986, 65 - 77.
10. Johnson, R.C. Autonomous military systems to multiply soldiers' wallop.
Electonics Engineering Times, July 21, 1986, 1.
11. Faludi, S. The billion-dollar toybox. San Jose Mercury News West Magazine,
Nov. 23, 1986.
12. Corcoran, E. Strategic Computing: far from the finish line. The
Institute, Dec. 1986, 1.
13. Adam, J.A. Technology '87: aerospace and military. IEEE Spectrum, Jan 1987
,
pps. 62-65. jlg%hpclay@hp-sde.sde.hp.com (01/24/89)
> / jharper@uunet.UU.NET / 3:34 pm Jan 18, 1989 / > Can anyone give me information on the US military's attempts to build > a robotic vehicle - I think it travels(ed?) at ten miles per hour and > weighed more than five tons. > > Are there general reports available on the military and AI? Thanks > for any information. > > jharper@euroies.uucp > Jerry Harper: Educational Research Centre, Dublin 9, IRELAND. > ---------- The Ohio State University was conducting such research two years ago. I believe they are still working on an eight-legged all-terrain artificial-intelligence lots-of-hyphens walker for military applications. I'm not sure which departments are working on it, but I think the electrical engineering and mechanical engineering departments are involved. jlg%hpfcrg@hplabs.hp.com Jeff Gerckens, Graphics Technology Division,Hewlett-Packard Company "The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of thier wealth and to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride thier horses and to clasp to your bosom thier wives and daughters." -- Ghengis Khan