The robot arms race continues…

Boeing airborne laser destroys missile

Robot UT-mu2 tech demo

RT piece

From the human-hating defense contractors that brought you the Big Dog…

Its the “Rise V2″

And the Little Dog

I already posted this Petman video but it’s the most disturbing of all, so I figured I’d post it again  in case you didn’t catch it last time.

Mechanized exoskeleton technology ready for deployment

Your average US soldier suffers from the delusion that s/he’s protecting freedom, but they’re still mostly decent people. Albeit not very bright, but decent at heart. The people commanding them are another story entirely. And once this remaining bit of misguided human decency has been replaced by drones that won’t ask questions, the full blown extermination will begin.

closer, now…

Man controls robotic hand with thoughts

Telegraph
By Nick Squires in Perugia
Published: 3:34PM GMT 03 Dec 2009

An Italian man who lost half his arm in a car crash has become the first person in the world to be given a robotic hand that can be controlled by thoughts, scientists have claimed.

The success of the experiment brings a step closer the possibility of creating a “bionic man” as envisaged by science fiction writers and the popular 1970s television series, The Six Million Dollar Man.

Pierpaolo Petruzziello was able to wiggle the fingers of the robotic hand, make a fist and hold objects, controlling the artificial limb via electrodes attached to the stump of his left arm.

The 26-year-old was even able to feel needles being jabbed into the hand, which he said felt almost like flesh and blood even though it was not attached directly to his body.

“It felt almost the same as a real hand,” he told a press conference in Rome, where the breakthrough was announced. “It’s a matter of mind, of concentration. When you think of it as your hand and forearm, it all becomes easier.”

The Italian scientists behind the project said it was the first time a patient had been able to make such complex movements using his mind to control a biomechanical hand connected to his nervous system.

Mr Petruzziello, who now lives in Brazil, was given the use of the bionic hand for a month last year, but advantages in technology will be needed before such prosthetic limbs can be attached to patients permanently.

His progress in mastering the use of the limb was monitored by neurologists at Rome’s Campus Bio-Medico, a university and hospital that specialises in health sciences.

After Mr Petruzziello recovered from the microsurgery he underwent to have the electrodes implanted in his arm, it only took him a few days to master the use of the robotic hand, said team leader Paolo Maria Rossini.

By the time the experiment was over, the hand obeyed the commands it received from his brain in 95 per cent of cases.

It was the longest time electrodes had remained connected to a human nervous system in such an experiment, said Silvestro Micera, one of the engineers on the team.

Independent experts said the experiment was an important step forward in melding the human nervous system with a prosthetic limb.

“It’s an important advancement on the work that was done in the mid-2000s,” said Dustin Tyler, a biomedical engineer at the VA Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

“The important piece that remains is how long beyond a month we can keep the electrodes in.”

Photo of secret UAV (drone) emerges

aviationweek.com

A photograph of the Beast of Kandahar, the classified stealth UAV first reported in April, has emerged on a blog linked to left-wing French newspaper Liberation.

The photo confirms that the previous artists’ impressions were largely accurate. The jet has long, slender outer wings, spanning as much as 80 feet, mated to a stouter, deeper centerbody with a pointed nose. One important detail:  the overwing fairings are not B-2-like inlets, but cover some kind of equipment – satcoms on one side, perhaps, and a sensor on the other.

The most likely provenance of the airframe is Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, and it is very likely to be associated with the Desert Prowler program – unearthed by historian Peter Merlin and “patchologist” Trevor Paglen. More background here, but it should be noted that Dave Fulghum reported in June 2001 on a plan to acquire 12-24 high altitude, stealthy UAVs. The effort had gathered pace after a US EP-3 SIGINT aircraft was forced to land in China in April, and went further underground after 9/11. It’s believed that the first of a small batch of aircraft flew in late 2005 and were operational in Afghanistan in 2007 (where this photo was probably taken.)

Despite superficial similarity the Desert Prowler is not an immediate relative of the Polecat technology demonstrator tested in 2006. The latter incorporated advanced aerodynamic and structural features for a future long-range, very high-altitude UAV, while Desert Prowler is more conservative.

Perhaps the biggest mystery, though, is what the birds were doing in Kandahar. Why use a stealth aircraft against an adversary that doesn’t have radar? And if it was part of some Secret Squirrel operation against the Taliban, what in the blue blazes was it doing outdoors in daylight?

Laser weapons down 6 planes in test

Albuquerque (UPI) Nov 18, 2009

New laser weaponry being developed at Boeing has dealt a telling blow to airborne aircraft — all of them unmanned — in successful tests that take military laser technology a few steps closer to assuming a key role in future conflicts.Laser weapons are seen by industry analysts as a major step toward a more effective — and more cost-effective — deterrent to enemy threats from the air. Laser weapons can be fired at enemy targets without any apparent risk to human crews involved. However, most defense laser technologies are still many stages behind fictional depictions of laser weapons in Hollywood films.

Boeing units in Albuquerque and St. Louis, as well as the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army and Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif., took part in the tests to advance the feasibility of lasers in warfare.

The Boeing Co. said its tests demonstrated the ability of mobile laser weapon systems to track and destroy small unmanned aerial vehicles — until then a unique mission.

During the U.S. Air Force-sponsored tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, the mobile weapon, called the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated Experiments, took part in the tests.

MATRIX was developed by Boeing under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory. It is a mobile, trailer-mounted test bed that integrates with existing test-range radar. MATRIX used a single, high-brightness laser beam to shoot down five UAVs at various ranges. The sixth aircraft was shot down by Laser Avenger, a Boeing-funded initiative. Representatives of the Air Force and Army watched the tests.

“The Air Force and Boeing achieved a directed-energy breakthrough with these tests,” said Gary Fitzmire, vice president and program director of Boeing Missile Defense Systems’ Directed Energy Systems unit. Industry analysts said the potency of the laser beam was one of the issues being worked on before the tests.

Boeing indicated the tests allowed for powerful laser beams to home in on and destroy the intended targets. “MATRIX’s performance is especially noteworthy because it demonstrated unprecedented, ultra-precise and lethal acquisition, pointing and tracking at long ranges using relatively low laser power,” said Fitzmire.

As warfare becomes technologically advanced there is support on all sides for developing technologies that involve less and less of the human resource that is considered most politically sensitive, analysts said.

Wars that are fought with minimum human input from members of a nation’s armed forces are seen less likely to be controversial than conflicts that involve greater human input, as with ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, analysts said.

Bill Baker, chief scientist of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate, praised his team and Boeing for the successful UAV shootdowns.

“These tests validate the use of directed energy to negate potential hostile threats against the homeland,” Baker said. “The team effort of Boeing and the Air Force in developing MATRIX will pay major dividends for the warfighter now and in the years ahead,” he added.

As part of the overall counter-UAV demonstration, Boeing also successfully test-fired a lightweight 25mm machine gun from the Laser Avenger platform to potentially increase the capability against UAV threats. This test falls into the category of a hybrid, combining laser with conventional methods.

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, a unit of The Boeing Co. with headquarters in St. Louis, is one of the world’s largest space and defense businesses and a versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. It is a $32 billion business with 70,000 employees worldwide.