From: "John Beamish" 

Interesting side-bar here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/05/AR2007050501009
_pf.html

Bots on The Ground
In the Field of Battle (Or Even Above It), Robots Are a Soldier's Best Friend

By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 6, 2007; D01


The most effective way to find and destroy a land mine is to step on it.

This has bad results, of course, if you're a human. But not so much if
you're a robot and have as many legs as a centipede sticking out from your
body. That's why Mark Tilden, a robotics physicist at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory, built something like that. At the Yuma Test Grounds in
Arizona, the autonomous robot, 5 feet long and modeled on a stick-insect,
strutted out for a live-fire test and worked beautifully, he says. Every
time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and
readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a
path through the minefield.

Finally it was down to one leg. Still, it pulled itself forward. Tilden was
ecstatic. The machine was working splendidly.

The human in command of the exercise, however -- an Army colonel -- blew a fuse.

The colonel ordered the test stopped.

Why? asked Tilden. What's wrong?

The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred
and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg.

This test, he charged, was inhumane.

[JB:  the rest of the story is actually quite interesting; if you're
"into" this stuff, it's worth a read.]




On Wed, 09 May 2007 10:52:18 -0400, Ad
 wrote:

> BTW compare & contrast....
>
> BAE/South Africa vhecile hit by IED:
>
> http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/lookup/200611323242?opendocument
>
>
> Hummer hit by IED:
>
> http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/LAND_M1114_HMMWV_IEDed_lg.jpg
>
>
> Adam

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