I had the good fortune to attend the Robotics Rodeo at Ft. Hood last week- a rodeo of unmanned ground robotics hosted by U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Fort Hood III Corps (go Phantom Warriors!). A wonderful experience and many thanks to the CO Gen. Ricky Lynch (he has MS in robotics from MIT).
Some pictures are above and some thoughts about the commercialization of robotics…
According to a good friend, Bill Kearns, at the turn of the last century, there were over 200 car manufacturers in North America. (His family’s business was one of them.) Each manufacturer had something special, a starter motor, independent suspension, what have you. An amazing array of advances, some redundant, many brilliant.
But the problem was, they weren’t on the same car. Who wanted the latest, greatest engine on a car that you had to use with a hand crank?
Durant and Ford were credited with manufacturing but sometimes it is missed that they it wasn’t just that they mastered mass production, they mastered mass production of the right thing. They were among the first to view the cars as the sum of its parts. The superior technology of a component (usually invented by the owner) was not the reason for existence but rather a marketable feature of a desirable whole. As was stressed in one of my mechanical engineering courses, automobile companies are manufacturing companies, which make things for people to buy, not engineering companies, which create or investigate ideas for someone else to make into things for people to buy. Automotive companies at the turn of the century were really about engineering, not about the car. A similar pattern of scattered developments which were consolidated into systems happened in the aerospace industry.
The Robotics Rodeo reinforced my opinion that ground robotics is in the same state. Interesting pieces, some brilliant engineering, lots of duplication, and few useful systems.
One conclusion is that this is the Natural Order of Things and will sort itself out over time. This line of reasoning is: perhaps some duplication will result in lesser technologies occasionally trumping superior technologies and some dollars will be wasted. But this should be tolerated since the duplication and competition is usually efficient overall and reduces purchase prices, right? Besides, premature standards or regulations can kill off an emerging technology.
The Natural Order of Things philosophy has problems. In asymmetric warfare, do we have time or dare risk being beta-maxed by an adversary? And in days of trillion dollar deficits, will we be able to afford the cost of duplication? Remember, the government is subsidizing the UGV market (either through DoD or law enforcement) whereas automotive industry was private capital. There is no real consumer market for these devices. Is UGV development is in fact regulated by the invisible hand of capitalism or being de facto regulated by current defense acquisition processes. If so, is that a good or a bod thing? I don’t know…
http://crasar.org/2009/09/06/robotics-rodeo-at-ft-hood/
So how do we figure out what the "right things" are? I've always told people that the fact that it is a robot is not important – its what you do with them that counts. It not the robot part – its the fact that it lets you deal with dangerous situations from a safe distance.
I really need to get back into robotics. Was really into it a few years back, but just got to busy. It really is a great hobby.
Ivy
You make a very good point about the redundancy of duplication. I think that eventually, sometime in the future, this redundancy will lead to a better overall product for consumers and governments alike however the real question is at what cost? Although some countries may be willing to pay the trillions of dollars it would cost to truly integrate all these great technologies into just a few superior machines what does that leave for the rest of the world that is developing these but cannot afford to truly utilize them to their fullest. Just some food for thought.
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Using robots in my humble opinion should not be commercialize. Robots have many beneficial ways to help not only the military or local law enforcer but also in terms of medical and rescue operations.
Now a days people are planning for these types of robotics, i hope these robotics helpful for army solder.I am reading your article i can’t leave it without commenting.
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OH MY GOD! I am basically in love with robotics! Anywyas, i won the FLL when i was young. Good old days.
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Robotics is one of the fastest developing area. The information provided in this article is great and it tells the importance of robotics in engineering/science.
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A good post on robotics. Thanks for the nice informative post.
Being a former Marine I can see the benefits of these things. Wish I could own one.
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