Too busy to vacuum your living room? Let Roomba the robot do it. Don’t want to risk a soldier’s life to disable an explosive? Let a robot do it.
It’s becoming more common to have robots sub in for humans to do dirty or sometimes dangerous work. But researchers are finding that in some cases, people have started to treat robots like pets, friends, or even as an extension of themselves. That raises the question, if a soldier attaches human or animal-like characteristics to a field robot, can it affect how they use the robot? What if they “care” too much about the robot to send it into a dangerous situation? (more…)
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are becoming a global problem for the U.S. armed forces. To prevent injuries to soldiers and provide better care to those who are injured, the U.S. military is striving to better understand how blasts impact the human body.
In 2011 the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF) approached the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) as part of the DOD Information Analysis Center (IAC) program to develop a system that measures the physical environment of an explosion and collects data that can be used to correlate what the soldier experienced with long-term medical outcomes, especially traumatic brain injury. The solution: the Integrated Blast Effect Sensor Suite (IBESS). IBESS is the first system to acquire integrated, time-tagged data during an explosive event – whether soldiers are on the ground or riding in a vehicle – and can later help recreate a holistic picture of what happened. (more…)
President Obama designated October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month. We asked John E. Savage, the An Wang Professor of Computer Science, to share his views on what can and should be done to ensure cybersecurity at the national level. Savage is active in cybersecurity from both a policy and technology point of view, having spent the 2009-10 academic year in the U.S. Department of State as a Jefferson Science Fellow.
In a major policy speech delivered last week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta sparked a new discussion of cyberwarfare threats, warning that cyberattacks “could virtually paralyze the nation.” The three-part response Panetta outlined emphasizes new cyberwarfare capabilities in the Department of Defense, new policies and organizations across the federal government, and stronger partnerships between the government and international partners and domestic industry. (more…)
COLUMBIA, Mo. — University of Missouri researchers have developed new software using smartphones’ GPS and imaging abilities that determine the exact location of distant objects as well as monitor the speed and direction of moving objects. The software could eventually allow smartphone-armed soldiers to target the location of their enemies. On the home front, the software could be used by everyone, including golfers judging distance to the green and biologists documenting the location of a rare animal without disturbing it.
“The great advantage of a smartphone is that it provides so many tools in a single, readily available, relatively inexpensive package,” said Qia Wang, a doctoral student in MU’s College of Engineering who led the development of the software. “For example, on the battlefield, a soldier needs a rangefinder, compass, GPS and other tools to do reconnaissance before calling in an air strike. With our software, the soldier can have all those instruments in one device that can be purchased off the shelf. When that soldier returns from war, she can use the same software to protect her family by clocking a speeder near her children’s school and catching the culprit on video.” (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Portable gas sensors can allow you to search for explosives, diagnose medical conditions through a patient’s breath, and decide whether it’s safe to stay in a mine.(more…)
UA researchers are investigating bacterial eating habits as part of a $1 million study to determine the environmental fate of newly developed munitions.
University of Arizona researchers are studying the environmental effects of insensitive munitions compounds, or IMCs, which are new, more stable explosives that won’t detonate in response to heat or shock.
Not much is known about the environmental impact of IMCs, which the U.S. Department of Defense hopes will reduce injuries and fatalities among troops who handle explosives. (more…)
As militaries develop autonomous robotic warriors to replace humans on the battlefield, new ethical questions emerge. If a robot in combat has a hardware malfunction or programming glitch that causes it to kill civilians, do we blame the robot, or the humans who created and deployed it?(more…)
Among terrorism scenarios that raise the most concern are attacks involving nuclear devices or materials. For that reason, technology that can effectively detect smuggled radioactive materials is considered vital to U.S. security.(more…)
