Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Marines Bring Out The Big Dogs

The US Marine Corps was showing off some of their coolest new toys last week at the Marine Corps Air Station in New River, North Carolina.
They buzzed down in an MV-22 Osprey, opened the cargo door and out marched a view of the battlefield of the future.

Gunnery Sgt. James D. Davenport wore a robotic exoskeleton with a huge weapon attached. The attached rig - a DARPA project: Exoskeleton for Human Performance Augmentation - allows the soldier to carry up to 200 pounds and still walk without effort.

Next to march out of the Osprey were two "Big Dog" battlefield mules under development by Boston Dynamics.

The 'dogs are designed to run along side a soldier to carry his supplies for him. They can walk up to 3.5 miles per hour over rough terrain and carry over a hundred pounds.

Last, they rolled off a demonstration of the Life Support for Trauma and Transport-lite. This new 50 pound version of a 'portable emergency room' is similar to one in use today but weighs only 1/4 as much.

According to John Main, a program manager at DARPA, the purpose of the demonstration was to get an idea of how all these new technologies will work together and how they will benefit the Marine Corps.

Marine Corps News -> Rise of the machines: DARPA tests new technology at VMX-22

Related: Robot Beasts

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmm...You know, I don't think giant headless dogs following our soldiers around in the field helps to dispell the "America as Evil Empire" view held by many in the world.

Any idea when these CSNG's are going to be deployed in the field? (CSNG? My acronym. Stands for Child Scaring Nightmare Generator.)

3:12 AM, July 06, 2006  

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