http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMz4EIzP22k

I have a nice mechanical tripod-mounted M4 that would look really nice on one of those...

Seeing it tow the Hummer, makes me wonder how good it'd be for pulling cars that are stuck in snow or ice. Be a good tool to have in the bed of a truck for that.

On the flip side, this is how it starts. Next thing we know, we're in a cave somewhere listening to John Conner on the radio.

I'm a bit sketchy on the notion that the thing can punch through walls, but I love seeing it run around with a gun on it. Moar droens for the corpse sec!

My only question is how long the battery lasts (oh, and what's the price tag?)

Hmmmm. We need smaller reactors...

Cute . . as long as you stay out of it's firing arc, run up to it and tip it over.

Just watch out for the perimeter defense flechette launchers!!!

I do believe we might be loading this thing with enough gadgets to weigh it down. Just like AR15 newbs, Tactical Overaccessorization... Does all sorts of stuff, but weighs a ton in the process.

Reminds me of the stuff made by Howe & Howe Tech.



It was towing a Hummer.

I dun think even a few hundred pounds of gear is going to bother that thing much.

Also, they showed the base model easily righting itself when it rolled over. With a little more engineering, they could probably make a turret shaped so it'd be able to self-right itself even when armed.




-k

Yeah yeah. I am allowed to poke fun at the rolling ball of accessories! Though I question it towing a Hummer. Maybe for a very short distance on a flat surface and at great expense to the batteries. Not saying that reduces your comment about it being able to carry a lot of goodies, just an opinion on towing the Hummer.

by the way, how does it have enough grip to tow the hummer?

Gecko superstick tires!

Yeah, but if the hummer is 4700 lbs, and say you put on 320 lbs of gear on the drone and still only use a fraction of the energy needed to tow a hummer.

Now for 320 lbs you should be able to get a Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher, camera and turret mechanisms, and 144 grenades. Not a bad bit of hurt done by a robot. Swap out the grenade launcher for a .50 cal and have some fun.

Totally Awesome... Order me a Dozen of them...

All I can say is that "The Future Is Now".

My Father is a cyborg, after all.

As someone who has done a bit of framing, that was a properly built interior wall, it really is no problem punching through those. It doesn't even appear to have been a load bearing wall. Exterior walls with the sheathing and siding might be a bit more trouble based on what those components materials are (particle board is crap, slightest bit of dampness and it is little better than bread crumbs and I never want to see finger joined 2x4 or 2x6 nominal studs or joists but people are putting that crap in, the cheap bastards). Even masonry isn't worth much. Only the insulated concrete, rebar enforced footings, pads, columns, and walls might be something that could resist it for a while and that really depends on the quality of the concrete with additives and setting conditions like if it was vibrated just right to reduce pockets and temperature and humidity/water level variances didn't fuck with the curing process too much.

Yeah, I get it, most people don't realize how paper thin their homes are. We don't build post and beam log homes and tamped earth structures with boulders in masonry much anymore and concrete bunkers are only in fashion for militia and well-to-do wealthy paranoids.

Forget the bot, I could probably blast through a wall with just a tiny bit of effort and that is before I break out any tools.

Yeah, but you could send the bot while sitting in your nice bullet-resistant HMMWV or APC a half-mile away. To paraphrase the old military maxim usually said about ammunition, "Drones are cheap, life is expensive."

Of course, with the right equipment, have it set the breaching charge, and you get the best of both worlds.

And I'm well aware how pathetic modern building is. Most Canadians are. My 100+ year old home stands firm and warm compared to a lot of buildings that just finished construction. And that's without "Modern" insulation, and a few issues we're slowly fixing (Mostly involving windows. Always problems for heat retention.).

Hummer's in neutral. You or I could have probably pushed it (it's getting it moving that's the hard part, keeping it moving is easy).

Yah, i know, but how did it get it to move from standing still, without losing tracktion with it's own tires?

Funny story, we had to fix a friend's truck in the middle of the street back home, and the guy that was doing the actual work underneath it didn't want to get the leaky fluids all over his outfit.

"Move the truck." "How? It won't even start." "Put it in neutral, and I'll push it." "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Simple solutions sometimes.

Again, it does make me wonder how well it'd could get vehicles unstuck. Maybe a few of them working in concert could get a car out of deep snow or something if they were tracked instead of wheeled.

Well, especially if the tracks/tires were spiked for additional grip, it should probably work reasonably well . .

Very slowly. Speed and Torque are inversely proportional.

Kick the transmission into Low, and there you go!

with patience you can pull anything

OK... that was fraking crazy!

Just goes to show you that, yes my friends, this little drone CAN tow a Humvee.

Now back to what you would put on this little sucker.

I still like the idea of a belt-fed grenade launcher. Or a ramped up version of the laser weapon from "Laser Pistol" thread. I mean you are carrying a whole lot of batteries already. Just put on the turret and off you go.

Mk. 19 Grenade Launcher and M2HB have been suggestions (Although not by name.). With a stable enough platform, powerful enough telescopic camera, and I'd also suggest tracks for all-terrain movement, an Anti-Material Rifle would be another suggestion, especially if you can keep the device cool enough (IR Goggles aren't as expensive as they used to be after all.).

Also, I could see this as quite a useful modern update for the "Universal Carrier" idea. Able to haul everything that old beast was, except for a fire unit of soldiers. Light Artillery, mortars on a trailer, ammunition. Ammunition carrier to a cut-off military unit would be very useful as well, with the option of pulling out badly wounded soldiers on the way out (They show an example of that in the video.). Bit dangerous for the poor solider on the way out, but if he's in a "We must get him to a Medic ASAP" situation anyhow...

Actually, a damned useful thing if you could get it to drive itself, following a "Follow Me" tag of some sort dedicated to hauling supplies that soldiers marching in the field now won't have to. (You know, the stuff they usually dump anyways when the fertilizer hits the ventilator.). Even having it haul some extra water could extend a patrol's range quite a bit as long as the batteries hold out.

And, for the Canadian Armed Forces, mobile beer fridge and Tim Horton's coffee supplies.

wonder what happened when he tried to stop again . .

On thing that doesn't show in the movie is that it was very heavily loaded (several metric tons of lest) and the tires filled with a correspondingly high pressure to get enough traction.

Oh, it shows.

Oh yes - I had only seen a shortned version which didn't show that, hence my comment. I thought it was the same video.

They cheated... you can't see what is behind the Hummer, after all.

And those walls all didn't look very sturdy... esp. that awesome cardboard-strength wall it "teared" through first.

Bye
Thanee

Well, it would be harmless over here in germany, but america is basically built like that in wide stretches . .

Sadly, this is true...

I am confident in our turn of the century home sitting on the hill. No easy approach to build up speed, and built by fine German immigrant builders with good materials. If I had a tower, it would be the perfect zombie/rolling robot defense platform.

My house doesn't have great views of approach, but it is a 140 year old stone farm house. While you could use a hose and make it collapse, you can't push it over.

So, arm the robots with fire hoses. Check...

My Aunt has a, well, we don't even know how old the farm house is. Four stone walls when they moved in. They just put floors and a roof on it. The exterior additions are "slightly" less robust, but tough enough to be comfortable in all but the harshest Canadian Winter (The only issue they had was during the Great Ice Storm.).

Interior walls in North America are garbage. Exterior walls, depends on where you are, and how old the building is. Usually the older the better, but sometimes they do actually build things properly again.

Personally, if I were to test this piece of equipment for the foreseeable warfare going on right now, I'd be attempting it against Adobe walls.

Of course, I'd love to see this thing face up against an Israeli Door. Damn, but those things are well built!

Wait, Adobe makes walls now?

<--that's a link

You do not need a lot of grip to pull a hummer. This cars are around 3 tons.
The breaks were not engaged so we may assume the wheels were rolling freely
So the robot would have to pull with a force of 3000kg*10(m/s²)*0.015=450N
It would need around 450N/10(m/s²)/0.8= 56.25kg. Thats a bit low, because it is calculated without resistance inside the car (gear box etc.)
Since this thing was build out of solid metal, I guess it is not a light weight.

As you may have realised they are pulling a similar stunded in the video with the touareg.
So if I am going to steal their calculations you get up to 132 kg for the bot. Well, the truth shall be in this intervall.
I do not feel like digging up technical datas today.



True on a flat road, not so true for other surfaces.
Lets say sand. We do not even consider the secondary factors like sinking in. We are looking at the sand as it would be as solid as road.
Instead of my numbers for the hummer I will go with yours (around 2100 kg for the hummer). And I will make I wild guess for the Robot based on the numbers of the VW to be at the save side. This would mean the robot would have needed around: 93 kg. Lets assume he is around 150, it seems ok.
So to pull the hummer on the road he would need a force of:
(150*0.015+2100*0.015)*10 = 370 N (Since I left out any resistance from the vehicle itself, lets take 720N)

Now lets go with 150 kg of gear in the dessert.
Well, to pull this:
(150+150)*0.3*10= 900N
This seems somehow extrem. On the other hand: Try to ride your bike at the beach.
I am open for any corrections in my calcualtion. I just made this up on the fly. So I am not sure if I missed anything. Just applyed basic physics.
But it seems right. Sand/road is about 20-40 times the force needed.