The Avatar II is a remote-controlled tactical robot with a 300m (328 yards) operating range for first responders and SWAT teams. It includes a front-mounted drive camera, a high-intensity front headlight, an infrared light, a 360-degree pan-tilt-zoom camera, and a composite chassis that's resistant to shock and water. Front and rear flippers help it climb stairs at inclines of up to 60 degrees and right itself if turned upside down. It's also got secure WiFi for live video and audio transmission, as well as two-way audio operation and video and audio recording capability. Separate wireless channels let operators control multiple robots simultaneously. The Avatar II weighs 25 lb (11.34 kg) and measures 24.41 inches (62 cm) by 15.35 inches (39 cm) by 6.14 inches (15.6 cm). (Source: Robotex)
Funny you should mention hacking, William--WiFi is eminently hackable and that fact often crosses my mind when writing about the wireless comms used in these mobile, semi- or fully-autonomous robots. I've read that it's a secure version of WiFi, but have not checked that out: my charter is robots, not comms. Does anyone know what the secure military protocols are?
You are right about Wi-Fi. It is only sort of hacker resistant. So a set of functions that would be fine for a robot washing windows would not be good enough for a robotic watchman. And just consider how secure a robotic "soldier" with two mini-cannons at even 2000 rounds per minute would need to be. Perhaps one of those secure military protocols might be secure enough if it were to use encrypted commands coupled with IFF logic judgement.
well, duh, isn't that whats always happened in the past ? a few issues past (of design news) there was this ad by a miniature motor manufacturer depicting 3 swat team members throwing a baton shaped robot around the side of a container to gather intelligence about a situation in a container yard. what situation in your house might be eligible for observation ? since much of whats depicted here is hobby technology, i wonder how other nations might be experimenting . microsoft's kinect, a cheap solution with SDK downloadable, less that $150, is a great set of eyes and ears for the military experimenter in (fill in the countries you hate or are fearful of)... well, enjoy today and tomorrow, thats the place we are and the place we're goin' to.
Hey bobjengr, I think you meant me, not my colleague Elizabeth. In any case, glad you liked the slideshow. Robotics technologies are moving ahead very quickly right now.
William, thanks for backing me up on this. I'm always surprised at some people's lack of understanding about WiFi's non-security. And I'd really like to know a lot more about the "secure" protocols the military uses for WiFi and other wireless comms.
Ann, They are secure, and much of the information is classified. That means that they would not tell me much more than I told you.
But they are able to pass both commands and data, and they have a method of error detection and correction.
What I hope is that it is not able to be "spoofed", like the one drone was a few months back. That was a case of where the enemy lislead the GPS system. Worse yet, that drone did not have a "destruct on capture" system installed. That was very unfortunate.
Thanks, William, I already know what you mentioned about those secure protocols. In fact, I learned a little bit about how they transmit both commands and data, and the ECC--but not as much as I'd like. And not nearly as much as I want to know about just how hackable they are. I hadn't thought of spoofing, though--that does sound scary.
Ann, spoofing is indeed a very big challenge, there was quite q write up about how the spoofing of the drone was accomplished, and what can be done to avoid a repeat of the attack. Fortunately the method of attack is fairly well understood, and there were a few statements about methods available to detect it in the future. Unfortunately the implementation of the detection process is not so very simple, and it seems that it may take quite a bit more than just adding a few lines of code. The articles were either in "Microwaves and RF" or in the "Microwave journal", I don't recall which. And it was several months ago. You may find those publications a bit dry, though. Or possibly not.
Thanks for the info, William. In the distant past I covered communications technology, including military comms and the intricacies of how data transmission protocols work, and even wrote articles for at least one of those journals. I do find them to be dry, but that's the nature of the beast.
One more interesting thing about this collection of robotic packages is that they would all find use in the non-military realm as well. Some would work in law enforcement and others in industry and firefighting. Plus, some of them would make really neat toys.
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