Robots are for every one. Tech TV now host Battle Bots which is a big hit with viewers and draws crowds as big as WFB Wrestling. Many of these people get heavy into the Robot Scene and even occasionally try to impress Military People. Check out some of these Super Heavy Weight Battle Bots, every type of configuration available.
[http://www.battlebots.com/superheavyweights.asp]
What I find most interesting to these battle bot groups is that they are literally practicing warfare at a micro-level, using flanking maneuvers, military strategy, modern day theories, and theories of nature and hunting. Why are these groups important? Well for one we have seen them as we have seen those who play computer games such as Mech-Warrior and others become as smart at tactics as those being trained in military history strategy and tactics at West point.
When we discuss the use of swarms in battle, we often think of animals, bees, wasps, etc. I think of UAV swarms and taking this to another level these Battle Bots also have been messing around with such ideas, recreating science fiction movies genres and using some pretty interesting calculations and ideas to justify their ideas. We must consider both offense and defensive ideas on this theme. Now we are already on the scene with our DARPA to build swarm ability UAVs. UAV costs for military operations. AeroVironment WASP and the hobbyist; the Q-Butterfly. You might want to Google both of those items to learn more.
Should we use the same defenses we use on insect swarms for possible defense on UAV swarms? Well here are some of the things we do to prevent swarms in insects: Killing of Q-Fly and uses of DDT can give us insight as to the level of problem West Nile really is, to eradicate it completely is a huge issue.
[http://www.sardi.sa.gov.au/pages/entomolo/…fhistry_no3.pdf]
[http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/citrus/finalr…t/appendixe.pdf]
We have had some success with the Mediterranean fruit fly. Here are some of the ground robots created for Battle Bot RoboWars.
[http://victorynetwork.net/michael/downloads/notebook.ps]
There are hundreds of people thinking about these things day and night all with ideas and trying to better each others efforts and this competition is helping the speed of evolution of this technology.
http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/archvC2.html
If you study African Fire ants working together when attacking a larger prey. If you think about it there are thousands of species probably 20,000 species, we have categorized about 10,000 so far. 20,000 species of ants and they are niche specialists and if you weigh them out, they weigh the same amount as the 6.6 Billion people in the world. Using an ant concept with an exo-skeleton you have the basic idea for a Mother Ship Robot, which carries smaller robots for important purposes. And really if you take an evasion craft of the Normandy Invasion and put in many Fighters with Kevlar and helmet, is that not the same concept?
http://www.michaelbehar.com/wired/robots_05_02_p2.html
Science Fictionists have forever been developers of such ideas, but in real life we must also deal with motion and therefore we have to make sure that these little robots as well as the mothership has the proper motor, gearing, batteries, speed controllers, fuel, weapons systems.
http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2001/minirobot.htm
We are not the only ones working on robots, so are the Japanese and these items are getting very small as in Nano Size and will some day go in and attack cancer cells. Here are some of the smallest robots being developed:
[http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200…mbw-3001101.php] .
Ants use a chemical communication system, which seems to be superior to human communication. Wasps and ants are of the same basic genome. By detecting smells and odors and CO2 they are able to home in on targets and give off chemicals to get other ants to follow their instructions. All colonies smell the same and other colonies do not smell the same. Each human has a smell as well and this smell can be used to identify people and perhaps small robots might uses chemicals to home in on and detect problems or discover North Korean’s arsenal? Some ants in hot desert regions use the direction of the sun, because the odors are melted into oblivion due to high heat of the day and perhaps a pattern of light in the sky based on the spectrum of the light rays, which is used as a good navigation system. The ants stop every so often to look up in the sky and see where they have gone. They can zig zag for hours and then beeline straight to the nest at will at any time. This type of navigation is very valuable, which can be used by those robots, which will go from LA to Las Vegas and collect their million dollar prize. In Minority Report remember the Robot Ants, well so do the scientists. The ants seem to be a pretty excellent species and well adapted for our various needs in a Mothership ground based robot form. We can learn much from ants also in their bacteria fighting ability, which neutralizes poisons in animals, insects and plants. Which means we could use organic robots and the current species can solve the problems of diseases we are now experiencing.
For instance West Nile Virus. We know that certain caterpillars make noise vibrations which can be picked up by the ants as a communication system. We can use such a vibration to train ants to do what we need them to do. Therefore we do not need to create a system of communication, however using mini network sensors and mini-robots we may be able to it as good or better than the natures version. We can use these for large uses or small uses, for trucks or for mini-bots. If we learn the communication system of ants, well then we do not need weapons for our enemies, because we can have the ants take care of our needs. Even though they not in possession of a large brain, they work as network computer grid. By using these types of systems and communicating strategies we can prevent, create a defense and create an offense strategy in robots and AUVs.
Now Ants work in a NetCentric Warfare strategy, they work in teams and the teams are separate from the whole in a way yet controlled by the central control before and after each mission. It is an anarchy of teams. Let me put it this way. It runs like the FED EX model and theories of Fred Smith explained in his book; The World on Time. You should read the book, especially you should go to the midnight Memphis Sort. Air Cargo usually uses this method, which he created. Each set of ants goes out and scours the area and finds things and then they get together to bring it back. At Fed Ex they have a mission and a goal and everyone has been trained to do the job, Now then, they bring all the packages to the hub like the ants, only now Fed Ex reverses it and uses the same methodology to deliver the packages somewhere else. And like the offensive defense of the nest the ants go out together and attack the predator together. Each one of these groups working together yet separate has their own little groups and teams, just like Fed Ex and again you are going to have to read the book to understand what I am talking about with Mr. Smith’s ideas on Management Theory.
I wonder if this is the natural order of things for all species on the planet and the best idea for those species to work together to be able to serve and exploit niches and accomplish tasks. 5 million years of evolution may have learned more about management than we have in our schools. Perhaps as much as we try we are not being smart about our designs? Organization is the strong point of the ants. Shouldn’t we pay attention? Yes of course. Especially as we create artificial life, artificial intelligence and robots and autonomous vehicles?
Just some thoughts on reviewing the Theory of Movement, Nature and Science and the possible future technologies of Mini-Robots, Motherships, Swarm Strategies as they relate to the future. By studying nature and the movements of such well adapted and evolved species like Wasps, Ants and bees and studying their Organization and Delivery Strategies we will learn the efficiencies and possibilities to move to the next step.