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Cash-strapped forces will pay for ‘World Cup‘ calibre robots
Tom Blackwell
National Post
Friday, January 09, 2004
CANADA‘S NEW TROOPS: FIRST TEST IS SOCCER PITCH, NEXT IS BATTLEFIELD: Four-legged machines with artificial intelligence go head-to-head at the annual RoboCup. The Canadian Forces issued a tender this week for robots to compete in the games, and for future military use.
CREDIT: Alessandro Da Tos-Elisa Pascali
The Canadian military may be hard pressed to put a well-equipped human force on the battlefield, but it is ordering up six soccer-playing robots to compete in this year‘s edition of the World Cup of artificial intelligence.
Scientists say a tender issued this week for robots to take part in the 2004 RoboCup is not all about little machines scuttling around after a ball. The software developed for the soccer tournament will be applied to a cutting-edge Department of National Defence project that may one day replace soldiers with robots, researchers said yesterday.
The aim is to field a "team" of unmanned, self-directed vehicles that can talk to each other and carry out reconnaissance with virtually no human direction.
Other applications could see groups of machines, both airborne and land-based, independently search for land mines, said Bruce Digney of Defence Research and Development Canada.
Officials hope such a robot army will protect human soldiers and stretch limited resources.
"Western countries are having a tough time recruiting enough people to staff a lot of military positions," said Dr. Digney, based at Suffield, Alta.
"This gives us a force multiplier, in addition to keeping the humans out of harm‘s way."
But first, there is RoboCup, to be held this spring in Portgual. Defence Research and Development issued a tender this week for the supply of six omni-directional robots capable of playing soccer, expected to cost a total of about $20,000.
The bots are about the size of ice-cream pails and "kick" golf balls.
The Defence Department will work with faculty and students at the University of Alberta to develop the algorithms that will be programmed into the robots, helping them navigate the playing field, interact with each other and get the ball in the net.
The university has been competing for about three years in the international event, designed to encourage advancements in robotics.
But many of the algorithms developed by the university will be applied to the military reconnaissance robot project, which researchers hope to test in southern Alberta‘s rolling countryside by 2005.
Robo soccer "is an adversarial environment for the robots," Dr. Digney said.
"In military applications, our worlds are naturally adversarial. That aspect [of the RoboCup] is appealing to us."
Defence Research and Development has also put out a tender for vehicles to use in its demonstration project. They will likely be all-terrain vehicles and the like, which could be equipped with the sensors and computers needed to turn them into autonomous reconnaissance machines.
The plan would have a human operator instruct the team of robots to search an area of several miles across for some sort of target. The machines would then divide up the area among themselves and communicate to each other if they detect anything.
They would have to be able to see the landscape around them and navigate through it safely, without human operation, a much more difficult challenge for scientists than the tasks performed by stationary robots in factories, Dr. Digney said.
As well as keeping people out of danger, such a force would work without the physical limitations of humans. They could, for instance, stay in one spot for a long period of time without having to be supplied with food and with fewer worries about them being left behind enemy lines, Dr. Digney said.
RoboCup was started in 1997, attracting teams of scientists from around the world to compete, and eventually share their findings with colleagues, said Dr. Michael Bowling, a University of Alberta professor who is helping organize a soccer event this year.
The events range from those involving small machines like the ones Defence Research and Development is buying, to humanoid robots that have legs and arms.
The goal of RoboCup is to field a team by 2050 that could compete against the human World Cup champions.
The soccer network has spurred researchers to develop more robust robots, which can be used over and over again, transported around the world and adapted to different lighting conditions, Dr. Bowling said.
One of the key potential applications of such technology is in rescue operations after earthquakes and other natural disasters, Dr. Bowling said.
The RoboCup even includes a rescue competition in which robots sift through simulated rubble to find mannequins emitting signs of life.
"We could have thousands of them [at a disaster site]," he said. "They can then respond back: ‘Look, I‘ve found someone who might be in need of help,‘ grab the human‘s attention and they can then make decisions."
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interesting indeed, thoughts?
Tom Blackwell
National Post
Friday, January 09, 2004
CANADA‘S NEW TROOPS: FIRST TEST IS SOCCER PITCH, NEXT IS BATTLEFIELD: Four-legged machines with artificial intelligence go head-to-head at the annual RoboCup. The Canadian Forces issued a tender this week for robots to compete in the games, and for future military use.
CREDIT: Alessandro Da Tos-Elisa Pascali
The Canadian military may be hard pressed to put a well-equipped human force on the battlefield, but it is ordering up six soccer-playing robots to compete in this year‘s edition of the World Cup of artificial intelligence.
Scientists say a tender issued this week for robots to take part in the 2004 RoboCup is not all about little machines scuttling around after a ball. The software developed for the soccer tournament will be applied to a cutting-edge Department of National Defence project that may one day replace soldiers with robots, researchers said yesterday.
The aim is to field a "team" of unmanned, self-directed vehicles that can talk to each other and carry out reconnaissance with virtually no human direction.
Other applications could see groups of machines, both airborne and land-based, independently search for land mines, said Bruce Digney of Defence Research and Development Canada.
Officials hope such a robot army will protect human soldiers and stretch limited resources.
"Western countries are having a tough time recruiting enough people to staff a lot of military positions," said Dr. Digney, based at Suffield, Alta.
"This gives us a force multiplier, in addition to keeping the humans out of harm‘s way."
But first, there is RoboCup, to be held this spring in Portgual. Defence Research and Development issued a tender this week for the supply of six omni-directional robots capable of playing soccer, expected to cost a total of about $20,000.
The bots are about the size of ice-cream pails and "kick" golf balls.
The Defence Department will work with faculty and students at the University of Alberta to develop the algorithms that will be programmed into the robots, helping them navigate the playing field, interact with each other and get the ball in the net.
The university has been competing for about three years in the international event, designed to encourage advancements in robotics.
But many of the algorithms developed by the university will be applied to the military reconnaissance robot project, which researchers hope to test in southern Alberta‘s rolling countryside by 2005.
Robo soccer "is an adversarial environment for the robots," Dr. Digney said.
"In military applications, our worlds are naturally adversarial. That aspect [of the RoboCup] is appealing to us."
Defence Research and Development has also put out a tender for vehicles to use in its demonstration project. They will likely be all-terrain vehicles and the like, which could be equipped with the sensors and computers needed to turn them into autonomous reconnaissance machines.
The plan would have a human operator instruct the team of robots to search an area of several miles across for some sort of target. The machines would then divide up the area among themselves and communicate to each other if they detect anything.
They would have to be able to see the landscape around them and navigate through it safely, without human operation, a much more difficult challenge for scientists than the tasks performed by stationary robots in factories, Dr. Digney said.
As well as keeping people out of danger, such a force would work without the physical limitations of humans. They could, for instance, stay in one spot for a long period of time without having to be supplied with food and with fewer worries about them being left behind enemy lines, Dr. Digney said.
RoboCup was started in 1997, attracting teams of scientists from around the world to compete, and eventually share their findings with colleagues, said Dr. Michael Bowling, a University of Alberta professor who is helping organize a soccer event this year.
The events range from those involving small machines like the ones Defence Research and Development is buying, to humanoid robots that have legs and arms.
The goal of RoboCup is to field a team by 2050 that could compete against the human World Cup champions.
The soccer network has spurred researchers to develop more robust robots, which can be used over and over again, transported around the world and adapted to different lighting conditions, Dr. Bowling said.
One of the key potential applications of such technology is in rescue operations after earthquakes and other natural disasters, Dr. Bowling said.
The RoboCup even includes a rescue competition in which robots sift through simulated rubble to find mannequins emitting signs of life.
"We could have thousands of them [at a disaster site]," he said. "They can then respond back: ‘Look, I‘ve found someone who might be in need of help,‘ grab the human‘s attention and they can then make decisions."
---
interesting indeed, thoughts?
