Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: NASA e applicazioni militari

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/051202_robotics_challenges.html
NASA Sets Centennial Challenges to Boost Robotic Space Exploration
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 2 December 2005
1:11 p.m. ET
NASA announced two new cash prizes Friday, each with a weighty $250,000 
purse, in a pair of contests aimed at developing robotic systems for 
space exploration.
The space agency is challenging innovators to build an autonomous aerial 
vehicle to navigate a tricky flight path or robots capable of building 
complex structures with only limited guidance from their human handlers, 
NASA officials said.
The contests – dubbed the Planetary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and 
Telerobotic Construction challenges, respectively – are part of the 
agency’s Centennial Challenges program to spur interest in 
commercializing space technologies. Both challenges will make their 
competitive debut in 2007, NASA officials said.
“The Telerobotic Construction Challenge is directly linked to NASA’s 
focus on lunar exploration,” said Brant Sponberg, NASA’s Centennial 
Challenges program manager, in a statement.
Meanwhile, the aerial vehicle challenge may yield the same type of 
probes that could one day soar through the atmospheres of Mars and the 
Saturnian moon Titan, NASA officials said.
A challenging year
NASA has announced a series of new Centennial Challenges this year, 
including contests to develop systems for new astronaut gloves, 
suborbital vehicles and devices to excavate and pull oxygen from Moon dirt.
The program also held its first actual competitions in October during 
the 2005 Beam Power and Tether Centennial Challenges, which drew 11 
teams to compete in two events for a pair of $50,000 first prizes. Both 
awards went unclaimed, but NASA has promised larger cash prizes for the 
2006 meet.
“Based on our experiences with the Beam Power and Tether Centennial 
Challenges, we anticipate a broad variety of participants, ideas and 
real hardware for this competition,” Sponberg said of the aerial vehicle 
contest.
In order to nab top billing in the Planetary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 
Challenge, entries must be fly using visual navigation systems only – 
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) aren’t allowed – as well as extend and 
retract a probe to hit multiple ground targets, they added.
The California Space Education and Workforce Institute, of Santa Maria, 
California, is working with NASA in the competition.
NASA is also partnering with the Mountain View, California-based firm 
Spaceward Foundation – which organized the beam power and tether contest 
for the space agency – for its the Telerobotic Construction Challenge.
While contest rules will be finalized in 2006, event planners expect 
competitors to use robots to assemble structures from materials 
scattered across an arena. The need for cooperative robots and a time 
delay similar to that in Earth-Moon communications will complicate the 
task, NASA officials said.
The first Telerobotic Construction challenge is slated for August 2007, 
with the aerial vehicle contest to follow in October of that year, NASA 
officials said.

 
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/051202_robotics_challenges.html
Sarò paranoico?
Ma lo sviluppo robot di capacità di navigazione puramente visive e di 
capacità di costruzione semiautonoma mi suona molto interessante per i 
militari.
Scarichi un carico di robot e macchinari in una zona e quelli ti 
costruiscono una base avanzata da soli, dalla quale muovere all'attacco.
Sono sicuro che il genio sarebbe molto interessato.
Mirco

 costruiscono una base avanzata da soli, dalla quale muovere all'attacco.
al solito spari cazzate...
 

 al solito spari cazzate...
Argomentazioni?
Raffaele

 
semplicemente perché far costruire una base a dei robot quando (che
dovrebbero avere un' ai superiore a quella già problematica e costosissima
degli ucav) il personale del genio lo potrebbe fare a basso costo e più
velocemente non rischiando una mazza?

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Non rischiando di essere preso a fucilate, colpi di mortaio, bombardato, 
etc.?
Se è sul campo di battaglia, in territorio ostile, il rischio è sempre 
presente e non deve essere particolarmente basso.
Contesto l'idea che gli UCAV debbano avere una AI inferiore a quella dei 
robot costruttori.
Al contrario, gli basta una intelligenza molto inferiore.
Non è che devi reagire rapidissimamente ad eventi inaspettati, ne sei 
costretto entro margini di errore ristrettissimi (tipo non sparare sui 
civili scambiandoli per guerriglieri).
Inoltre, male che vada, i robot possono essere usati come strumenti di 
telepresenza, se la loro intelligenza artificiale non è sufficiente a 
farli lavorare al 100% da soli.
Mirco

 civili scambiandoli per guerriglieri).
Cazzate...