BD Series Survey Unit

## General Information

The BD-Series survey units are a series of small, modular quadrupedal robots designed for exploration, autonomous surveying of unknown worlds, and shipboard surveillance. While they are relatively specialised, they can easily be modified to perform a variety of other tasks, and contain equipment for taking samples, electrocuting threatening targets, long-range communications, and so on.

## BD Type 1

### Anatomy

BD Type 1 survey units follow a lightweight, quadrupedal design, featuring small legs separated from one another at 45\* angles, ending with concealed electromagnetic clamps to allow them to scale walls, rockfaces, and to remain stable, especially when operating in environments such as space. These legs move through a triple servo arrangement, before coming into the fully rotatable central carapace, which follows a semi-spherical structure. From this protrudes a black, spherical sensor housing, which contains a variety of high-power sensors, including high-resolution visual imaging devices, audio receptors, thermal imaging equipment, gravitational sensors, radiological sensors, radiation sensors, and so on and so forth. To the left of this is a small port which functions as an auxiliary camera in the case that the primary one is compromised, and a holographic projector to allow for holograms to be projected. On the back of the sphere, there are various status indicators, miscellaneous sensors, interfaces, and ports, as well as the long-range high-gain communications antenna, which allows for various sorts of data to be transmitted across lightyears using advanced communications technology. This also functions as a sort of transponder, and will also transmit 'black box' data upon unit destruction. On the bottom, between all of the legs, there is a sampling tool which can be extended to take samples of various objects in the environment. This can easily be replaced with other tools if needed, and some variants come with small, retractable manipulator arms which can be fitted to there. Their armour is composed of a light aviation aluminium-kevlar composite, providing PM 4 ballistic protection on the VPAM scale while ensuring that they are cheap to produce, and also lightweight - which is exactly the case, as they weigh 2.4 kilograms (5.2 pounds), and stand at 17 centimetres (7 inches) tall.

### Power Systems

The BD-1 survey droids follow the standard Tachibana philosophy of easily replaceable and rechargeable power systems, though breaks from this tradition by instead utilising twin lead-acid batteries which can be inserted into the unit through a removable port in their back. These lead-acid batteries then lead into a series of transformers, with this essentially resulting in there now being a greater amount of power available for the unit - which is then transferred back into the the DC form from its previous AC form through the use of a diode. This then leads into the rest of the robot's systems, providing quite a good amount of power in an efficient way - which also happens to last an incredibly long time, further assisting the drone in its exploratory tasks. Please note that this hatch cannot simply be 'unscrewed', and requires a specialised omnitool to be opened, just like with the rest of the unit's carapace.

### Artificial Intelligence

The BD variant 1 robots are, by default, entirely sentient and capable of fluent speech in all human languages through their vocabulatory equipment. They are capable of experiencing and expressing emotion similarly to any human can, which is a direct side effect of their enhanced learning systems. They are incredibly fast learners, with their vast processing power allowing for all sorts of variables to be processed all at once in mere seconds, which is intended to allow them to independently perform research on the field, and to analyse samples to a basic extent. They are also capable of easily learning how to translate most alien languages, again, which is well-suited for their role in exploration. To prevent BD-1 units from going rogue, however, they are designed to be able to understand the value of life to organic lifeforms, therefore preventing them from going on killing sprees upon misinterpreting orders - an issue that has arisen with past robotic units that are not programmed around Asimov's laws of robotics, as seen with the massacre of 2072.

## OOC Information

The BD-series survey units can be freely roleplayed by anyone who wishes to do such, as long as one can be entirely sure they fully understand the information gone over in this article. Its armour can stop some low-calibre bullets, being rated at PM 4, but it is best to avoid being hit in the first place - which is easy due to small size. Ensure that you know about the VPAM ballistic scale for this. Also note that you cannot simply 'unscrew' the various components on the BD-series machines, unless it is specifically stated otherwise - only internal components are screwed/bolted down in that way. To remove various items like ports, hatches and the outer carapace, one must utilise a Tachibana-produced omnitool, which combines various different tools into one to allow for easier modification, as well as a way to prevent units being tampered with by the wrong people.

If you have any further questions or inquiries, please contact us in our discord.