Carnegie Mellon, BAE Systems to Hold First Public Demonstration of Unmanne

[Judi Lynn]

Carnegie Mellon, BAE Systems to Hold First Public Demonstration of Unmanned Ground Vehicle Being Developed for U.S. Marine Corps

PITTSBURGH, July 29 (AScribe Newswire) -- Carnegie Mellon University and BAE Systems, which recently completed its acquisition of United Defense, will hold a public demonstration of Gladiator, the first tactical unmanned ground vehicle being developed for the U.S. Marine Corps.

The demonstration will take place at 11 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 4, at the BAE Systems plant, located on U.S. Route 119 near Connellsville, Pa. U.S. Congressman John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) will be attending the event along with representatives from the U.S. Marines, the university, BAE Systems and other industrial partners.

In February, Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Consortium (NREC) and BAE Systems announced that they had been awarded a $26.4 million system development and demonstration (SDD) contract by the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Program Office/Robotic Systems to design, develop and produce tactical unmanned ground vehicles for the Marines.

Carnegie Mellon is providing the robotics technology and overall design for the Gladiator project, while BAE Systems and its subcontractors will support the design effort, and manufacture and support the vehicle. Gladiator is a tele-operated, semi-autonomous vehicle equipped with remote, unmanned scout, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities, specially designed to increase human survival by neutralizing threats and reducing risks for the Marines' Air-Ground Task Force.
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http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050729.090433&time=09

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Marines at Camp Smith demonstrate the crowd-control capabilities of the Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle.
U.S. Marine Corps photo

CAMP SMITH — It looks like something out of Robocop, a mini tank-treaded terror bristling with so many cannon and guns that only a Hollywood screenwriter could have dreamed it up.

It's designed to be RoboMarine — technically the Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle — and proponents say it would have come in handy in trouble spots ranging from Somalia, Kosovo and Bosnia to Afghanistan and Iraq.

As unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator continue to chalk up successes, with more than 10 UAVs utilized in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Marine Corps expects to be the first service to field a robot for crowd control.

The 4-foot-tall, 1,600-pound concept vehicle recently was demonstrated at Camp Smith, launching dozens of smoke rounds downrange that could have been tear gas, or stingball and flashbang grenades.
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http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Jul/07/mn/mn01a.html

[acmejack]

1. I see Lockheed-Martin is the prime contractor

War is their business.

[mark11727]

2. Early prototype: "Johnny 5"

[Barrett808]

3. Or ED-209

"You have thirty seconds to comply."

[mark11727]

5. Even better!

BENDER!

[Barrett808]

6. "Bite my shiny silver ass!" n/t

[bspence]

4. Cool, I work for BAE Systems n/t

[Divernan]

7. Let's make all future wars our robots vs. their robots/fought on the moon

The military industrial complex could still make their obscenely huge profits - but all those tax dollars at least would not be soaked with the blood of the world's young men and women.

[daleo]

8. Next peace march, Gladiator may be there.

There are a few bugs to work out still...