[Cyborg] AlphaDog >> BigDog

Eric Boyd mrericboyd at yahoo.com
Fri Sep 30 16:50:36 UTC 2011


http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/boston-dynamics-alphadog-prototype-on-video

"Badass. Oh, and if you were listening, you may have noticed that 
AlphaDog does not sound like a swarm of killer zombie bees. Amazing!"

On the other hand, you might have noticed as well that it seems to be 
tethered in this video, including with two large black cables that look 
suspiciously like they might carry power.  It's possible that this 
version of the AlphaDog doesn't have it's onboard generator, and 
therefore it doesn't have the noise of that generator... with a 400 
pound capacity though there is plenty of space for that onboard 
generator, and I'm sure that's how they ultimately intend to equip it.

Boston Dynamics actually calls this thing the LS3 - Legged Squad Support 
Systems.  Apparently they got $32M from DARPA to develop it.  That's a 
surprisingly small number, don't you think?

Eric




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