Explosive UGV market growth, Fact or Fiction?

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UGV Market GrowthWintergreen Research is publicizing a finding that the “…first responder and military ground robot marketplace will expand at close to 20% annually for the rest of the decade.”  Furthermore, “Markets at $4.5 billion in 2013 reach $12.0 billion by 2019.”

This is welcome news for the developers of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV).  Robohub points out that this projection is consistent with a Markets and Markets report that predicts a 17.4% CAGR for the same time period. Of course, any headline in the media must be greeted with a certain degree of skepticism. Do these projections make sense?

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Big Brother, We are Watching You: An Opinion about PRISM, New Technology, and Privacy

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Big Brother and Privacy

Privacy in the news

If you follow the news, it seems that many technological advances – computers, internet, emails, cell phones, and even unmanned systems – have turned against us.  Instead of tools that serve, they have become instruments that watch and track.

Leaked documents revealed widespread government intrusion into emails and telephone metadata. Senators have raised suspicions about intrusive FBI investigative techniques.  States fear Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and are restricting police access to them. Activists groups are agitating for privacy protections.

Even Superman is annoyed. In the movie Man of Steel, he trashes a UAV that was following him, while growling, “You can’t find out where I hang up my cape.”

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Unmanned Ground Vehicles & Privacy

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PrivacyEye spy
I was having dinner with a new acquaintance when an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) bumped my foot. I looked down and saw a radio-controlled toy.

“Oh, don’t mind that,” said my host.  “That’s just my son playing.”

“He plays too much with that thing,” groused the boy’s father. “What really bothers me is that it has a camera.  I’m don’t like being spied on in my own home.” Read more

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What you don’t know about handheld controllers can hurt you

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handheld controllerOriginally, only the IT guy was supposed to attend the trade show.  He had a tech background and frequently doubled as a purchasing agent. However, the police sergeant had performed Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) missions in the military. The chief thought the experienced, older man could bring insight to the department’s process for acquiring an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV)…

Read the rest of the article about handheld controllers here.

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AEODRS, Sequestration, and the Wisdom of Lego

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UGVs-resized-600AEODRS in the spotlight
All eyes in the Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) community are on the Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robot System (AEODRS) program. An important RFP for the increment-1(small robot for dismounted operations) is expected soon, and everyone wants a piece of the action if not the whole shebang itself.

Several things make AEODRS especially attractive to Defense vendors.  For one thing, in a time of sequestration and other budget pressures, it is one of the few fully funded Department of Defense (DoD) UGV development programs around.  Secondly, it is arguably the most important.

Read the rest of the article here.

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AMREL & the Boston Bombing

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iRobot Inc. Robots Help To Measure Radiation Levels In Japan

Like all Americans, we were horrified to learn about the bombing of the Boston Marathon.  Like all Americans, we were relieved when the suspects were captured.  Only recently, did we discover that AMREL technology may have played a small role in the manhunt.

On Friday, April 19th, a Honda Civic was found to be parked in Watertown, Massachusetts.  The car had been abandoned by Dzohkhar Tsarnaev after he and his brother had a gunfight with the police.

The police were understandably nervous approaching the car.  According to the most recent reports, the suspects had more than one homemade bomb and had even thrown them at the police during the chase.   Was the car rigged to explode?

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Cars are the new Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV)

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I once read a quote from a futurist that many distinctions that we currently take forcar granted will be not be valid in the future. Things that seem as different as day and night will be indistinguishable. Day and night, for example. The proliferation of night vision and other sensor technologies will cause future generations to have radically different views about the level of privacy traditionally offered by the cloak of night. Another distinction that is already blurred is the one between manned and unmanned vehicles.  Read full article here.

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Robotics Roadmap 2013 Highlights

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Roadmap robotRecently, the 2013 Robotics Roadmap was presented to the Congressional Robotics Caucus.  This is an updated version of the 2009 report, which helped established the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), a federal multi- agency joint effort.

Members of the unmanned system community are barraged with roadmaps all the time, so it would be tempting to ignore this one. However, key influencers are involved in this roadmap, so it should be considered seriously. You can slog through all 129 pages of the report or examine the highlights described here.

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5 Ways Defense Vendors Can Survive Sequestration

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dod cutsArmy Maj. Gen. Lynn A. Collyar, former director of Defense Logistics Agency’s logistics operations, is not scared of sequestration and he doesn’t want you to be either.

“Our budget still has almost $500 billion,” he recently told an audience of anxious Defense vendors. “We can’t afford to just throw money around…,” but “there is still a lot of money out there.”

One person who doesn’t need convincing is Rob Culver, Director of Program Management for AMREL.  After serving in 23 years in the Army with half his career spent in Special Operations (18A), Rob also spent 8 years managing Defense acquisition programs, covering the complete product life-cycle.  Having experienced procurement as an acquisition officer, a Defense vendor, and as a grunt in the field, he has a uniquely well-informed point-of-view about the Defense budget.

“General Collyar is absolutely right,” he said. “Vendors are scared, because they don’t understand the acquisition process.  The ones who learn how to work the system will be the ones who survive and prosper.”

Read the rest of this here

 

 

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Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference 2013 GRCC Canceled

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grcc 2013 canceledYikes! The NDIA just announced that it canceled the Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference (GRCC) 2013.

In an email dated March 5, NDIA stated:

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