Robotics Trends

Virginia Tech Team to Build Battlefield Robots for 2010 Competition A team of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students from Virginia Tech’s Virginia Center for Autonomous Systems in building a team battle-ready robots as part of an international war games challenge. The roving, walking robotic soldiers of the “Terminator” films are becoming less sci-fi, and more certain future every day. Now, a team of robotics researchers from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering will build a team of fully autonomous cooperative battle-ready robots as part of a 2010 international war games challenge that could spur real-life battle bots. The 2010 Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (MAGIC) (http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/MAGIC2010/) tasks teams with building squads of fully autonomous ground robots that will coordinate, plan, and execute a series of timed tasks including hunting objects, classifying and responding to simulated threats,… View this post
Filed in: Academics and Research • Feature • Robotics Features
Tagged: robotics, robot, autonomy, tomonari furukawa, virginia tech college of multi-autonomous ground-robotic international challenge, tank automotive research development and engineering center, magic, Autonomous ground vehicles

AAI Receives $39 Million Award for Additional Shadow Systems In addition to 91 previously delivered systems, AAI Corporation has been contracted to deliver three new Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems to support U.S. Army and Marine Corps. bringing the total of ordered systems to 116. AAI Corporation, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced that it has received a $39 million production order for additional Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems (TUAS). The order includes two additional units for the U.S. Army and one for the Marine Corps. Including this new order, a total of 116 Shadow TUAS have been ordered by the Army, Army National Guard, Army Special Forces and Marine Corps. To date, AAI has delivered 91 Shadow systems and deliveries now extend through March 2011. “Our goal… View this post
Filed in: Security & Defense Robotics • Opinion
Tagged: robotics, robot, Aai corporation, unmanned aerial vehicle, autonomy, shadow, unmanned aerial system, autonomous