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> The marine corps passed on big dog as "too loud" at the end of 2015, that killed a potential customer for that product. and if you look at the latest gen, th
by bRad389 11y ago
> The marine corps passed on big dog as "too loud" at the end of 2015, that killed a potential customer for that product.
and if you look at the latest gen, the robots clearly are quieter-so BD is still listening to the needs of the military.
My take: This company can make boku bucks selling to the military, but not while Google is the parent. They've had military applications in mind this whole time, but held back from making the sales. To let this company soar, it needed to get out from under the google umbrella.
Google wont sell to the military, but apparently they will fund years of R&D for military use cases. Unfortunately the sale price that google will get for BD will take into account the future Military contracts that will be available now. Meaning Google will be indirectly profiting off selling robots to the military.
- Uhhrrr 11y agobeaucoup http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beaucoup http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beaucoup
- Animats 11y ago"The marine corps passed on big dog as "too loud" at the end of 2015, that killed a potential customer for that product." That was apparently a subcontractor failure. The prototype BigDog was powered by an off the shelf constant-speed gasoline engine driving a generator and hydraulic pump. This was inefficient, but good enough for the R&D version. The LS3 militarized version was supposed to have a quiet variable-speed Diesel plus some battery backup. (The US military is all-Diesel now. Gasoline tankers have no place in modern combat, where there are few secure rear areas.) So there was a subcontract for a small custom variable-speed Diesel engine with hydraulic pump and generator, with stringent noise and weight limitations. That apparently didn't work out as well as had been hoped. Quiet, tiny Diesels are hard.
- yourapostasy 11y agoI wonder if electric or hydraulic actuators are quieter? Also, what would be the range of running the LS3 on batteries, then the recharge time with an on-board diesel?