Navy builds 50,000 square foot lab to simulate desert, jungle to test military robots
April 9, 2012
Tropical High Bay at NRL's Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research is a 60' by 40' greenhouse that contains a re-creation of a southeast Asian rain forest (credit: NRL)
The 50,000 square foot Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. is a real-world testing lab for robots, where they’ll be tested in sandstorms, jungle humidity, and water.
It can be used for small autonomous air vehicles, autonomous ground vehicles, and the people who will interact with them. A motion capture video system allows engineers to track up to 50 objects and gather high-accuracy ground truth data of all positions of these tracked objects.
The facility includes four human-systems interaction labs that can be used as control rooms for human-subject experiments, or for development of autonomy software.
An audio system allows for injecting directional sound into the environment, such as the sound of troops marching or environmental background noises.
The labs also contain eye trackers (useful for studying how people work with advanced interfaces for autonomous systems) and multi-user/multi-touch displays.
Sounds like a great place to test those taco-delivery drones. — Ed.
Comments (9)
by gisi
murphy’s law- anything that can go wrong, will – at the worst possible moment
by walter
next wars willl be fought by robots.
by anthrobotic
Navy’s Firefighting Robot: Way More Than Meets the Eye
“Certainly not every robotics project should be taken seriously, but talking trash about the Navy’s firefighting robot project is both dumb and irresponsible. All this time I thought I was the only incompetent one around here…”
http://goo.gl/Bf6rT
http://www.anthrobotic.com
by Spikosauropod
Excellent use of taxpayer money.
by .
This could lead to new developments in robotics, so it’s better than what the Department of Homeland Security does.
by Joe
Would be fun to work there.
by Conrad Green
terminators becoming reality????? heck yea bring it on
by Tab Cocovillea
Sounds like a good premise for a new Schwarzenegger sci-fi actioner.
by Khannea Suntzu
Oh you mean sort of like an instant “shake’n'bake” Biosphere, just like that.
Tax payer funded right? And nobody in the US utters a single complaint? Are you people are crazy there? Or you all suffer from pervasive Stockholm syndrome? Like WHAT?