August 20, 2019 | International, Other Defence

A robot as slow as a snail ... on purpose

By: Kelsey D. Atherton

Snails and slugs are so commonplace that we overlook the weirdness of how they move, gliding on a thin film across all sorts of terrain and obstacles. Popular imagination focuses on how slow this movement is, the snail defined by its pace, but it is at least as remarkable that the same mechanism lets a snail climb walls and move along ceilings. The movement is novel enough that there is now a snail-inspired robot, sliding across surfaces on an adhesive membrane, powered by a laser.

The snail robot, produced by a joint research team at the University of Warsaw Poland, together with colleagues from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China, created a centimeter-long robot powered by light. The research, published July in Macromolecular Rapid Communications, sheds new insight on how animals move in the wild, and on how small machines could be built to take advantage of that same motion.

Why might military planners or designers be interested in snail-like movement? The ability to scale surfaces and cling to them alone is worth study and possibly future adaptation. There's also the simple efficiency of a creature that maneuvers on a single, durable foot.

“Gastropods' adhesive locomotion has some unique properties: Using a thin layer of mucus, snails and slugs can navigate challenging environments, including glass, polytetraﬂuoroethylene (PTFE, Teﬂon), metal surfaces, sand, and (famously) razor blades, with only few super-hydrophobic coatings able to prevent them from crawling up a vertical surface,” write the authors. “The low complexity of a single continuous foot promises advantages in design and fabrication as well as resistance to adverse external conditions and wear, while constant contact with the surface provides a high margin of failure resistance (e.g., slip or detachment).”

Snails can literally move along the edge of the spear unscathed. Surely, there's something in a robot that can do the same.

The small snail robot looks like nothing so much as a discarded stick of gum, and is much smaller. At just a centimeter in length, this is not a platform capable of demonstrating much more than movement. The machine is made of Liquid Crystalline Elastomers, which can change shape when scanned by light. Combined with an artificial mucus later formed of glycerin, the robot is able to move, climb over surfaces, and even up a vertical wall, on a glass ceiling, and over obstacles, while it is powered by a laser.

It does all of this at 1/50th the speed a snail would.

This leaves the implications of such technology in a more distant future. Imagine a sensor that could crawl into position on the side of a building, and then stay there as combat roars around it. Or perhaps the application is as a robot adhesive, crawling charges into place at the remote direction of imperceptible light. Directing a robot into an unexpected position, and having it stay there with adhesive, could be a useful tool for future operations, and one that would be built upon research like this.

The robot may be comically slow now. The pace of the technologies around it is not.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/robotics/2019/08/19/do-snail-robots-foreshadow-the-sticky-grenades-of-the-future/

On the same subject

June 11, 2018 | International, Aerospace

Yokota airmen improve gas mask with 3D printer, potentially saving Air Force $8 million or more
By SETH ROBSON YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Tokyo-based airmen used a 3D printer and American ingenuity to modify a standard-issue gas mask into an aircraft oxygen system, potentially saving millions of dollars and improving aircrew safety. The idea of hooking up the M-50 joint-service, general-purpose mask to an aircraft was hatched during brainstorming sessions by airmen from Yokota's 374th Maintenance Squadron and 374th Operations Support Squadron. “We took the mask and added some off-the-shelf parts and some 3D-printed parts and converted it into a piece of equipment that can work in an aircraft,” said Senior Master Sgt. David Siemiet, an aircrew flight equipment superintendent. Gear used now — the Aircrew Eye/Respiratory Protection System, or AERPS — is expensive, heavy and fault prone with long waits for replacement parts, said C-130 Hercules pilot Capt. Matthew Kohl. When the ubiquitous, light and cheap M-50 is connected to an oxygen system, air flows through its chemical filters to the user, whose eyes are protected by goggles, Siemiet said. To build their prototype, the airmen looked at an Army system that hooks soldiers' masks to air blowers to overcome the stifling environment inside a battle tank. The airmen came up with a cap that blocks airflow into one side of the mask and an adaptor that allows it to attach to a hose that can be plugged into an oxygen system. The modification, which the airman call “AERPS Ultra,” uses a few standard parts and two components made on a 3D printer that aircraft materials technology craftsman Sen. Airman David Petrich bought for a few hundred dollars of his own money. It costs only about 75 cents to modify one mask, and the project has the potential to save the Air Force at least $8 million and countless man hours, according to Tech. Sgt. Eric Lundeen, another aircraft materials technology craftsman involved in the project. The M-50 weighs less than a pound, a lot less than the 40 pounds of chemical-protection gear now used by aircrew. Unlike the current system, the lighter masks don't need a power supply that must be hooked to on-board electricity and uses expensive batteries, Petrich said. “You can wear the mask onto the plane and latch in and you are good to go,” he said. The mask modifications can be done on base without the need to pay a contractor, Siemiet added. https://www.stripes.com/news/yokota-airmen-improve-gas-mask-with-3d-printer-potentially-saving-air-force-8-million-or-more-1.531504
January 11, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

UK defense secretary: Britain is paving a path for modernization and appropriate funding
By: Ben Wallace The Estonian town of Tapa sits less than 100 miles from the Russian border, and in December I was there to visit some of the 900 British troops that have been stationed there since 2017 — our largest land deployment outside of the U.K. This is not just a useful training exercise with our Danish and, in a few months' time, French allies, but rather a strategic defensive presence in a region that is vital for global security. Our Estonian allies are bolstered and reassured by having us there. A more active, more deployed armed forces, such as those in Tapa, is a sign of things to come for U.K. defense. Like Estonia, we meet the 2 percent commitment to NATO, and in the U.K.'s latest spending review, the Ministry of Defence secured a record settlement of £16.5 billion (U.S. $22.4 billion) of funding above our election manifesto commitment over a four-year period. The prime minister and I share a vision for how that funding will transform U.K. defense. It is crucial to putting our defense spending on a sustainable footing — living within our means, addressing the underfunding of previous years and paving the way for a modernization that is much overdue. It means being an even greater and ever-reliable defense ally to our friends around the world. It means adopting a more proactive posture with our forces more forward, more present and more assertive. It means remaining a leader in NATO, spending above 2 percent of gross domestic product, making the largest single commitment to the Readiness Initiative and helping drive the modernization of an organization that has kept us safe for more than 70 years. And, of course, it means remaining the United States' most reliable, capable and committed ally. It is not just a coincidence that this is the biggest defense investment since the end of the Cold War. Estonians know this only too keenly — and with an increase in Russian presence in the U.K., we have felt this too. Our Quick Reaction Alert forces have seen their busiest period in a decade, with our Royal Air Force fighters scrambling 11 times to intercept Russian warplanes. Meanwhile, the Kremlin's activity in U.K. waters has risen by 26 percent since last year, with Royal Navy vessels escorting each and every one of them. From our airspace to cyberspace, the North Sea to the High North, we know the threat they pose. So in an age of 21st century challenges, it's more important than ever that we work together. That's why, following our departure from the European Union, we are opening up fresh opportunities to strengthen our global relationships and stay ahead of the curve. The integrated review that we will publish in 2021 will make the most of new technologies, improve integration across the domains and demonstrate that we remain the international partner of choice: a burden-sharing, self-confident and active nation, stepping up to our responsibilities in an ever more contested world. Ben Wallace is Britain's secretary of state for defense. https://www.defensenews.com/outlook/2021/01/11/uk-defense-secretary-britain-is-paving-a-path-for-modernization-and-appropriate-funding/
February 4, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

Forte présence des industriels français au salon indien Defexpo 2020
Le Pavillon France, fédéré par le Groupement des Industries de Construction et Activités Navales (GICAN) en collaboration avec le Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales (GIFAS), accueillera 11 entreprises sur Defexpo, salon international qui se déroulera à Lucknow en Inde du 5 au 9 février 2020. La représentation française au salon indien Defexpo est assurée par la présence de 19 entreprises représentantes de l'industrie de défense française. Il s'agit de grands groupes, mais également PME et ETI dynamiques. Cette présence marque ainsi le fort engagement de l'industrie française de la défense pour soutenir les forces armées indiennes. Les entreprises présentes sur le Pavillon France (Hall 3, stands R16 à R24, S18 et S19) sont : Arquus – Etienne Lacroix Group – Lynred – Rafale International – Rafaut Group – Roxel – RTSYS – Safran – Schneider Electric – Thales – Wartsilä Navy France. Par ailleurs, plusieurs sociétés françaises exposeront sur leur propre stand (Airbus – MBDA – Naval Group et Nexter), ou sous pavillon indien (Amphenol Interconnect – Axon'Cable – Nicomatic – Nucon Alkan – Trigo), signe de leur forte implantation dans le pays. Des rencontres entre industriels français et donneurs d'ordre indiens sont programmées tout au long de la semaine. Les industries aéronautiques, spatiales et navales françaises, rassemblées par le GIFAS et le GICAN, soutiennent la politique du «Make in India», dans les domaines de l'aéronautique, de la construction navale et de la défense. Dans cette optique, le GIFAS, le GICAN et la Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) organiseront un séminaire le 5 février à 15h30 dans le Seminar Hall 2. L'intention est de développer davantage le partenariat industriel entre les entreprises françaises et indiennes à tous les niveaux de la chaîne de production. Les relations stratégiques entre la France et l'Inde dans l'industrie aérospatiale sont pérennes (depuis plus de 70 ans). En 2018, une présence permanente du GIFAS en Inde a été établie à New-Delhi pour renforcer ce partenariat stratégique et développer les relations industrielles entre l'Inde et la France. En 2019, 60 membres du GIFAS sont implantés en Inde, représentant plus de 75 établissements, 20 partenariats en joint-venture et plus de 25 sites de production. https://www.aerobuzz.fr/breves-defense/forte-presence-des-industriels-francais-au-salon-indien-defexpo-2020/

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