The Army's $10M Spy Bat Still Too Big 199
Lucas123 writes "The University of Michigan's Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology (COM-BAT) is working on building a robot bat that would perform long-range reconnaissance for the U.S. Army, but U.Mich is currently struggling with miniaturizing components in order to make the bat small enough to be stealthy. 'The focus is to shrink down many electronics that while currently available would only be good if the US Army wanted, say, a 12-foot spy-bat.' Some components need to be 1,000 times smaller than they currently are. The Army's $10 million grant proposal calls for the bat to be six inches in length, weigh four ounces and use just one watt of power. The bat is supposed to be powered by a lithium-ion battery, charged by solar and wind energy, as well as simple vibrations."
Sounds like a comic book prop (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously, why go with an ornithopter design? There's that excellent quote about AI's, "The question of whether a computer thinks like a person is as relevant as whether a submarine swims like a fish."
Would not a conventional ultralight drone with battery-operated propeller work more effectively than flappy wings?
Re:Magic Charge (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like a comic book prop (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let me guess (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Cue The Peacnik Hippie Crowd. (Score:3, Interesting)
US R&D budget for 2007: 0.1 trillion USD (includes health, energy, as well as basic research)
What would be wrong with having these reversed? To put it in some context, the military budget equals to US$ 4,000 per each man, woman, or child in the United States, per year. That's a SHITLOAD of money. Which could buy you flying cars, cold fusion, cure for cancer, teleportation, and 200 year life expectancy off the start.
Note that I am not even counting the many millions of (potentially) productive citizens tied up by the military playing the role of drones, and their potential contribution to our society.