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Comment by mstade | Hacker News Reader

I heard somewhere that the military wants to love these robots, particularly for hauling stuff into unfriendly terrain, but the main reason they simply aren’t viable is that they are much, much too loud. There were other problems too, complex maintenance in the field and the likes, but apparently that is less of a hassle than getting ambushed because the enemy heard you coming a mile away...

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IIRC, a large part of that is down to the great dilemma of the modern age, power storage. The bots can't carry a battery big enough to give them realistic outdoor range, so outside of the test lab they require a small internal combustion engine, which of course is very noisy.

With all the battery research being done for mobile devices and electric cars, I wouldn't be too surprised if there's a breakthrough there in the next couple of decades. Still, the servos alone may be too noisy for military use, I don't know.

Fuel cells seem like a good mix of quiet yet high energy density. Also, human style walking does not take much energy when done efficiently. But, wheels are even more efficient and equally effective in the vast majority of urban settings.

Did you watch their video of Handle? That's where it's at.

If you believe the news, there’s a breakthrough every other week!

Also, there is this issue: In what way is the robot superior to a donkey?

You can give a robot precise coordinates and let them go for it.

This gives me an idea: design a small robot to ride the donkey and steer it using, e.g., a carrot on a string.

"Hauling stuff in rough terrain" seems like the PR-friendly version of what they want this technology for, but I don't think it takes too much imagination to think up other uses.

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