ONR Media Area - Article: Brain Control

ONR Media Area - Article: Brain Control:

'Brain-Based' Control for Unmanned Vehicles
Even the least graceful among us has motor control the most high-tech unmanned undersea vehicle would envy, thanks to a region of the brain that allows our bodies to carry out complex maneuvers. The Office of Naval Research, which traditionally relies on the power of the human mind to achieve breakthroughs in science and technology, now also is harnessing the working principle of the brain to control the maneuvers of UUVs.

This summer at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, RI, a mobile autonomous research vehicle (MARV) fitted with an agile 'brain-based' controller will attempt to smoothly and quietly maneuver itself in and out of a docking tube. This tricky feat could be critical to future missions in which UUVs might carry out missions too dangerous for humans.

The technology in this area is really going places. It used to be only discussed in the realm of acadamia - now it is used in various real life demonstrations, soon it will be is production versions of various products. Soon we will have an army of robots, the question is what will we do with them. Will war be more likely if no human lives on our side are at risk? Will we still need boots on the ground after the war has been faught? What will our adversaries do? The only way to really hurt us is to attack the US directly, but still they must defend themselves. Warfare, like everything else in the world, is evolving very quickly.