Winnie the Pooh joins the army

I had to do a double take on this news item from the BBC. A teddy bear rescuing soldiers injured in action? Well it’s true, Vecna Technolgies have designed this little puppy, err, cub to go boldly where humans are a bit worried about going, like battlefields, near toxic chemical spills - you get the general idea. Here’s a bit of the Vecna blurb

These capabilities enable the BEAR to navigate where humans go — up a winding forest path or through buildings, up or down stairs — able to search for and rescue human casualties. Under grants from TATRC, congress and other organizations, the BEAR’s initial task is to rescue military casualties from urban, forested and other war zones.

However, the BEAR is equally capable of a variety of lifting, transporting and other logistics tasks for the military, as well as penetrating a wide array of disaster areas, natural or manmade, searching for and rescuing casualties. Immune to NBC agents and expendable, the agile BEAR robot can navigate through rubble, structurally compromised buildings, and other areas where the threat to human life cannot be assessed.

The BEAR moniker stands for Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot and believe it or not the reason for the cute face is to put the wounded at ease. At the moment BEAR is wirelessly operated by a human, but Vecna have plans for it to become more independent

Currently it is under full wireless control by a single human operator. Eventually the BEAR will have more and more autonomous behaviors, which will make it easier to control.

Sounds cool, eh? Well, how long before the cute teddy bear is able to pick up the wounded soldier’s gun and start firing back at his assailants - Attack of the Clones anyone ;)

Source: BBC

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Posted in Gadgets by JB