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Tough Assignment
April 2, 2008

Photo: iRobot  John Deere R-Gator in the field.

MILITARIZED
The militarized version of the John Deere Gator is diesel powered, has a higher speed range than the commercial version and uses the six wheel option. A diesel-electric drive version of this which allows it to double as an electrical power source is in development. The R-Gator, which is a robotized version of the military Gator has been done in partnership with iRobot http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=109  . iRobot is a serious player in both the domestic home robot business and the military robot business. At the RoboBusiness 2008 (April 8-9, 2008) conference and expo http://www.robobusiness.com/ iRobot will have two 10x20 booths, one for their household consumer products (think wood tones) and the other for their national defense products (think cammo).


Photo: John Deere  R-Gator: The Movie

THE MOVIE(S)
Here is a link to a movie worth seeing, even if you are not an robot fan. R-Gator - The Movie, is actually a collection of five short clips showing an R-Gator in the field and are available for viewing at:
http://www.deere.com/en_US/contractsales/fedmilitarysales/media/flash/r_gator/Rgator_landing.swf 
There is just something about seeing a vehicle moving on its own and reacting to its environment that makes people who see it think that it is alive. That must be the result of how human beings are wired. Some primitive, instinctive recognition of a fellow being kicks in. Do you sense that when you watch the R-Gator in action? 


US Army Photo    AGV WENDY DARLING

REPLACEMENTS
Several new team members have joined this past week here at AIM. The team members that joined the two weeks before are still working through their orientation (first sink or swim assignment). Sandi Willis, retired government researcher, worked on some of the same Navy projects I have. Her parents drew the plans that the Nautilus was built from at Electric Boat. She has become a grant writer in her spare time and is going to search for grant money for the AIM Team. I am looking forward to seeing what she discovers.

CULTURE SHOCK
Joining the AIM Team is quite a culture shock for most people. The idea that an individual’s effort is actually part of something important is not part of current culture. Two of the seasoned engineers who said they wanted to work for the team and who asked what they could do were given the same assignment. They were asked to go to the nearest car dealership that has cars with adaptive cruise control and get a quote from the parts department for the (six) parts that make up the adaptive cruise control - part numbers and prices. Neither engineer was able to complete their assignment. The first one never responded and the second one went to a car dealership but was told that perhaps he should contact the factory. That is the report he turned in, no part numbers, no prices, no mention of the make or model car that the dealer said had adaptive cruise control on it. The report just said that is where he ended his search and he did not ask for his next assignment. I have been told that this is quite common in our current culture. People feel that by saying they did not find the answer that they should get credit for having accomplished the mission. Sorry, that is not the way I see it. It makes me a tough person to work for, but it also means that the people who are on my team are very much in demand by industry. Employers who have heard of what it is like to work here want desperately to hire people who are on or have been on the AIM Team. This is what makes an AIM resume bullet point so valuable.

LEADERSHIP 
I have done this very task before, myself, so I know what it is like to walk into a car dealership and get the parts quote. I did it a couple of years ago and the technology has changed a lot since then. That is why I asked two new team members to repeat the task, to update our info here at AIM HQ. I assigned two people because there is a high attrition rate among first timers. They may be seasoned engineers, but they are new to our way of doing business and they find many excuses for not coming back. There is actual work involved and as any of you who are in R&D know many "failures" to discover the few things that work. James Dyson (6 billion dollars a year) has made this the subject of one of his TV ads saying that he made 5,000 attempts at his latest household sweeper design before getting it right. While going to get a list of six part numbers and their prices from a place that sells them does not seem like an impossible task, none one except me has come back with a quote. 

CAN YOU DO IT?
Obviously, I am not leading the new volunteers right or perhaps I am recruiting the wrong people?
Try this task yourself and let me know your results. Pick any car dealership that sells cars with adaptive cruise control on them, go to the parts guy and get him/her to print out a quote for the replacement parts that the adaptive cruise control is made out of. I am guessing that is probably still six non-serviceable modules, each with a price and a part number. What make and model car they are for is important. This is an important step in the work AIM is doing on the driverless truck system that the Army needs. Lives are actually at stake, this is no exaggeration, it is a hard cold fact. Skip one TV program and try this task on your way home from work.  Find out for yourself if you are the one out of one hundred people what can deliver results. If you are, I want to meet you. 

Google Lunar X-Prize update:


ADDITIONAL $2 MILLION
The state of Florida has offered an additional $2 million prize to the winner of the Google Lunar X-Prize if it was launched from Florida.  This is Florida's response to the fact that there are many space launch providers around the world that GLXP participants could use. 

2007 DARPA Urban Challenge

Photo by AIM Team members Linda and Tom Graham.

K-RAIL
I was asked today what K-Rail is that is mentioned in the rules. Here is a picture of one of the traffic cars and one of the driverless cars out on the test course. K-Rail is the steel reinforced concrete barriers used extensively around the course and on highways to guard construction workers or separate lanes of traffic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_barrier

GO ROBOTS !

Paul F. Grayson - Chief Engineer
AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC, LLC
Racing to build technology that saves soldier's lives.
390 4-Mile Rd. S.
Traverse City, MI 49686-8411
(231) 946-0187, (231) 883-4463 Cell
pgrayson@aimagic.org  
AIM: http://aimagic.org 
Robot Club: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/robotcluboftraversecitymi/
CE Magazine: http://www.controleng.com/blog/1180000318.html  

Posted by Paul Grayson on April 2, 2008 | Comments (0)