US Marines’ robot controlled by a PS2 like controller

Via defense review, another use of video-game controllers for military purposes (see for the ps2 pad that controls missiles): a remote-controlled throwable robot for which the controller was copped from a PlayStation 2 gamepad (according to popsci).

The ‘Dragon Runner’ and its handheld controller/backpack:

A bunch of researchers at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, Pensylvania have teamed up with the United States Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) in Quantico Virginia to create a small, lightweight little Mighty Mouse of a prototype “concept demonstrator” robot called the Dragon Runner Mobile Ground Sensor System (or just “Dragon Runner”, for short), which is a man-portable mobile reconnaissance/scout robot (or “bot”), that will travel at up to 20 miles per hour and allow our Marines to “see around the corner” in urban combat/warfare environments.
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So it can “sneak and peak”, Dragon Runner is outfitted with a small video camera, an audio mic, IR (infrared) illuminators (for night operations), and IR sensors (for obstacle avoidance), and is controlled remotely by a single operator via a control unit tethered to Dragon Runner’s nifty carry backback by an expandable cord that looks like a much thicker version of the cord that connects a phone handset to its base on a normal house phone. Since most Marines today have most likely grown up gaming with Sony Playstation2, Microsoft XBox, and Nintendo, controlling Dragon Runner is most likely a relative piece of cake.

A video of the robot here.

Why do I blog this? I am always interested in analogy-based phenomenon – like when something (concept/idea/design) is transfered from one field to another. Here it’s pretty close (remote controlled objects) but as I stated earlier in my post about the missile guided by a PS2 pad, the interesting thing is that the game controller tends to become standard.