Trivalvia
25-09-2007, 21:41
TRIVALVIA SCIENCEThe Monthly Magazine of Science and Technology
Robot Soldiers, Hi-Rise Farms, and Exotic Energy Sources
Inside the 2009-2010 Trivalvia Science and Technology Expo
He stands 150 centimeters tall, packs a paint gun, and would probably be more at home in the latest Battletech computer game than in a barracks. His name is Sgt. Silicon, and he's the centerpiece of the Defense Technology Pavilion of the Trivalvia Science and Technology Expo.
Sgt. Silicon was the "proof of principle" machine for the Trivalvian Department of National Defense's "Semi-Automated Combat Machine" (SACM) project. Looking rather sleek in it's white, grey, and green plastic shell, the bipedal robot navigated around obstacles, hit bulls-eyes with paint bullets, and carried a Trivalvian flag around a small race track. Unlike predecessor robots like Asimo, this robot had no arms, and not much of a brain, for that matter - the gunnery and navigation control was all done by a soldier using a VR helmet and a joystick.
Not all of the robot's actions were due to the soldier, however.
"The biggest breakthrough," says Dr. James Lanning, head engineer of the SACM project, "was in the programming that allows the robot to actually chart and adapt a course through a changing landscape. Moving the legs to account for terrain, detecting and avoiding obstacles is all done onboard. The soldier just sets waypoints that the robot can follow, and the robot 'ad-libs' it from there."
The next generation of SACM machines, Lanning says, will range from tanks and APCs that have human gunners but AI drivers, to a new bipedal "assault robot" similar in concept to Sgt. Silicon, capable of serving as a point unit for small team assaults. "Machines like this will allow us to put fewer human soldiers on a battlefield, which will mean fewer human casualties in the event of a war or a peacekeeping operation gone bad. We also hope to employ 'search and rescue' robots that can enter unstable or hostile areas to retrieve wounded soldiers or civilians." It is expected that the first such machines will enter active service sometime in the next two years.
The walking combat robot concept will also be taken in another direction, according to the Trivalvian Department of National Defense. Concepts for bipedal and quadrupedal tanks and artillery units are being considered. "The legged model offers chances for an armoured unit to operate in terrain that a wheeled or tracked unit might have difficulty with," said a TDND spokesperson. While Trivalvia will probably not trade in all of its wheeled or tracked vehicles for legged ones, walking artillery and tank units may become essential support and urban combat assets in the army of the future. The timeline for these units is more vague, with the TDND only saying, "sometime in the next ten years."
The ultimate goal would be a machine that is capable of operating independantly of constant human supervision. Robots that can recognize friend from foe, navigate, even decide what tactics are necessary to accomplish an objective. But don't expect any Arnold Shwarzenneger look-alikes, Lanning cautions.
"We're not trying to build a true thinking machine, but rather an autonomous machine. Our model is based on the ant, not the human being."
Peace Through Power
New weapon platforms were not the only thing on display at the Defense Tech Pavilion. New equipment for peacekeeping and reconstruction operations were also on display.
"Trivalvia is shifting to a 'human security' model of foreign policy," says Colonel Frank Wright. "This means that in a foreign peacekeeping operation, it's essential that we not only police, we rebuild as well. Our goal is to leave behind communities that can thrive when we pull out of an operation."
To accomplish this, in part, a series of field-deployable solar and wind generators are being introduced to the Trivalvian combat engineering regiments. "The units are mass produced," Wright told our reporters, "so costs are less of an issue here than with, say, a main battle tank or a destroyer. This also means that the generators remain behind, free for civilian use. They're easy to set up, and require little or no maintenance. A small farm of ten of these wind generators could provide power for a village of 100."
The solar and wind generators are also another sign of Trivalvia's committment to a green nation and military; all Trivalvian field bases will also use these generators rather than fuel-guzzling generators in future operations, Wright declared. The first such deployable units are in production now.
Tenth Floor: Carrots, Potatoes, and Fish
Elsewhere, other technologies give testament to peacetime progress. The biggest display is the large hole beside the Expo where the first Vertical Farm unit will be built over the next year. A small model shows a fifty-floor cylindrical structure, topped by wind generators and using light pipes to channel sunlight to hydroponic gardens throughout the high-rise agricultural structure.
"A single building, operating at peak performance, can produce enough food to feed fifty thousand people, and with only a tiny fraction of the land area needed for conventional farms to feed the same number," boasts Niles Wollingsworth, head of the Trivalvia Self-Feeding Cities project. "Over thirty thousand of these units can feed all of Trivalvia, and take up the same amount of space as a medium-sized city."
Yet we won't be saying farewell to the family farm. These "food factories", as some people are calling them, won't be able to produce every concievable food. "The staple foods - meat in the form of fish and chickens and eggs, wheats, fruit and vegatables - will be common fare from the Vertical Farms," says Wollingsworth. "Specialty and luxury foods will probably still be grown on traditional farms, and that's where farmers who want to be productive will concentrate on in the future."
Trivalvia's Minister of Agriculture is more cautious, framing Wollingsworth's claims with the ever-present 'if'. "We're currently engaged in a pilot project with four units to be built between now and 2015. If they measure up to the TSFC project's claims, then we may see more units built."
Dirt-Cheap Energy...Maybe
But if Sgt. Silicon was the crowd-pleaser and the Vertical Farm was the big dream, then the Advanced Energy Pavilion contained the most far-out concept seen so far. Here, a prototype deuterium-deuterium polywell fusion reactor was on display.
"We're building on the work of American Dr. Robert Bussard, who first explored polywell fusion five years ago," says physicist Don Cervantes. "If we can reproduce his initial results, Trivalvia might have a leg up on the race for developing fusion technology."
Polywell fusion operates by using magnetic fields to hold a cloud of electrons in the center of the fusion chamber, and injecting positively-charged ions into the mix. The attraction between positive and negative charge should cause the ions - Cervantes suggests that a variety of "fuels" from deuterium to helium-3 to boron-11 could be used - to accelerate towards the center, where they'll pass through the center, heading out until the negative charge at the center snaps them back like a yo-yo at the end of it's string. "Eventually, two ions will collide, and you have a fusion reaction."
The first experiments, due for early next year, will involve deuterium-deuterium reactions, which should be the easiest to attain. But the holy-grail of the polywell research group is to attempt boron-proton fusion. "Most fusion reactions, especially deuterium-deuterium, produce hard radiation in the form of neutrons," Cervantes explains. "But boron-proton fusion has the potential for no hard radiation - just helium and energy as the products." And boron is so commonplace, no nation can maintain a monopoly on the fuel, making energy potentially as cheap as the dirt the boron is mined from.
Other physicists are less optimistic. "Maybe they can achieve deuterium-deuterium fusion, maybe even deuterium-helium 3," says Professor Ted Schmidt at the University of Trivalviapolis. "But boron-proton fusion requires more energy to get off the ground, and the losses may mean the reaction might never achieve 'break-even' status. You would constantly be putting more energy into the process than you get out of it." Whatever the outcome, Cervantes and his team are confident they'll crack fusion in one form or another. If they do, polywell reactors could start springing up sometime after 2025.
Robot Soldiers, Hi-Rise Farms, and Exotic Energy Sources
Inside the 2009-2010 Trivalvia Science and Technology Expo
He stands 150 centimeters tall, packs a paint gun, and would probably be more at home in the latest Battletech computer game than in a barracks. His name is Sgt. Silicon, and he's the centerpiece of the Defense Technology Pavilion of the Trivalvia Science and Technology Expo.
Sgt. Silicon was the "proof of principle" machine for the Trivalvian Department of National Defense's "Semi-Automated Combat Machine" (SACM) project. Looking rather sleek in it's white, grey, and green plastic shell, the bipedal robot navigated around obstacles, hit bulls-eyes with paint bullets, and carried a Trivalvian flag around a small race track. Unlike predecessor robots like Asimo, this robot had no arms, and not much of a brain, for that matter - the gunnery and navigation control was all done by a soldier using a VR helmet and a joystick.
Not all of the robot's actions were due to the soldier, however.
"The biggest breakthrough," says Dr. James Lanning, head engineer of the SACM project, "was in the programming that allows the robot to actually chart and adapt a course through a changing landscape. Moving the legs to account for terrain, detecting and avoiding obstacles is all done onboard. The soldier just sets waypoints that the robot can follow, and the robot 'ad-libs' it from there."
The next generation of SACM machines, Lanning says, will range from tanks and APCs that have human gunners but AI drivers, to a new bipedal "assault robot" similar in concept to Sgt. Silicon, capable of serving as a point unit for small team assaults. "Machines like this will allow us to put fewer human soldiers on a battlefield, which will mean fewer human casualties in the event of a war or a peacekeeping operation gone bad. We also hope to employ 'search and rescue' robots that can enter unstable or hostile areas to retrieve wounded soldiers or civilians." It is expected that the first such machines will enter active service sometime in the next two years.
The walking combat robot concept will also be taken in another direction, according to the Trivalvian Department of National Defense. Concepts for bipedal and quadrupedal tanks and artillery units are being considered. "The legged model offers chances for an armoured unit to operate in terrain that a wheeled or tracked unit might have difficulty with," said a TDND spokesperson. While Trivalvia will probably not trade in all of its wheeled or tracked vehicles for legged ones, walking artillery and tank units may become essential support and urban combat assets in the army of the future. The timeline for these units is more vague, with the TDND only saying, "sometime in the next ten years."
The ultimate goal would be a machine that is capable of operating independantly of constant human supervision. Robots that can recognize friend from foe, navigate, even decide what tactics are necessary to accomplish an objective. But don't expect any Arnold Shwarzenneger look-alikes, Lanning cautions.
"We're not trying to build a true thinking machine, but rather an autonomous machine. Our model is based on the ant, not the human being."
Peace Through Power
New weapon platforms were not the only thing on display at the Defense Tech Pavilion. New equipment for peacekeeping and reconstruction operations were also on display.
"Trivalvia is shifting to a 'human security' model of foreign policy," says Colonel Frank Wright. "This means that in a foreign peacekeeping operation, it's essential that we not only police, we rebuild as well. Our goal is to leave behind communities that can thrive when we pull out of an operation."
To accomplish this, in part, a series of field-deployable solar and wind generators are being introduced to the Trivalvian combat engineering regiments. "The units are mass produced," Wright told our reporters, "so costs are less of an issue here than with, say, a main battle tank or a destroyer. This also means that the generators remain behind, free for civilian use. They're easy to set up, and require little or no maintenance. A small farm of ten of these wind generators could provide power for a village of 100."
The solar and wind generators are also another sign of Trivalvia's committment to a green nation and military; all Trivalvian field bases will also use these generators rather than fuel-guzzling generators in future operations, Wright declared. The first such deployable units are in production now.
Tenth Floor: Carrots, Potatoes, and Fish
Elsewhere, other technologies give testament to peacetime progress. The biggest display is the large hole beside the Expo where the first Vertical Farm unit will be built over the next year. A small model shows a fifty-floor cylindrical structure, topped by wind generators and using light pipes to channel sunlight to hydroponic gardens throughout the high-rise agricultural structure.
"A single building, operating at peak performance, can produce enough food to feed fifty thousand people, and with only a tiny fraction of the land area needed for conventional farms to feed the same number," boasts Niles Wollingsworth, head of the Trivalvia Self-Feeding Cities project. "Over thirty thousand of these units can feed all of Trivalvia, and take up the same amount of space as a medium-sized city."
Yet we won't be saying farewell to the family farm. These "food factories", as some people are calling them, won't be able to produce every concievable food. "The staple foods - meat in the form of fish and chickens and eggs, wheats, fruit and vegatables - will be common fare from the Vertical Farms," says Wollingsworth. "Specialty and luxury foods will probably still be grown on traditional farms, and that's where farmers who want to be productive will concentrate on in the future."
Trivalvia's Minister of Agriculture is more cautious, framing Wollingsworth's claims with the ever-present 'if'. "We're currently engaged in a pilot project with four units to be built between now and 2015. If they measure up to the TSFC project's claims, then we may see more units built."
Dirt-Cheap Energy...Maybe
But if Sgt. Silicon was the crowd-pleaser and the Vertical Farm was the big dream, then the Advanced Energy Pavilion contained the most far-out concept seen so far. Here, a prototype deuterium-deuterium polywell fusion reactor was on display.
"We're building on the work of American Dr. Robert Bussard, who first explored polywell fusion five years ago," says physicist Don Cervantes. "If we can reproduce his initial results, Trivalvia might have a leg up on the race for developing fusion technology."
Polywell fusion operates by using magnetic fields to hold a cloud of electrons in the center of the fusion chamber, and injecting positively-charged ions into the mix. The attraction between positive and negative charge should cause the ions - Cervantes suggests that a variety of "fuels" from deuterium to helium-3 to boron-11 could be used - to accelerate towards the center, where they'll pass through the center, heading out until the negative charge at the center snaps them back like a yo-yo at the end of it's string. "Eventually, two ions will collide, and you have a fusion reaction."
The first experiments, due for early next year, will involve deuterium-deuterium reactions, which should be the easiest to attain. But the holy-grail of the polywell research group is to attempt boron-proton fusion. "Most fusion reactions, especially deuterium-deuterium, produce hard radiation in the form of neutrons," Cervantes explains. "But boron-proton fusion has the potential for no hard radiation - just helium and energy as the products." And boron is so commonplace, no nation can maintain a monopoly on the fuel, making energy potentially as cheap as the dirt the boron is mined from.
Other physicists are less optimistic. "Maybe they can achieve deuterium-deuterium fusion, maybe even deuterium-helium 3," says Professor Ted Schmidt at the University of Trivalviapolis. "But boron-proton fusion requires more energy to get off the ground, and the losses may mean the reaction might never achieve 'break-even' status. You would constantly be putting more energy into the process than you get out of it." Whatever the outcome, Cervantes and his team are confident they'll crack fusion in one form or another. If they do, polywell reactors could start springing up sometime after 2025.