- Title: U.S. military unveils new technology
- Date: 12th May 2016
- Summary: ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES (MAY 11, 2016) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DAN COTTRELL, AURORA PROJECT ENGINEER, SAYING: "You don't need a runway. You can take off from a grassy field or from a carrier or a smaller or boat that doesn't have a runway like a carrier does, and it allows you to take off and land pretty much anywhere that has the space for the aircraft."
- Embargoed: 27th May 2016 17:56
- Keywords: DARPA Demo Day x-plane SquadX prosthetic arm Skywalker Deka Johns Hopkins
- Location: ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES / ANIMATION
- Reuters ID: LVA0034HI87YF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: From a plane that requires no runway to a prosthetic arm moved by thought, the Pentagon put new technology developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on display on Wednesday (May 11).
Among the exhibitions lining the rainy central courtyard of the Pentagon was a model of an experimental plane, known as an x-plane, that can take off and land vertically and then switch gears to fly forward at high speed.
"The wings pivot, so that these are vertical, comes right off the ground, it can hover and then it can slowly transition into forward flight and then it can transition back," Dan Cottrell, a project engineer working on the Aurora Flight Sciences program said.
To lift off, Cottrell said the plane uses a hybrid electric-gas engine to power multiple propellers along its wings.
"You don't need a runway. You can take off from a grassy field or from a carrier or a smaller or boat that doesn't have a runway like a carrier does, and it allows you to take off and land pretty much anywhere that has the space for the aircraft."
A test flight of a scaled down version of the plane in March was successful. Aurora's goal is to have a full-size plane with a 60-foot wingspan that weighs 12,000-pounds flying in two years.
The military is also focusing on using modern software on the traditional battlefield. Squad X is a program designed to provide a squad of servicemembers on the ground with tools to handle not only the physical world they are fighting in, but also threats from electromagnetic and cyberspace sources.
"There are trends in multiple places, say the Ukraine and the Middle East with ISIS, that they're using, employing things like UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that leverage the electromagnetic spectrum for operations. Concerned about cyber, you know, we use a lot of communications devices and they have cyber vulnerabilities and so does our enemies, or potential threats I should say, so can we look at ways that we can engage potential threats in multiple domains," Major Christopher Orlowski said.
DARPA also continues to provide funding for projects to improve prosthetics that can be used to help injured servicemembers.
A prosthetic arm developed by DEKA Research and Development Corp, a company founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for amputees in 2014. This year, it is on its way towards becoming commercially available.
The arm is named for the "Star Wars" character Luke Skywalker and can perform multiple, simultaneous movements, a huge advance over the metal hook currently in use.
Fred Downs, a Vietnam veteran who lost his arm after a land mine exploded, demonstrated how he can move the arm by moving electrodes attached to his shoes that function as a kind of joystick.
The electrodes send signals to a computer processor in the arm, which can then make up to 10 specific movements using a combination of switches and sensors.
"Rotating my foot rotates the hand. I use my left foot, rotate the wrist like this," Downs said, adding that the arm has allowed him to grasp objects, an ability he lost 48 years ago.
Another DARPA-funded program at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab has developed a prosthetic limb that can be moved by thought alone.
"With this one, we're operating this just with our minds, just like you do with your natural arm, just by thought, doing it by biobands picks up the AMG signals when the brain sends it down, via Bluetooth technology goes into the computer in the elbow and that causes, that has the arm do what it needs to be done," Johnny Matheny, whose arm had to be amputated because of a rare cancer, said while demonstrating his new arm.
The robotic arm is fused directly to the amputated arm's bone with a metal post. Receivers known as Biobands encircle the arm, picking up signals from the brain that are transmitted directly to the hand.
The technology could one day restore not only movement, but also sensation.
According to DARPA, one study participant has used the technology to restore his sense of touch as prosthetic fingers relayed signals back to the brain. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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