| The GiaBat
(Original ideas based on search on Army Sponsored Bat, reproduced below.)
"Imagine a six-inch spy plane that sends back visual and chemical data in real time, runs on vibrations as well as sun and wind power - and looks like a bat! Thanks to a five-year $10-million grant from the Army the University of Michigan College of Engineering will be making this Batman wet dream a reality. The renewable robot will be developed at U-M’s newly created Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology a mouthful also appropriately known as COMBAT. The University of Michigan will work with the University of California at Berkley as well as the University of New Mexico to create different aspects of the technology.
Miniaturizing the various systems of “the bat” and making them more energy efficient are big challenges for the groups working on COM-BAT. The tiny plane must be able to collect large amounts of surveillance data and travel great distances while running on 1 W of power. But COM-BAT is ambitious and they fully anticipate being able to shrink all the systems. For example “They expect their autonomous navigation system, which would allow the robot to direct its own movements, to be 1,000 times smaller and more energy efficient than systems being used now.”
The potential applications of this condensed technology are virtually limitless, "Throughout this research, we expect to make technological breakthroughs and have a much wider range of applications for other types of engineering problems, from medical to industrial," Kamal Sarabandi, the COM-BAT director and a professor in the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science."
A new Real Div Ltd [RDL] Project 8 is planned for development of the GiaBat[GB], initially around six inches in size (miniaturized later), similar to the COM-BAT, and the, somewhat larger, SuperGiaBats [SGB]. Both are designed to use rotors* rather than wings. Several million GBs are planned and perhaps 100s of thousands of SGB for military, police and industrial use. The SGBs are equiped with small weapons designed to make a choice to disable or kill identified terrorists and criminals who refuse to disarm, surrender or be taken into custody. They may also launch attacks to destroy enemy weapons, including buildings, fortifications, vehicles, ships, boats, aircraft and, especially, missiles. SGB work in teams with GB equipped to identify people's faces and potential weapons, guide and direct SGB. Both types can also be carried by Gavin Hawks [GH] (or by Mother Hawks) for defense of Amalric IIIs, flocks of GH, on trips, or carrying troops on military missions.
* The design is being considered of a retractable rotor, to be folded and stored, to reduce drag at high speeds, while supported in flight, by small wings, and re-erected to function as a rotor, to land vertically. When an SGB is intended to collide at a high speed, with an enemy weapon, the rotor will first be ejected or, at least, not re-erected.
GiaBats can be used to visually observe activities and sense chemicals, including inspecting, sensing and reporting on activities in:
1. homes
2. businesses
3. industrial plants and on
4. public vehicles
5. streets and walkways, malls etc
6. roads,
7. avenues
8. parks and forests
9. pathways, and along and below
10. flight paths
11. buildings and
11. roofs
taking photographs, recording chemical information and communicating with and/or returning to established bases to deliver information, get guidance and refuel.
GiaBats are based in:
1. homes
2. businesses
3. industrial plants
4. police and military stations and vehicles and
5. Gavin Hawks [GH] or Master Chief Super Hawks [MCSH], managed, guided, directed and re-fueled by their own, or similar, bases.
They normally hover over open areas. Or, hover, or perch, above:
1. doors
2. windows
3. trees
4. power lines
5. towers
6. roofs of buildings
7. bicycles
8. motorcycles
9. cars
10. vans
11. trucks
12. buses
13. trains
14. GH
15. MCSH,or
16. travel inside number 9-to-15 above.
The purpose of GiaBats is to protect fanulies living in homes (and their property), or while working in industrial plants or working or shopping in businesses or attending school, and during travel: by detecting and reporting on potentially dangerous circumstances, including (but not limited to), criminal and/or terrorist’s activities.
SuperGiaBats are larger and equipped with weapons to prevent use of deadly weapons carried by criminals or terrorists.They are based and operated in the same ways by the same bases and operated and controlled in the same ways as GiaBats.
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